the famished road

We are headed to a little surf spot in Nicaragua, its 600 miles away. This post covers the journey and stop over’s.

Here’s a map of the route since leaving Mexico City, if you are anything like us your Central American geography may be patchy.

Antigua

We decide to visit Antigua on route in Guatemala. Dave has been to Guatemala before and it’s more expensive than many of the countries in Central America so it’s just a quick stop over for us.

Our 9 hour shuttle bus took 15 hours with 3 changes and a delay at the border due to strikes. I pass the time listening to a guy who can’t decide whether he should build himself a house or not as it will all be destroyed in 2012 when planet X messes up our gravitational pull. Apparently our magnetic field will switch round and only those souls that can adapt to the new vibration frequencies will survive, the others will instantly vanish from our dimension, mmm.

A so called chicken bus but they warrant a grander title really.

In a traffic jam we watch a gang of shady looking men jump out of the car in front to take a leak by the roadside. All of them are packing cocked pistols, glinting from the waistbands of their jeans. They look like real jumpy bad guys and we feel like we have victim stickers on our nice touristy van. In the few vunerable minutes my imagination runs through many filmic scenarios, all of which end bloodily. Then we are away and my paranoia gets packed away in its special box for later, though I prefer to call it caution (Dave might beg to differ on occasion). Our little mini bus is diverted to drop most of the travellers off at some old lake, Dave and I travel solo in the last mini bus and bump around hairpin mountain roads for 4 hours, we know the drill but beacuse of the delay we're bloody hank marvin.

We arrive in the dark but know its Antigua as you can feel the cobbled streets under the wheels. Pricey hotel, pricey food, mmmm very nice bed and lovely sleepy.

wooden arches of our muffin breakfast square

Antigua’s a top tourist destination, famous for its spanish mudejar-influenced Baroque architecture the and the proximity of three large volcanoes that dominate the horizon in every direction you look.
Hunapú or Volcan de Agua (Volcano of Water), 3766 meters high.
Acatenango, last erupted in 1972, is 3976 meters high.
The Volcan de Fuegi (Volcano of Fire), is 3763 meters high. "Fuego" is famous for being almost constantly active at a low level, smoke rises from top daily. We climbed none of the above.

Sky café

We mooch about the town for a day of rest in its quaintness. here’s some pics……

I should have bought the god mask

We found these paintings and got the text on the photographs translated. They were thanking the Virgin of guadalupe and Juesus for protecting Jose Perez and Salvador Morales (the guys who wrote them or had them made for them) for saving them from the distaster of the twin towers.. Salvador Morales was a cleaner in the buildings (I presume Jose perez was too) but they were lucky enough not to be there when they fell so say thanks to the Virgin for keeping them still under her blessed mantle. Though it looks a bit like they think the others were not worth saving.

We arrange a wake up call at 6 for our onward journey but instead of knocking on our door the hotel manager wanders through the whole building at 6.30 waking all their guests yelling ‘ HONDURAS?’ Those crazy latinos. Most annoying bus entertaining yet, its just too early for 80’s pop videos full blast, Leo sayer,Nooooooooooooo!!!! Elton john (actually hes a guilty plesure), but crowded house, Mierda ! We had to change in Copan and it was stinky stinkin hot, finally arrived in Tegucigalpa (the capital of Honduras) at 11pm, on face value the guide might be right about this place the only patch of charm we found was our room, here it is….

A glowing church was the only reference point in a town with no proper centre to it, and we made a bee line for it to get back to our sanctuary after the guide sent us to a café reminiscent of a bogna regis working mens club. Wishing we had the hitch hikers guide and were drinking pan galactic gargle blasters we picked at some greasy food while being subjected to a bontempi entertainer who's cheesy ear splittingly loud croons were not even in time with his not so trusty keyboard. RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY!!!!!!!!

This very large varnish spayed sandwich summed up the town. Photo taken while waiting for the bus outta there at 4am the next day

Nicaragua

Up at 3.30 for the next leg (accidentally got up an hour before we needed to like donuts) and we stand in an empty dark street vulnerably waiting for a cab cus the mad receptionist wouldn’t order us one, I unpack and swiftly re-pack my paranoia as a cab arrives.

Arrive in Managua at lunchtime (Capital of Nicaragua) into the driest month of the year, temporarily leaving our perpetual spring behind, shame! On first site the land is dramatically parched and the locals more traditionally dressed. Boy it’s hot, really hot, our room has no windows and the electricity is out so we stagger to a local street café and make ourselves hotter with vegetable soup? must have road lag. A local decides to do an unflattering charicature of dave and we begrudingly gave him some small change, here it is....

It feels a bit like a scruffy Brazilian town but it turns out to be an even worse capital than the last one we were in. Its cluttered sprawl rises above a large lake and could be amazing but the water is so polluted it can’t be used for anything; we are told if you get too near it the smell is very bad so we don’t. They have been dumping waste water and chemicals into it since 1927. We hear Germany is donating large sums for a vast clean up next year, so perhaps we should come back in 10 years time.

made by the barba papas

Apart from hanging out in the air conditioned mall shopping for computer accessories we visit the cities saving grace. The magnificent Cathedral Metropolitana de la Purisima Concepcion, locals call it, La Chichona for its resemblance to women’s breasts.

Every body’s favorite glittery praying room

Time to finally reach a destination we want to go to, next stop San Juan del sur, surfs up people!

mucho touting in the morning from a persistent group of men who really want to get us onto thier particular bus. They are screaming into our faces, I try screaming back to no avail then we make a u turn and decide anyone who wants us that badly? As we walk to their bus we have to smile, even after we have agreed to go with them they continue to babble at close range, I suppose until we are actually on the bus any dazzed tourists are an easy poach. Shame they bullied us onto the non direct bus though. The children selling travel snacks & tat filter in and out of the bus, the last one tumbling off after the bus has picked up a bit of speed, just to chance that last minute sale. I hope this will be the first and last time we have cheesy puffs for breakfast, mmmm teeth covered in furry orange goooo!!!!!