Costa Rica - 2014

Summary Version

• Costa Rica is NOT a cheaper place to travel.  The prices are high.  It is like almost travelling in USA.
• Going from one place to the other takes a long time by public transport.  Domestic flights are expensive too.
• Very nice beaches and awesome sunset.
• Spent time in Corcovado National Park.  Don't expect anything like African safari but the nature is very beautiful and spotting the animals is difficult.
• You can experience non-touristy cloud forest for less money near San Jose (less than 2 hrs by bus) - San Gerrado.  Bird watchers paradise.

You can travel with us in Costa Rica by reading the following sections.

Why and Where

Costa Rica was part of the two week Central American trip that included Nicaragua and Panama City.  I decided to spend more time in the Corcovado National Park which is the densest bio-diverse place in the world to enjoy the remote corner that's hard to get to and a few days in a cloud forest.  We took the beach out of our itinerary and also decided not to go to Arenal because the volcano is not active.

Getting Ready for the Remoteness

After checking into our hotel that is very close to the San Jose International Airport, I repacked the bags into three sets - 1. bags to carry on the 7 hour hike to the Corcovado NP, 2. bags to leave with hotel in Puerto Jimenez and 3. things that we don't need & can be left with the hotel in San Jose. By the time I repacked the bags and left a few bags with the concierge, it was about mid-night and we had to wake up at 430 am to catch our 6 am flight to Puerto Jimenez.

Almost a Personal Flight

The flight from San Jose to Puerto Jimenez was in a very small 12 seater flight and we all got weighed with our luggage before getting our boarding passes.  The view from the flight was good, after a brief stop in Golfito, we landed in Puerto Jimenez @ 730 am and the flight trip comfortable except when the flight was landing.  There is no airport except grass fields for the flight to land in Golfito and Puerto Jimenez.  Enrique, our guide for the hike to Corcovado, picked us up from the airport then we picked up Patty, who was hiking with us, from her hotel.

Hike to Sirena

After picking up the groceries for the camping, we forgot about getting the breakfast in the hurry to start the hike ;-(  but we were able to get some cheese empanadas in Carate and started the hike in the hot-humid weather @9 am.  On the way to our first stop at the La Leona Ranger Station, we saw a number of vultures eating a huge turtle on the beach and macaws on the trees.  Walking on the beach with a lot of weight is not fun and we needed to cross a section of the beach before 1230 pm to avoid the high tide, so we took a brief break at the La Leona ranger station.

We hiked in the forest crossing some streams for the next two hours before reaching the section of beach to find out it's already high tide.  Enrique was asking our opinion whether to walk across the water or not instead of giving us the guidance.  Patty didn't feel comfortable crossing the water and also we were thinking what the heck we were going to do after reaching the park, so decided to relax in the beach 'til 2pm with the hope that the tide lowers.  After having lunch in the beach and sleeping, we were ready to cross the beach at 2 pm but the tide was still high but we didn't have an option.  Everyone crossed the section of the beach without getting wet except me.

Reaching the Campsite

Reached the entrance of the Sirena ranger station, where we were camping for the next three nights, at about 530 pm after walking in the long beach section of the hike that was horrible because there was no shade and it was hot.  We were all tired and seeing the entrance to the ranger station just before it started to get dark was a relief.  Five minutes after we reached at the ranger station, there's another group of local guys, who are from San Jose, arrived from the other longer and strenuous hiking trail and they were hiking without the guide but with the GPS.  They lost their way at one section of the trail because there's no view of the satellite and they were panicked a bit.  So it is possible to hike to the Sirena ranger station without the guide but risky.

Remoteness Disappointment (in a funny way)

The Sirena ranger station does not allow the campers to cook food there so we had to carry food for the next three days that could be consumed without cooking.  Also, to get to this place you have hike at least 7 hours or take a boat and then hike for 30 minutes or come by a small plane that lands in the grass fields.  We were thinking that it was very remote, even though it is very remote, you believe it or not, there is WiFi, electricity (by solar panels) for charging your phone/cameras available 24 hrs a day and lights powered from 6pm-8pm. ;-)

Camping Food

We didn't reserve the meals in the ranger station well advance, so we couldn't eat in their dining facilities (each breakfast is $20 and lunch/dinner is $25).  The whole area is maintained very clean and we were surprised to learn that the whole ranger station is maintained by just two people.  Since people were not allowed to cook in the ranger station, the place was very clean and nothing stinking in that area.

Enrique had an electric water heater that we used to heat the water to make coffee and to heat up the tasty bites Indian pre-cooked food (originally we were planning to eat it without heating them up).  In addition to the Indian food, we had fajitas, re-fried beans in a packet that we got from Nicaragua, avocados, tomatoes and cereal (that we were eating without milk/hot water).  We were using the fajita
s for the Indian food as well as to make the burritos.  A number of people were buying the water bottles from the ranger station but we decided to test our guts by drinking the tap water and survived ;-)

After dinner, I was having conversation with the Costa Ricans who arrived late about their hike and what they do.  There're a lot of call center jobs moving to Costa Rica now instead of going to India or to any other Asian countries because of the cost.  Couple of guys in that group were working for the call center based out of San Jose.

Encounter with Tapir

We reached the Sirena river head at 5 am, waiting with the other hikers for some excitement but that day we could see only a couple of crocodiles in the water and a lot of birds.  We waited for an hour for the sightings of puma or Tapir in that area before started to walking back to the ranger station for the breakfast.  Enrique took a detour into a trail and there we spotted a tapir resting in the mud not worried about the people.  There's another tour group joined us watching the tapir and a lady in that group got closer to the tapir to take pictures but their tour guide didn't stop from getting close by until Enrique asked him to get that lady back.  Within two minutes after that lady got back to high grounds, the tapir woke up, started charging towards us before stopping just 20 feet away, it was where that lady was.  Then the tapir just gave a look at us and went back to lie down.  The lady who was trying to take the closeup shot was in a shock and I made her feel even worse by asking whether she wants to get closer to take pictures again ;-)

Monkey Defense

We saw tapirs, family of raccoons, birds, mountain chicken and howler monkeys on the way to the Sirena station to have breakfast, after that we planned to go to a river to swim and have lunch.  On the way to the river we saw a large group of spider monkeys having fun in the tree and one of the monkeys in the gang peed on a guy who was standing right under the monkey.  Enrique mentioned that it is the common defensive mechanism for these monkeys to pee and push dry branches on the people.  After swimming in the river for an hour, we had burrito lunch before returning back to the camp.

Solo Walk

I decided to go for a solo walk to the beach that is 800 meters from the ranger station and asked Enrique about it, he mentioned that the animals won't attack but asked me to be careful of snakes.  If bitten by poisonous snakes in the day time, after the first aid, th
ey will bring the plane to take you to the hospital but if bitten after dark, there's nothing much can be done because the planes won't be able to land at night.  So while going for the walk, I was little worried about pumas and snakes but I was safe there all the time.  While sitting in the beach enjoying the sunset, there's no human being in the half mile radius and the feel of being alone in the forest was an amazing feeling.

Meeting People

While having dinner, we were talking to a guide,Michael Dublin - according to him he's the only foreign guide in the Puerto Jimenez and he moved from Ireland to Costa Rica about 18 years back.  His story is interesting one:  he was born in Pakistan, studied Chemistry and then studied to be a biologist in Ireland.  After working in Africa for a few years, he moved to Argentina first and then to Costa Rica as a biologist for a lodge.  Now he's running his own tour operations with his friend.  He never gone back to Ireland in the last 18 years.

We went to the same river head again in the morning to watch the animals but we didn't find anything interesting and returned for breakfast.  After breakfast we met a German couple (Martina&Janek) who arrived by the plane from Puerto Jimenez for one day visit to the park and they wanted to come with us for the hikes because they didn't have a guide.  This couple spent a couple of weeks in Southern Panama, traveling north and Janek makes documentary film, one of the filmss that he produced related to "Egyptian Street Music".  Martina's family speaks Aramaic language (Jesus language) and it was cool to meet with someone who could understand Jesus ;-)  They kept the whole trip interesting by exchanging their travel stories and cultural differences, etc.

Naked Indian

The "Naked Indian" tree

We were waiting in the Sirena river head in the afternoon after the hike through the primary forest learning a lot about the plants like "naked Indian," that sheds its bark all the time to avoid other plans living on them and looks reddish color, "ficus tree" that have roots like walls and watching small insects like cool dragon fly that looked like a helicopter.  We saw the tide rising in the Sirena river head slowly while waiting for the sharks to show up but only a couple of crocodiles and rain showed up ;-(  But we were lucky enough to see a couple of tapirs, raccoons and tasted some termites.  Also, Enrique split two coconuts, sliced the inner shell into nice pieces for us to eat and the delicious coconut served as a good lunch that day.

Where is the Puma ?

While we were having lunch, we heard the howler monkeys making huge noise which was different from the regular howling they make and all of the guides were rushing towards the trails stating that there's a puma around.  But after running around for about 15 minutes, no one could spot a puma and came back to take rest.  One of the couples mentioned that their guide tracked a mother sloth killed by a puma in the nearby area where we were looking for the puma.

Snoring People

We went for a short hike in the evening in which we spotted a family of white faced monkeys and took it easy to save our energy to hike back to Carate the next day.  But the plan to have a good night sleep was spoiled by a couple of guys from Israel - I never thought that someone could snore that loud, and having ear plugs couldn't stop their snoring noise.  I didn't have any problem sleeping with the horrible snoring noise but Patty couldn't handle them because her tent was right next to them.

Getting back to Civilization

We woke up at 4 am to pack our tents, had our breakfast and ready by 5 am but Enrique was no where found and finally he showed up at 530 am for the hike back to the civilization.   Walking in the long beach at the start of the trail which was horrible when we were getting to Sirena was easy now with no sun and no weight.  We spotted the puma foot prints on the trail that we followed for some time in the trail but no spotting of the puma, and we also spotted the foot prints of tapir on the beach.

We spotted a lot of white faced monkeys near the La Leona ranger station and after that the walk on the beach to Carate was quick.  Alex picked us up in Carate to take us to our Backpackers hostel, Patty was staying outside the town (she tried to change her accommodation to stay in town but no availability), Janek and we decided to meet up for dinner.

Puerto Jimenez

Backpackers Hostel, is in the main part of the city very close to the restaurants and the bus station.  The town, Puerto Jimenez, is small town with some good places to eat but the public beach in town is very small and no waves.  It is a good place to soak in the water and the sunset is awesome .  After the dinner with the Janek and Martina, we walked around the town at night for about a kilometer without any worries.



The next day, we slept late before going for the breakfast and after that came back to the room to sleep some more instead of going to Uvita for a day.  We left to the beach around 3 pm to swim and then enjoyed the most beautiful sunset we had seen in the Central America.  Collected the laundry and had dinner in the Pizza place, which was really good.

Standing Only Bus

Our final destination was a cabin near San Gerrado, to reach this place we had to take the bus to San Isdro General first, then get off at the KM80 in the bus to San Jose and then walk/taxi 4KM to a restaurant to collect the keys for our cabin.  We were thinking that the bus would stop in the bus stop at 5 am but I noticed a bunch of people little further in the street, I was glad that I checked them because there's a bus stand not in the view.  When we asked for the ticket to San Isdro General at the bus stand, the guy at the counter mentioned that the bus is full and we could get the tickets in the next bus at 9 am without giving any options.  But we didn't want to hang around in the bus stand or in our room for another four hours, he sold us the tickets after I asked him whether we could travel standing in the bus.

Fifteen Year Old Detective

We got in the bus and occupied a few empty seats for the next 30 minutes before someone with the seat assignment kicked out my kids but I was lucky to have to seat for the whole trip.  My kids were sitting on the empty space on the bus, allocated for the wheel chair, and having conversation with a fifteen year boy.  The boy is a local kid traveling to San Jose who got attracted to Shabina, trying to impress her by lending his PS3 for her to play and trying to have non-stop conversation..;-)  He told me that my daughters were good kids and Shabina was beautiful.  After sometime, my daughters wanted to escape him and they got a perfect opportunity when the bus stopped in a rest area.

When the journey continued after twenty minute break, I sacrificed my seat for my kids and I sat down with the kid.  The assistant to bus driver came looking for me and asking the person who was sitting next to me in the seat where I was, because he didn't find me in my seat he was concerned.  I was so happy that the bus operators cared for me :-)  Now the kid started to converse with me, his English was decent enough for me to follow and he was using the translator in his phone to communicate with me (his English is much better than my Spanish).  He mentioned that he wanted to be in CIA, currently he was working as a detective for the Costa Rican government informing on the drugs, thugs and helping tourists to travel safely.  Because his dad was working in this field for a long time, he was able to join the force when he's ten years old ;-)  I was not sure whether he was trying to impress me but there was no bad intentions so I didn't care.  As we got closer to San Isdro General, he shared his email and invited us to visit his home.

Road to See Quetzal

We had to change a bus in San Isdro General to take another bus to San Jose, which pretty easy and

everyone was helpful.  We got dropped off at the KM-80 after an hour of going up in the mountains at the speed of not more than 30 miles an hour.  Luckily, there was Carlos, the only taxi guy in the San Gerrado area, waiting to take us to go to the Miriam Cafe, where we had to pick up the keys to our cabin.  The road from KM-80 to San Gerrado is a steep very windy unpaved road and there's only private vehicles go in this road.  Lilian took us to the cabin (which is about 400 meters from the Miriams restaurant) which located at above the 8000 ft level.

The view from the restaurant was great and also a number of birds visit their back porches of their place.  Lilian mentioned that there'd be quetzals that visit the avocado tree in the private trail at 6 am and 3 pm and sure enough, we spotted a beautiful quetzal when we hiked down their private trail.  What I was told that people come from all over the place to see this bird and sometimes it is hard to spot them.  But we were able to see the quetzal within an hour of arriving at the cloud forest ;-)

Quetzal

We met Peter, who owns the Quetzal Valley Cabin, and his wife Maria in the private trail.  They are very nice couple who live in San Jose and initially bought this property for their private use but later built the cabins that are simple and rustic.  Maria was telling us the stories about her visits to USA and scary motorcycle ride to the Yosemite park.  We spent the evening talking to Maria, watching the quetzal (my kids were least bothered about quetzals) and hiked down the trail to the stream.

Hitchhiking to Hike

We had the option of walking down 8 kilometers or hiring a taxi to go down the hill to the San Gerado valley to hike the beautiful trails.  While having the breakfast at Miriams, Lilian mentioned that we could walk down easily while enjoying the scenery and could get a taxi to come back, but I decided to hitchhike the very first vehicle that we saw on the road and it was success.  The couple, who gave us ride from our cabin area to the San Gerado de Dota, was visiting this place from San Jose for the weekend and we talked about their kids who are studying & working in USA.  The drive was very beautiful and I was not looking forward to walking up the mountain to our cabin on our return trip.

It is a well maintained trail with the very beautiful views of the streams and the mountains.  After spending about two hours in the trail, we were started to walk uphill, I requested for the ride from the first car that I saw on the road after walking about a kilometer and it was Carlos, the taxi driver who was driving the car.  He gave us the ride to our cabin and no money asked or paid ;-)

Back to San Jose

There are only few buses stop at KM-80 to pick up the people to go to San Jose and we took the early morning bus @630 and arriving at San Jose around 9 am.  After spending a couple of hours in the central market, we took the bus to the airport and walked to the hotel from the airport.  When we asked the cops at the airport how to get to the hotel from the airport, they advised us to take the taxi but the taxi guys told us not to waste money on them and asked us to walk.  It took us less than 10 minutes to the hotel by foot and nothing complicated other than running across the busy road..;-)  On the way to the hotel, we stopped over in the Wal*Mart and ended up not buying anything because everything is expensive there.

Observations

1. The public bus system is good but not frequent.  Takes forever to go from one place to other.  You should buy tickets in advance for long distance travel to get a comfortable seat.
2. Most people speak English but speaking Spanish helps you a lot
3. Corcovado National Park is good but spending 3 nights was too much.  If I had to do all over again, I would go into from Drake Bay and get out to Carate staying maximum of two nights.
4. Get a guide if you are planning to go to Corcovado.

Panama City - Day Trip 2013

Why

My original plan was to travel to Costa Rica from Nicaragua by bus but I was advised by a number of people in the travel forums about the travel delays at the border due to the holiday travel.  When I was looking into booking the airline tickets, I came across the United Airlines Mileage tickets within Central America do not cost much and on top of it, the flight schedules allow us to have 10 hour day time stop over in Panama City.

Arriving @ Panama City

The Panama City airport is such a modern airport with a lot of restaurants and the getting through the immigration/custom was quick and easy even with finger
printing/photographing.  We arrived without any plan for the day, hoping to see the city, see the larger ships crossing the canal and whatever the local tour guide advises.  Luckily, there's not much bargaining for the taxis at the airport and we were able to hire an English speaking driver, Jose, for $80 for four hours with the plan of visiting Miraflores locks first and use the rest of the time for other activities.

Timing is Everything

When we arrived at the Miraflores Locks @1130am and we were told that there's no ship traffic for the next two hours so instead of watching movie and visiting the museum at the locks, we decided to take a ride to see other parts of the city.  Jose's English was very good and not every one of the taxi driver could speak good English so when you hire a taxi make sure that the driver could speak the language that you could understand ;-)

Jose took us to the Casco Viejo first, it is a nice place with old Spanish style buildings and we just drove around before heading to the causeway drive from where the view of the downtown Panama city is very good.  C

auseway is a man made road (not a bridge) connecting three islands to the mainland - the rocks used to build this road were the rocks removed to build Miraflores Locks.

The roads in Panama City are as good as the roads in USA, so moving around between different parts of the city was not an issue.  The downtown of Panama City was beautiful with modern and very artistic buildings - I can say that the skyline looks better than the Seattle skyline.

When we arrived at the Miraflores @1pm, there was huge ship crossing the canal and I should say that we're lucky to arrive at that time because it takes forever for a ship cross the canal.  Getting the ship into the locks and moving the ship across the locks is done by set of cars on the tracks attached to the ships by cable.  It took more than 45 minutes for the ship to cross the canal through the locks and it is a very slow process.  Instead of waiting for another hour or so to see the next ship crossing, we spent the next 30 minutes in the museum looking at the tools that they used to build the canal, structure and operation details of the canal and other interesting facts.  So going through the museum may be a good time fill the gap between the crossings and after going through the museum, we left Miraflores to Casco Viejo.

People Watching in Casco Viejo

We made the arrangements with Jose to pick us up from Casco Viejo to take us to the airport @7pm.  We got the sticker shock after looking at the prices in the restaurant for lunch after spending relatively less money in Nicaragua, but the prices are not very expensive and less than the prices in USA.  While having lunch, met an elderly mom and her daughter from Philly who were spending a week in Panama.  The mom was complaining about how people are not friendly compared to people in Costa Rica and not speaking in English ;-)

We spent the next 4 hours walking around the town, people watching, enjoying the view of the Panama City and the sunset.  It is one of the happening place for the newly wed or going to be wed to take their photo sessions and young couples to just to hang around.  The architecture of the buildings and the churches are impressive and the government is trying to maintain the same look of the building going forward, but we could see a number of building that need maintenance badly.

Jose showed up on time to take us to the airport and we were in the airport in less than 30 minutes.  The security at the Panama City airport is much stricter than the security at the Managua airport but there were not many people in the airport so it's quick.

Observation

I don't think that there is not much to do in the Panama City for more than a day unless you are in to clubs and parties.  If we had more time, we would have spent the time in the downtown area.  We didn't interact with the locals much so don't know much about the local friendliness.

Nicaragua - 2013

Why

Decided to travel to the central america during Christmas to enjoy the sunny weather and to practice my Spanish.  In a way, motivation for me to pick up Spanish in a faster phase ;-)  Wanted to cover more than one country for this two week trip and the combination of Nicaragua & Costa Rica fell in place.  One of the reasons for this choice is the opportunity to cross the border with less trouble by bus.

Planning

Island Ometepe: Volcano Conception and Maderas

There are a lot of very nice places in Nicaragua to visit and deciding where to go is a tough decision.  If I go to  El Salvador or Guatemala anytime, I may end up visiting the northern Nicaragua later. We stayed with the main cities (Granada & Leon) and Island Ometepe (wanted to visit here before they start building the canal and mess up the beauty of this place) this trip.  Despite Nicaragua being the second poorest country in the southern hemisphere, we felt safe wherever we were in Nicaragua - except in Managua and it was because of the opinions given out by a number of locals we met in our journey.  We were walking out and looking for a restaurant in Managua at 9pm but didn't face any threats and it's going to be as bad as walking around in LA or NY in the unknown areas at night.  Most of the time we used our common sense and didn't end up in any issues.

Improving Bus System in North West

Christmas in Portland

To save $200 per ticket for this trip, I booked our tickets from Portland, the overall savings because of this cheap-ass plan was $400 and it was worth it.  The new BOLT bus service in the North West is awesome, we used this bus to get to Portland downtown and the public transit system in Portland is very impressive, hoping that Seattle will learn a thing or two from Portland.  Getting from the bus stop to the airport was very easy in Portland and the same BOLT bus service operates between Portland and Vancouver, so more options to choose cheap tickets to fly ;-)

Plan for the first day

Our flight landed in Managua @ noon and our first night stay was in the Ometepe Island, since I had to coordinate the ferry timings and reaching the hotel before very late, I arranged for a taxi, with the hotel owner in Ometepe, to pick us up from the airport to take us to the ferry dock in San Jorge that's two hour taxi ride.

Trip to San Jorge

Managua airport is very small and getting through the immigration/customs was pretty simple. I was expecting a lot of run down buildings and bad roads on the way because I was thinking that this country is out of their civil war just less than 30 years back and it's one of the poorest countries, but to my surprise the roads are very good.  Didn't find a lot of shops on the road to San Jorge except a gas stations where we stopped to get some local currency and water bottle.  We were looking for some roadside places to eat but couldn't find any.

Taste of Road Side Food

Street Food near Ferry

We reached San Jorge around 245 pm and there's nothing much to eat in the ferry station, so Sharada & Shabina (my daughters) who could speak good Spanish went out of the ferry station looking for some vegetarian food to buy while I was taking care of our backpacks. One of the stupid things that I did was related to the amount of money that I withdrew from the ATM in our stop, while I was thinking that I was withdrawing close to $100 equivalent Cordobas, I withdrew only $10 equivalent of Cordobas and I gave my kids $5 worth of Cordobas to eat their lunch and get me some lunch.  I realized this only after they left but to my surprise after having their lunch, they returned with my lunch and some Cordoba change ;-)   The food is really good and less expensive (or cheap) in the local places.

Ferry to Ometepe

El Che was waiting for us and a couple of vehicles to board before taking off to the island by 4 pm.  Unlike most places that we visited the tickets for the ferry ride needs to be paid at the ferry - wondering what they would do if someone rides without money ;-)  I was worried about not having enough local currency to pay for the ferry but the US Dollar is accepted everywhere and the change is provided in the local currency.

Foreigners In Nicaragua

Met an American guy aged around 55-60, who moved to Ometepe Island from Hawaii five years back and

Moyogalpa

enjoying his quiet life there.  When inquired about what the heck he does in Ometepe, he answered that he enjoys reading and having a quiet life - when he had to drive an hour to cross five mile distance in Hawaii, he decided to make the move.  He spends summer months, when it rains like crazy in Ometepe, with his grandchildren in Oregon and we met a number of Americans & Europeans in this trip who decided to take life easy either in Nicaragua or in Costa Rica.  Costa Rica has advantages over Nicaragua in the health care area but the living expenses pretty economical in Nicaragua and the real estate is very cheap.

Lake Nicaragua Sunset

The ferry ride was about ninety minutes to Moyogalpa and on the ferry we met two Swedish medical students who were making one day trip to the island to climb the Maderas volcano.  Since we didn't have any plans for our days in the island, we decided to climb with the Swedish friends the next day.  They didn't have a place to stay that night but very lucky to find a place very close to our hotel in a hostel after calling a few places and we were able to car pool with them to the hotel.  These guys spent about 3 months working in Mexico helping the health care facility in a small town, started their travel to the south via Guantemala and Nicaragua to Costa Rica.

Haridas in Nicaragua

The most part of the ride to our hotel was in very nice roads but the last 30 minutes of the ride was extremely bad and the worst part of it was that it's in dark.  The hotel we were staying is owned by a German named Hari and when I mentioned that it's an Indian name, his reply was that his full name is Haridas - very Indian.  He lived in India for a long time, traveled most parts of North India and in a way that he's more Indian than I ;-)  Had very good discussions about his Indian experience, why Nicaragua and the plans by the Nicaraguan government to build the shipping canal competing with Panama.  After him moving to island, he changed the culture of how the horses are treated. Some of the people in the Ometepe Island concerned (my perception after talking to a few people) that the canal won't bring a lot of employment to the locals but there'll be a lot of Chinese will be coming to do the work, also the canal will change the whole character of the island.

Hari advised us to start the hike after 8am but before 9am to avoid the fog at the top of the volcano at the same time enough time to get back to hotel before dark.  He volunteered to coordinate with the hostel manager where our Swedish friends were staying regarding the guide for the hike.

Maderas Volcano Trek

Maderas Trail

Our Swedish friends showed up at 930 am with the guide and guide's girl friend, and we were fickle minded whether to start the hike that late but since we didn't have anything planned, we decided to start the hike and discussed about turning back at 145 pm.  Looking at the mountain, it didn't look good at all, it was very foggy and we're hoping to have a good view from the top and we thought that starting this late might help us.  The hiking got pretty strenuous after the first hour with steep slopes, muddy tracks and places where we had to climb holding on to the tree roots/branches or cables.  The views of the Ometepe Island and the water falls in the volcano was excellent but after two hour there's not much views but hiking in cloud forest which had completely different climate from where we started.

On Top

The Swedish girl spotted a small snake on the side of the trail after crossing it, it was crazy to hear from the guide that it's a poisonous snake and it won't do anything if we didn't disturb the snake.  It all made sense  but seeing the snake and needed to face it to climb up was little scary.  Anyway, we moved on after waiting for a few minutes without having any encounter with the snake.  We meet two other guys who are from Sweden from the same town as our friends climbing down.  One of the guys couldn't climb up because of his knees, so they decided to turn back just an hour away from the top.

We reached the windy and cloudy top around 130 pm and couldn't see the crater at all, there're no views

except the satisfaction of reaching the top on time ;-)  The hike down was pretty bad for the first two hours and everyone in the group fell down at least ones (including the guide and his girl friend) because of the muddiness or steepness of the slope.  We reached the base almost close to the sun set and by the time we reached the hotel, it was dark.

Overall, the hike was great in experiencing a different micro-climate at the top of the mountain and good time in the cloud forest.  We saw only five people in our trek, so in a way that we had the whole volcano for ourselves that day.  Even though, the trails are in very good condition given how much it rains there, it is better to go with the guide because there's absolutely no traffic or trail marking there.  The guide mentioned that a young hiker lost his way a few years back and found dead.

Options for Travel in Ometepe

After the long and tiring hike, the dinner at the hotel (egg plant lasagna) with the cold beer was awesome.  We met a Sri Lankan guy and his Russian girl friend, who are from Toronto.  Enjoyed talking about the countries that the guy lived over a period of his preteen-age (India, Germany, Tanzania, UK and Canada) years and how his parents decided not to travel anywhere once they got settled in Toronto.

When inquired the horse riding prices, it's little expensive for Nicaragua (but after reaching Costa Rica, we were cursing ourselves for not riding horses with Hari), so we decided to skip the horse riding and decided to leave Ometepe in the noon ferry so that we could reach Granada before night.  To catch the ferry at noon, we had the option to take either the public bus, which takes about 3 hours, or take the taxi, that takes about 90 minutes, to reach the ferry dock - we decided to take the taxi and spend the saved time wandering in the village.  There's not much to do in the village and if I planned better, we should have hired the Vespa to go around the island.

Chicken Bus Ride

 Ride from Moyogalpa ferry dock to San Jorge was uneventful despite the fact that it's the day before Christmas.  We were thinking that we got the taxi for the very cheap rate of one-third of the normal price to go from the ferry dock to the bus station, but later on we found out that the normal way of negotiating or quoting price for the taxis in Nicaragua is per person rate (even if you are traveling as family) ;-)  The taxi driver dropped us closer to the bus stand and walking through the congested roads to the bus stop reminded me of India.  In a way, the Central america reminds me more of the roads, markets and congestion of India.

Once we were in the bus, we were able to store our backpacks inside the bus on the luggage rack and settled down.  It was very hot and humid, we didn't know what time the bus would leave.  There're a bunch of street vendors selling food, water and snacks in the bus, we decided to try some sweet bread and it was good.  The bus was full with standing crowd before the driver decided to start the bus and the ride to Granada took about 2 hours which wasn't bad at all.  There're people in the bus with with Chicken and a small dog ;-)  The bus made a few stops to pick up and drop people on the way and the price for the two hour bus ride was about $2 per person which is way cheaper than the taxi fare of $15 per person.

Granada

The walk from the bus stand to the main square was about 500 meters through the main market street - being the Christmas eve, it was very crowded and fun to watch the people and things on our walk to hostel.  There were no grand Christmas decorations in town except a giant (artificial) Christmas tree in the town center and at sunset there's a simple Christmas procession.

The hostel was small and really beautiful with a small swimming pool inside the hostel.  The hostel is managed by an Irish guy, Gary, who moved to Nicaragua about three years back who bought the hotel property, in a central location, using ReMax real estate company.  We met  a couple, from Portugal, who stays in this hostel and commutes to Managua everyday (about 90 minute ride) to attend the medical school.

Christmas in Granada

Granada is a small town and we walked around the whole town in a couple of hours, visiting churches and shops, the day we arrived there.  The people in the churches were decorating the churches around 8 pm on the Christmas eve for the mid-night mass. Granada seems to be mostly a party town with a lot of bars and restaurants, and there's not much to do in the town other than eating and drinking.  One interesting thing about the Christmas eve was that there's a lot of fireworks at night to celebrate the arrival of Christmas day ;-)

We ventured further into the city in non-touristy areas in the morning after having waffles and pan cakes in the Kathy's Waffle house.   Most of the shops were open during Christmas day but didn't see a lot of action in town.  The town, the parts out side the touristy main square, is clean and safe but the long iron grills at the shops and houses indicated that the safety at night may be different from what we felt at day time.  The houses are very colorful around the city.  After wandering off most part of the morning around the city and relaxing around main square, we decided to head off to the Laguna Apoya earlier than planned.

Negotiating With Nicaraguans

The bus services from Granada to Laguna Apoya was not operating at full schedule on the Christmas day, so decided to spend $15 for the taxi ride to our hostel which is located inside a crater.  Nicaraguans are easy to negotiate, easy to convince what we could pay and very friendly people.  Not sure whether so many years of civil war made them sick of fighting and being aggressive !!  really, we never had any issue with street vendors, taxis or any one else in negotiating the prices.  Very friendly people.

Alcohol

On the way to our hostel, we were able to spot a number of young people having alcohol on the road side and most of these guys are much younger than 16 years.  The alcohol is cheaper than fruit juices in most of the places where we were getting our drinks.  I can confidently say that Flor de Cana is one of the best rums that I had and it's dirt cheap.  Alcoholism and teen pregnancies seem to be major problems in addition to the lack of the employment opportunities in Nicaragua.  

Laguana Apoya

Hostel

Our hostel was a cool place managed by a couple of French friends who decided to move to Nicaragua and provide hostel facilities to fund the education for the local kids.  First of all, living inside the crater and swimming in the lake inside the crater was awesome, the water in the lake is the cleanest fresh water in Nicaragua.  There were kayak, tubes and other beach accessories provided by the hostel to enjoy the lake.  The lake was huge, clean and not crowded at all.  We were able to relax in the hostel with the cool breeze, warm water and cheap beer.

In the windy weather, wavy waters, it was initially difficult maneuver the kayak and ended up going towards people swimming in the water, after a few minutes learned the technique to stay calm and paddle.  It is a nice place to wind-down for a couple of days with swimming, reading books in the hammocks or just lying down in the beach.

People

One of the greatest thing about travel is the people we meet and discussions that we have.  In this place we meet a couple from Sweden whose daughter decided to study in Leon to immerse in Spanish.  Initially, they were wondering why not Spain but overall they are happy with the University in Leon and their daughter's stay in Leon.  Can't forget the religious discussions with a guy from Montana and a guy from German just after dinner.  I was surprised to see a number of Americans traveling to Nicaragua instead of the typical touristy places of Costa Rica.

Masaya Market and Interesting Paintings

After enjoying the sun rise and early morning in the beach, we took the chicken bus to Masaya with a Danish couple who were staying in the hostel and traveling from Belize to Rio by road.  Other than the hammocks, we couldn't find any handicrafts that interested us to buy.  One type of the paintings that we couldn't forget about seeing in Masaya was that the painting of man or lady sitting in the toilet (especially big size women) and using the toilet paper - not sure why this painting is all over the market !!!

Mini-Bus Travel

The mini-buses in Nicaragua are much better than the chicken buses and they are 12 seat mini vans.  They leave as soon as they fill up and costs almost same as the buses.  We had to pay for a seat to keep our backpacks and other than that the trip was quick and easy to Managua from Masaya.  And in the UCA bus station, we got another mini-bus to get to Leon immediately.  The public transportation with the mini-buses is pretty good between the touristy towns.

Reaching Las Penitas

Las Penitas Beach

We were asked to keep our backpack next to our seats and in front of us, so no charge or seat for the bags for the ride from Managua to Leon.  I was worrying about traveling at night in this road before reaching Nicaragua, I was imagining that the road conditions would be primitive - but I was wrong.  The only thing that of a concern was the speed of the vehicles and how they were overtaking each other.  We left Managua around 3 pm and reached Leon just before 5 pm in a very comfortable ride in the mini-bus.  Since it was getting closer to the sunset, we got a taxi for $11 to get to Las Penitas and reached our hostel in 45 minutes.

Eco Room

What I noticed about Las Penitas when we reached our hostel is that it's a small beach town with a lot of dogs all over the place. We checked into our eco-room which is made up on bamboo sticks and honey bucket kind of toilet in the restroom.  SO when you are planning for the eco-room, inquire how it'll be different from a regular room;-)  It is not bad at all and the shower area has the dried palm tree branch sidings, so it was a truly an eco-room, and to prove this - we found a frog sitting on my bed the second night of our stay;-)

Even though the hostel is advertised as the beach front place, we couldn't see the sea from our room or from the hotel which was a let down and it's was 10 minute walk in the beach to get to the water.  After dinner at the hostel, one of the best restaurants in town, we walked around the town but didn't find anything interesting.  The next day it was noisy very early in the morning with the dogs barking and vehicles honking.

Practicing Spanish and Getting Beer

We spent the whole day swimming in the beach that was not crowded at all and enjoyed the strong waves as well as the feel of hundreds of small fishes (sardines) hitting our body.  We located a nice restaurant at the beach, where we parked ourselves to enjoy food and drinks, in between our swimming ventures.  At the afternoon, after spending more than four hours in the beach, I wanted to have a bottle of beer, so went to the counter  for ordering the beer and to practice my Spanish.  The whole restaurant was managed by only one waiter and I told him "Pardon...una cerveza par favor" for that he replied "Litre" which I assumed that he's saying he'd bring it to me later, I answered "Si...gracias". But to my surprise he brought a one liter bottle of beer and then only I realized my Spanish understanding skills suck ;-)  So spent the rest of the afternoon finishing the liter of beer...

Tired of Relaxing

Wanted to learn surfing in Las Penitas but we couldn't find anyone teaching surfing in the beach and we couldn't find a lot of tourists in the beach either.  The beach is very beautiful and clean with nice restaurants spaced a kilometer apart.  After lazing in the restaurant and in the beach for more than 6 hours, we got tired and decided to go to the hostel to make reservations for the volcano surfing the for the next day.  Thinking about lazing in the beach, we all got bored after 6 hours doing nothing beach and wondering how people spend a week in the beach or in the swimming pool "relaxing".

Communicated with Quetzal Trekkers, which is a voluntary organization that raises funds for the local children by providing local tours and trekking services, for our trip to Cerro Negro Volcano.  After exchanging emails with them and booking the trip for next day, we returned to the beach for more swimming and to watch the sun set.

Volcano Boarding

Top of Cerro Negro

We arrived at the Quetzal Trekkers building in Leon by riding the chicken bus to Leon and then taxi at 730 am.  After storing all of our bags in their offices, we started out for the adventure.  Initially, there're only 4 people signed up for this adventure but slowly more people started to show up and the group ended up being 15 people.  All of us boarded at the back of a pickup truck before heading to the volcano the pickup truck stopped in the market to pick up some lunch for the group.  It was an hour long drive in a bumpy road to the bottom of the Cerro Negro volcano, which is an active volcano that is smoking hot.  This volcano erupts almost every 18 years, the last big eruption was in 1995 and the next one can be anytime.

Hike to the top of the volcano takes about 45 minutes with the 12 pound wooden board and the hike wss not hard but very HOT without any shades and the heat from the volcano.  Everyone talks about how scary it is to come down using the board but the scary part for me was to carrying the board in a very windy day to the edge of the volcano.  There's a 100-200 meter distance you have to walk on the top of the volcano in a narrow path with steep slope to the bottom of the volcano on one side and sulphur smoking hot inner crater on the other side.  Walking on this path with the heavy wind was scary and the wind resistance is more because the board is flat, the wind pushes you to the side of the path.  The day we were climbing, it was very windy and I would have fallen if I didn't manage to align the board in a certain angle.

Sharada Rocket Boarding

The sand or ash at the top of the volcano was hot and the guide indicated that we could bury an egg in the sand for 45 minutes to get it baked.  Digging the sand and feeling the heat just a few inches deep didn't make me question her statement.  After enjoying the view from the top of the volcano, we decide to board down.  I was very scared to look down from the edge and asked tons of questions before decided to go down.  Since you can control the speed of the board going down, it was not really scary or dangerous unless you want to hurt yourself...like my daughter Sharada.  After sitting in the board, Sharada took off like a rocket and almost at the half way down, she let the board fly-off and she rolled on the ash.  She had minor scratches but nothing serious.  After collecting board, she continued her journey down faster.  But I was not that brave and descended slowly by stopping my board frequently.

Quetzal Trekkers gives the option to come down from the volcano the second time if any one interested and most of the people in our group wanted to board or run down the volcano the second time.  So whoever wanted to go up the volcano, started the trek after having some snacks at the pick up truck to enjoy the adventure.  Sharada and I ran down the mountain which was fun too but Shabina decided to board down.  I think that it's the only place where you can do this and we are glad that we did the volcano boarding with the great tour group.  The lunch prepared by our guide with simple fajita, guacamole, tomato, refried beans and chips was really awesome, and I got an idea on what to take for our camping trip in Costa Rica.

Interesting Friends

One of the couple who stayed with us in the Ometepe Island, who traveled from Quebec, was also part of the group that did the volcano boarding and we were surprised to see them.  We had an interesting conversation with two brothers, from LA, while climbing up the volcano that made the hike less tiring. One of the brothers is part of the Peace Corps that he joined after completing his bachelors degree in Business Administration to help one of the rural communities in Nicaragua in starting small business.  Getting into details  what he does in Nicaragua and experience he's gaining was very interesting.  In a way, he motivated me to consider looking into Peace Corps.  The other brother, who is doing Environmental Engineering, had done back to back foreign exchange programs in China and Argentina.

Time in Leon

Toured the Leon cathedral and climbed to the roof to get a good view of Leon before heading out to the super market to get the groceries for the Costa Rica camping and rum to take home.  The alcohol in the supermarket is much cheaper than the alcohol in the duty free shop, so decided to get the best.  After collecting the bags from Quetzals, went to the bus station to catch a mini-bus to Managua around 5 pm.

Panic in Managua

By the time we arrived Managua, it was dark a
nd raining, so we got a taxi to go to the hotel that we booked for the night before our flight.  I remember seeing the hotel being closer to a bigger mall as well as our friends from LA in the volcano group mentioned that there're a lot of restaurants closer to our hotel but the taxi driver started going in the back roads those were not lit properly, We started to worry but everything worked out and the hotel was in the back streets that's closer to the mall.

Chickens

After unpacking all of our bags in the Aloha Hotel, we wanted to venture out eat, against the advise from our LA friends not to walk around night.  There's not much light or traffic in the back road and after reaching the main road, we didn't want to cross heavily trafficked road so we came back to the hotel room to order pizza from Pizza Hut.

Adios Nicaragua

The time that we spent in Nicaragua was excellent, we really enjoyed meeting very good friends and experienced a friendly culture/country.  The taxi to the airport came on time, checking in the bags and getting to the flight was very easy because Managua's airport is small.  The following are take away from our trip.
1.  Spend a night or more in Laguna Apoya because you will never get a chance to stay inside a crater
2.  Leon is less touristy and a lot more things to do than Granada.
3.  Ometepe is cool.  If possible, rent a Vespa and ride around the island
4.  Booze is cheaper in the supermarket than in the duty free shops.  Best rum.
5.  Public transportation is awesome and safe, use it whenever you can
6.  Nice, safe and fun place to travel for less money