wow... count em, four countries in 6 days. left mexico city less than a week ago for slightly clearer skies and COMPLETELY different culture in el salvador, nicaragua, and honduras. first stop was granada nicaragua, a peaceful little town. i could see how people would warn me about getting stuck there- the bearded monkey was yet another haven for backpackers, in the style of many other great hostels in central america... great veggie food, hard to find anything that cost more than 3 bucks, fantastic people, and pretty sweet scenery as well. the first day i fell asleep swinging in a hammock to the sound of soft rain coming through the open patio of this colonial home-turned hostel. the ride from managua was just a preview of lush green fields and unfortunately some of the poorest living conditions i have seen in some time. granada and the surrounding areas offered lots of beautiful sights, hiking, lakes, volcanoes... in short, exactly what i had been looking for. took it all in and then peaced out at three in the morning tuesday, in a packed taxi bound for the tica bus station in managua. the tica bus is a more luxurious form of transport thru central america, between capitals and major cities from san jose costa rica to tapachula mexico. by luxurious, i mean poultry-free... yesssindeedy, no chickens riding on these buses with us. plus we were enclosed in an actual vehicle (as opposed to the backs of trucks, which is pretty much standard operating procedure in all of CA)... imagine. the tica bus is certainly a prosperous operation so it was a bit amusing to rock up to the station and find two frenzied nica's doing all the paper work and ticketing by candlelight *it was 4am, still dark out), on some serious old-school typewriters. thus began our 18hr journey thru nica and honduras, up to the town of la cieba, on the northern coast of honduras... i dont even know how many miles we covered but i was in the excellent company of seven young men from canada, australia, and england. we all ended up at the two hostels in la ceiba (dutch-owned and named respectively 'the rotterdam' and 'amsterdam 2001'), shared a few rounds of imperial cervezas and had a great time talking and getting acquainted for a few hours before we all went to bed, exhausted. took off this morning bright and early with three of the aforementioned lads on a boat bound for our island of utila, where we got set up with captain morgan's dive center and will begin tomorrow our openwater scuba-diving certification course. the hotel that is provided with the scuba course just happens to be on some cays north of utila, called paradise islands. needless to say i am looking forward to the next few days. im sure i will have plenty to share once the diving starts, and i would love to hear how everybody is doing wherever you are in the world. much love to you all. wish me luck and happy decompression!
peace