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Kayaking And Dinner

February 22nd, 2010 . Posted in Nicaragua | Comments Off on Kayaking And Dinner

Day 35.  Granada is situated beside a huge freshwater lake.  Jodie, Val, Annie and Safe took a Kayak tour of the mangroves and islets off Granada guided by Carlos, kayaker extraordinaire.

We found the mangroves quite shallow for our two-man canoes as it wasn’t the rainy season, and our kayaks ran aground on a few fallen trees, but we managed to squeeze through with some gentle persuasion.  We were shown the abundant flora and fauna including the amusing chicken flower.

Jodie and Val gracefully navigate the mangroves

Annie and Safe show them how it's done!

Carlos shows us a chicken flower

Eventually we headed out of the mangroves and back out into open water where we explored some of the 365 islets, several of which were for sale, including one approximately 30m in diameter on offer for a cool US$100,000 (in case anyone is interested in a pile of rocks in the middle of a lake in Nicaragua).

The final part of the tour was a visit to an old Spanish fortress to pet a cute puppy then go for a refreshing swim.

Cute puppy

Same cute puppy

Somehow we managed to invite ourselves for an evening meal with Carlos and his family at his home.  We canoed past several fishermen and tried to buy enough large Wapote (Rainbow Bass) for all of us (including Carlos, his wife, his mother-in-law and his three children).  Unfortunately the fishermen only had the smaller Mojara so we planned to go to the market later.

Fisherman

Good catch of Mojara but no Wapote

We didn’t find our Wapote at the market as it had already sold out so we settled for 13 Mojara instead.  After buying a selection of vegetables, we sat down to a bit of lunch (which of course included Gallo Pinto).

Carlos appeared at our hotel to take us to his home.  We realised how small Granada was when he greeted the receptionist who was his wife’s cousin.  (The receptionist was bizarrely called Yasser Vladimir – he was neither Arab nor Russion but his parents liked the names).  We walked into the suburbs of Granada where the locals live and where the colonial houses end and the cobbled streets turn into mud tracks.

Carlos’s home was basic and comprised three small rooms and an outside cooking area to house his six family members.  We prepared the vegetables outside but cooking took a while (understatement) as he had one small electric pan device.  The twin girls Elena and Amanda (aged 6) ran amock and played football and barbie, and Christian (aged 10) practised his English.  The twins might have looked the same but couldn’t have been more different.  Elena is sporty whereas Amanda likes her jewellery and cleaning up.  Val kept the kids entertained and even volunteered to be a life-size barbie whilst we attempted to cook the fish.  The first few attempts ended in disaster as frying fish fell to pieces until the mother-in-law took over and the fish came out perfect, complete with Nicaraguan style tomato salsa.

Jodie chops onions

Elena and Amanda with Val

First attempt at frying Mojara

The finished article

Carlos’s family couldn’t have been more welcoming and it was a priviledge and a pleasure to spend such a memorable evening with them.

Grandma, Christian, Christina and Carlos

Granada

February 21st, 2010 . Posted in Nicaragua | 4 Comments »

Day 34.  Today we left Leon.  We were sad to do so as it was a interesting and friendly town with a great market, and we feel we didn’t quite get to explore enough of it.  Around noon we arrived in Granada, a surprisingly attractive and colourful colonial town which wouldn’t look out of place in the South of France (or perhaps Granada in Spain?!?), an unexpected hidden gem in Nicaragua.

Granada

Safe had his hair cut by a man who used a razor blade and a pair of large kitchen scissors.  There seems to be some misunderstanding with barbers because Central Americans are practically hairless and Safe most definitely isn’t.  One day we’ll learn the Spanish for “scraping the blunt razor over it again and again will remove more skin but not more hair!”.

We caught up on some calories at Tercer Ojo (Third Eye), one of Granada’s fancy restaurants, and caught up on some sleep afterwards.

Soup, Sand and Sea

February 20th, 2010 . Posted in Nicaragua | 3 Comments »
Day 33.  Today was the highlight of our tour so far, a Nicaraguan culinary experience at a famliy home out of town.  Our mission (which we chose to accept) was to decipher a recipe encrypted in colloquial Nicaraguan Spanish then scour the main market for them.  Amongst the most interesting ingredients were:
  • A red powder – very smelly
  • A chiltome – as the name suggests, a bizarre cross between a chilli and a tomato
  • A deformed carrot – a carrot, but a bit deformed
  • Yuca – sounds and looks like the stem of a yucca plant and probably is
  • Sour oranges – just like oranges, but sour
  • Three live iguanas – main ingredient of the national dish

Safe chooses the most amusing carrot

Whilst in the market, we were treated to a cheese tasting whose delights included young, old, salty, smoked, fried and combinations thereof.  (The bread roll-shaped and coloured objects in the photo are actually hunks of smoked cheese!)

Cheese!

We caught a public mini-truck and headed West out of town wedged into the back of it.  The journey was reminiscent of a tube journey, excpet on the tube there’s at least a centimetre between your face and the next person’s armpit.  Our destination was a family home in the suburbs of Leon inhabited by the local indigenous population which by day is a cookery school, and by night, the local cock-fighting centre.

Public transport in Leon

We were introduced to our host and chef, Doña Ana, and her daughter, Emily who explained that we were to cook two dishes, iguana soup and indio viejo (old-Indian Soup made of Maize).

Emily, Annie and Doña Ana

Our first job was to kill, skin and prepare our iguanas (we’ll spare you the details here but ask us if you’re interested).  Our next culinary task was to chop the mystery ingredients for our magic potion.  Everything was prepared to Doña Ana’s specifications, plantain cubed, carrots quarted, yuca pealed.  The most useful tool in the kitchen was a perfectly smooth hand-sized rock which we used for crushing garlic, tenderising meat, smashing ice and juicing oranges.

Safe crushes garlic with a multi-purpose kitchen gadget

While the two dishes were simmering on the brand new Aga (a 44-gallon drum filled with timber) we ventured over to the neighbours’ house – who happenned to be the local tortilla experts – to collect some tortillas. Jodie was distracted by the giant pot of simmering frijoles while Annie was busy positioning herself for a job with the 3 ladies who work from 4am to 4pm to produce 4000 tortillas a day (almost the same hours as with the NHS). That’s more than 100 tortillas per lady, per hour, without breaks! After we all took 10 minutes each to make some very torn, rather square looking tortilla, we took some of their far better products and returned to our simmering feast.

Annie shows them how it's done

Before we could eat we had to take lots of photos of the chickens with their broods of chicks, and the rather handsome, but absolutely gargantuan cockerel Miguel.

We didn't eat these


Miguel the Magnificent

The final product of our morning’s labour were easily some of the best food we have eaten since arriving in Central America (if we do say so ourselves).
Indio Viejo (Old Indian)
Iguana Soup
After bidding farwell to Doña Ana we endevoured to make our way (with some rather vague instructions) to the black sand beach of the Pacific. Although our 15 minute journey took us an hour and a half we finally managed to find paradise – sand, sun, and waves. We washed away the stress, sweat, and dirt of the past 2 days in the crashing waters of the Pacific, then watched the spectacular sunset from a swinging hammock with a cold Nicaraguan Toña beer in hand.
Safe Hammock

Perfect Day

Today’s entry was courtesy of Jodie as Annie and Safe couldn’t move their arms because they were squished on the bus.

Leon

February 19th, 2010 . Posted in Honduras, Nicaragua | 2 Comments »
Day 32.  Early start again for a five hour coach journey to the Nicaraguan border.  We assumed that the coach belonged to a national company however you could be forgiven for thinking it actually belonged to the driver, the conductor and the conductor’s friend.  Every time the bus picked up passengers (which felt like every few hundred yards) the following sequence of events occurred:
  1. The conductor collected money from passengers and handed it all to the driver.
  2. The driver then removed a huge wod of cash from the back pocket of his jeans and meticulously organised and counted it along with the newly received stack of money, never taking his eyes of the road.
  3. Once the driver had counted the money, he handed a few notes to the conductor who in turn handed even less to his friend.

As we approached the border with Nicaragua, the coach turned into an impromptu school bus as herds of polite and smartly dressed kids jumped on and off.  Eventually the kids disappeared as we approached the border.  After the customary dance with our passports and a random dollar fee, we marched across a river bridge in the blazing sun and entered into Nicaragua.

A worn welcome to Nicaragua

A private bus took as to our final destination, the colonial university town of Leon.  Our hotel is called Hotel Balcones, but as you can see in the picture of the hotel plans, it’s former name was more amusing:

Hotels aren't what they used to be

The evening’s meal was a (now customary) barbeque feast served by a couple of enterprising Nicaraguan Mamas in the square behind the cathedral.  We were interested in the rice and red beans on offer and asked for “arroz”.  One of the ladies corrected us with a stern look and told us it was “Gallo Pinto” which is the name of the bean itself.

Factoid: (written several days later) – several kilograms of Gallo Pinto will be ingested by us (and especially by Jodie) over the coming days, particularly at breakfast.

By the way, a very Happy Birthday to Aunty Betty, 91 today!!! Annie & Safe.

Too Juicy

February 18th, 2010 . Posted in Honduras | 1 Comment »

Day 31.  After catching the 7am ferry back to the mainland (which turned out to be far less choppy than on the way here) we switched to a fancy “Bus Ejecutivo” run by the Hedman Alas company which has been operating in Honduras since the 1950’s.  The bus was clean, airconditioned and fast and had strict dress code which included No Shorts, No Singlets and No Guns.  A DVD was shown in English and each passenger had a private headphone socket to listen to it if they pleased.  We were handed complementary drinks and snacks as we boarded, and when it rained, attendants with umbrellas shielded us from getting wet as we walked from the terminal to the bus.  Unfortunately, none of this shielded us from the fact that the bus only reached the capital, Tegucigalpa (Too Juicy Gulper) after 7pm.

Top notch bus service

We had heard that Tegucigalpa didn’t have much to commend it due to recent political tensions.  We searched for food off the main square and all we found were a Pizza Hut, a Burger King and two fried chicken shops.  Everything else was shut by 8pm.  The chicken shops were guarded by undersized men in uniform carrying oversized shotguns.  We squeezed past one of the guns to brave a piece of chicken then headed back to hotel for an early night.

Rainy Day In Paradise

February 17th, 2010 . Posted in Honduras | Comments Off on Rainy Day In Paradise

Day 30.  Another windy rainy day in paradise.  Swimming with the dolphins was clearly not meant to be.  We went for a swim in the sea instead.  A truly lazy day ready for a mammoth journey to the capital city tomorrow.

Rainy day in Roatan

Overtake At Your Peril

February 16th, 2010 . Posted in Honduras | Comments Off on Overtake At Your Peril

Day 29.  Woke up refreshed after a 13 hour sleep to find that our idyllic Caribbean Island had been hit by wind and rain.  The sea was too rough for us to consider snorkling and we couldn’t swim with the dolphins as planned so we took a walk over the island to West Bay and back again to waste a bit of time until Happy Hour!  On the way passed a sign which showed us how upset the locals get if you overtake when you shouldn’t, otherwise the island is very safe.

West Bay, Roatan

Overtake at your peril!

Valerie training for the Munich Beer Festival

Roatan

February 15th, 2010 . Posted in Honduras | Comments Off on Roatan

Day 28.  Loooong day travelling to the Caribbean island of Roatan.  The final leg of the journey was a 90 minute boat trip from Ceiba to Roatan.  Annie took an anti-sickness tablet that was handed out free along with the ticket and sick bags.  This had a slightly more sedative effect than predicted.  When we arrived at our lodgings, Annie crashed out and slept in her clothes and hat (and Safe did the same in sympathy).

Roatan

Free bags of sick

***

Seeing as this is a short blog post, here’s an observation we’ve made to pad it out. The not particularly Spanish sounding name Kevin seems to be quite popular in Honduras.  We wonder if the original Marlboro Man was called Kevin.

Kevin drives trucks

Kevin sells houses

Fiesta In The Bathroom

February 14th, 2010 . Posted in Honduras | Comments Off on Fiesta In The Bathroom

Day 27.  We got all of 10 minutes’ sleep last night.  We can’t be sure, but we think the fiesta finished at sunrise.  What we can be sure of is that the music was so loud that we’re convinced the the accordionist and marimba player were in our bathroom.  The bed was vibrating, and that wasn’t because it was Valentine’s Day …

In the morning we crawled out of bed and had a traditional Mayan breakfast of Maize soup with beans and a sprinkling of ground pumpkins with optional chilli and lime.  Very filling!

Maize Soup

Today’s local pile of old rocks was the Copan Ruinas.  We were ably and amusingly guided by Saul (pronounced Sa-ool), an academic musician and ex-rock star from the 1970’s.  Every few paces, he broke into song, his favourite being “Give Peace A Chance”.  He was truly the highlight of the tour.

We relaxed for the rest of the day until our ears stopped ringing from last night’s fiesta.

By the way, we didn’t stay here, but Annie’s sister might do!

The best hotel in town

Marlboro Man

February 13th, 2010 . Posted in Guatemala, Honduras | Comments Off on Marlboro Man
Day 26.  An uneventful border crossing took us from Guatemala into Honduras.  We arrived in Copan where half the men look like they’ve stepped out of an advert for Marlboro, complete with signature hat, cowboy boots, 2ft long machete, and some with (un)discretely hidden firearms.
The town looks like it belongs in a film set with a main square where everything happens and everyone hangs out.  Dusty roads leading away from it into the hills.  From time to time a motorcade of fancy American pickups with tinted widows and “muscle” sitting in the back escorts the Head Honcho in and out of town.  Young men stand alone on street corners “minding their own business”.  Occasionally one of them would kindly enquire whether we wanted a soft drink … unfortunately they only seemed to sell Coke.

Hoduran Marlboro Man

Another Hoduran Marlboro Man

More Hoduran Marlboro Men

The Real McCoy

In the late afternoon we were driven by “Eric” to the local Aguas Calientes (hot springs) for a relaxing and therapeutic soak in the hot sulphurus water, the perfect remedy for a tiring volcano hike.

Stinky steamy sulphurous Safe!

We came back in time for a fiesta.  The square was lined with people having impromptu barbeques.  Our evening’s meal was barbequed meat in tortillas served in a plastic basket followed by a local drink known as “Ponche”, piping hot milk with a drop of some sort of alcohol topped with some herbs and cinnamon.  Safe asked what alcohol went into the drink … the helpful reply was simply “alcohol” as though the details were irrelevant.

BBQ in Copan

Ponche - Honduras' answer to Horlicks

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