San Jose Costa Rica Day One

I am so tired of eight hour bus rides. I thought the ride from the border of Nicaragua to San Jose would take five hours for some reason. When i looked at a map, I realized 8 hours makes more sense. the bus stopped once for a break about 2 hours in, then non-stop to San Jose. There is nothing I hate more than arriving in a big city in the night with all my belongings and having to catch a cab in the rain in a sketchy part of town. Plus the only thing I ate that entire day was a plate of gallo pinto (traditional rice, beans, cheese and egg breakfast dish)and a large roll on the bus. I believe a war was fought between Nicaragua and another country over bragging rights to who invented gallo pinto and how it is properly perpared.

the 1km long border crossing between Nicaragua and Costa Rica was pretty interesting, as all the guidebooks and people I've met said. The Nica side is full of wooden shacks and people trying to sell you things. You cross through a little door along the concrete wall and then go to the concrete building to your right to get your exit stamp and pay usd$2 exit fee. Then, ideally, you get on one of the first class buses right in front of the Nica immigration office. I paid usd$10 for the ride to San Jose. You get on the bus, it drives down the border for about 500 yards, then you get off and get your Costa Rica entrance stamp. then you wait around for an hour, take your luggage out of the bus, line it up on a wooden table and let the costa rican custom officials "examine" your luggage. Then you get back on the bus and go. On the bus, you watch movies such as The Pursuit of Happyness with Will Smith (in spanish) as the miles go by outside the window.

The hostel i am staying at is pretty nice. It's a converted house, it has a small pool table that is too close to the wall so you can really only play on two sides of the table. The place itself is really nice and clean, they have a full kitchen which i will probably utilize because san jose is so (relatively) expensive. they have a nice living room with TV and movies and computers with internet. San Jose itself is the nicest, most modern, most western city I've seen so far. it has lots of traffic lights, tons of KFC's, Subways, burger kings, McDonalds, etc... Although it is kind of expensive, you can still find smaller eateries with pretty cheap food which is what I did today.

Protip: Rough Guides is a superior guidebook to Lonely Planet. Lonely Planet sucks.

Did I mention the hot showers at the hostel? Heaven.

I really don't want to spend weeks in San Jose, as nice as it is. What I really want to do is head out to the WWOOF farms as soon as I can. I have to see how the Krav Maga thing works out.

itinerary

Tomorrow morning, I will catch a chicken bus to Rivas, then to the border town of Sapoa, and catch a 1st class bus to San Jose Costa Rica.

I feel kind of sad for some reason. I feel like my trip is almost over, since Costa Rica is my final destination, but I have weeks if not months in Costa Rica, plus I plan on heading towards Panama if I can buy a guidebook in San Jose. Plus I want to visit some friends and family on the west coast on my way back to hawaii, plus I will probably meet my mom in Hong Kong at the end of my trip, so I don't know why I feel San Jose is the end of my trip.

Random Pics

Here I am at a rodeo, again. this one was different in that there were cowboys on horses that would rope the bull and pull it out of the pen and then tie it against this tree so a rider can get on. This running of the bulls wasn’t nearly as fun as the one I went to in Guatemala. The bulls in this one didn’t do anything, they didn’t run around after the crowd. If anything, you had to be more careful of the horses that the cowboys were riding, at any time there were up to 8 of them in the pen. This was at that festival in Ometepe, I didn't get to see a chicken fight, to my disappointment.

sunset at Isle de Ometepe

Che painted on the wall at the Hospedaje Central hostel in Ometepe,

quote painted on the bathroom wall at the Bigfoot hostel in Leon, and yes, that is a basket of used toilet paper.

"Impossible doesn't exist" painted on the bathroom wall at the hostel in Leon. Me making trying to make it true.

also painted on the bathroom wall at the hostel in Leon

funny and true graffiti in Leon. But are they referencing Bush I or II?

cool looking table in the cafe at El Tunco, with my notebook and Fanta.

me feet

the 3 dollar grilled chicken plates I lived off of in El Tunco. The chicken pieces are usually bigger than what you see in this pic.

cool looking wall in El Tunco

The pier at La Libertad. All the fisherman boat are parked on the pier and whenever they want to go in or out of the water, they have to be hoisted by this crane.

Above three pics are cool graffiti art they had at the tourism center at La Libertad

boy with his pet lizard on the bus to El Elsalvador. It even had a tiny little vest and leash.

Maderas Nicaragua

Maderas was cool. It's a beach break with lefts and rights, with better lefts. It is totally tide dependent, a solid swell will disappear during low tide. The best time is to get it on a rising medium tide. Offhore winds all day long. It got super ridiculously crowded on Tuesday, I think everyone was there for the swell that didn't come that day, there was 45-50 people (half of them kooks) spread out along on the beach. the locals here like to drop in a lot. The swell showed up on wednesday, it was solid overhead waves. Pretty fun and it wasn't crowded either. There were tons of tourists who would show up for surf lesson and they'd crowd the inside. The guys outside weren't much better. Just like El Salvador the ratio of experienced guys to kooks was like 1.5:1.

The hostel I stayed at sucked. You can't beat if for location though , cuz it was literally on the beach, ten feet from the high tide line. But it was "rustic" to put it optimistically. Water was scarce for the showers and toilets, the kitchen closed around 4:30pm, there were lots of bugs, and rats ate my bread (I had to hang it like i was in bear country). The food was expensive as well. It was generally a dump.

But again, the location couldn't be beat. There were lightning storms the first two nights i was there, beach bonfires the second night and fireflies all around. The people there were cool, we would chill out on the porch and drink and they'd smoke a lot of pot.

on the third night, i was totally alone on the deserted beach. The owners of the hostel left, the other backpackers left, there are no other hotels or houses nearby. It was just me. It was spooky but also a really cool feeling to be so isolated. I got stoned drinking warm rum with even warmer coke. I sat on my porch in the moon lit dark and stared out at nothing all night long.

at nights, it would storm and the rain falling on my tin roof would wake me up even with earplugs, it was so loud.

I had lots of fun though, I spent 4 nights there.

Me staring at the waves from my porch. I would sit and stare for hours, waiting for the tide to be right to go out. I think the best thing to do would be to stay at the hostel only if the medium rising tide is in the early morning, that way you'd be the first one in the water every morning, you can avoid the local day trippers and the surf camp groups. I am tired of having to run around trying to find a bodyboard rental place that doesn't carry one piece of water logged shit with one size small fin. I missed half a day because I had to go back into town to get a real bodyboard and fins, luckily I found a place that rented a good board with fins and rashguard for 8 bucks a day. The board I chose was a big one, I figured I needed the speed. It was huge, probably a 43, which is an inch bigger than anything I've ever ridden before*.



view of the bay maderas is in, and my rum and coke.

view of the bay and the taco stand next door

sunset at maderas

that is the hostel I I stayed at. Notice that ther is nothing else nearby. the closest hostel-hotel was probably a 15 minute walk up the hill or down the beach.

set wave at Maderas on Wednesday. kooks in the inside. I was having a good time on Wednesday until my leash broke, I guess I was charging it too hard. Actually, I was super stoned and making lots of stupid wave choices, I purposely air dropped late on a closeout left and I got blown up and my leash just tore. I was kind of pissed at first because I thought I would have to pay the rental place for the leash, but when I got back to San Juan Del Sur, I bought some super glue and glued the ripped out part of the leash back into the swivel mount and they didn't notice. So I got away with that (good thing for my budget). I didn't stay out too much longer after my leash broke cuz I got tired of swimming after it everytime I lost it.




*That's what she said.

maderas nicaragua

gonna be bodyboarding in Maderas nicaragua for a few days. no internet, not much electricity for that matter, so I won't be updating for a while.

Mission Accomplished

I came to Central America to "find myself" and I did it. I found him, he was riding a motorcycle around a volcanic island in Nicaragua. He was having entirely too much fun.

In the Footsteps of Che

I rented a motorcycle in Moyogalpa in Ometepe and I toured around the island all day. It was ridiculously fun. This ranks in the top 3 experiences so far in my trip along with Semuc Champey and El Salvador. I was a little skeptical about my ability to ride the dirt bike at first, it was kind of big and I was half tip-toeing when at a standstill. But I said "fuck it" and told myself that I am technically licensed to ride a motorcycle (and I did take that class with John years ago). It took me all of 5 seconds to learn to ride that thing.

I rode around to several scenic attractions that was recommended to me by the hostel staff. I went to a Punta Jesus Maria, I was not impressed, it's supposed to be a good spot for sunsets. Then I went to Chaco Verde, and I was very impressed with the lagoon and smooth hiking trails there. See pics below:

Then I got "lost". The island is so unexpectedly small and the signs are so random that I missed a turnoff and had to circle back for it. I continued passed a spot called The Eye Of The Water, a spring fed pool formed by two dams, that I was going to see but didn't have time for on my way back. I had decided at this point to check out this hostel, Finca Magdalena, I was going to stay at in a village called Balgue. It is an organic farm at the base of Madera volcano. There is a trailhead right at the hostel and it's a farm so you can hike and see and do cool farm stuff and there are supposed to be lots petroglyphs there as well. I was planning on staying there later in the week so I wanted to check it out on this motorcycle trip. What I didn't expect was the smooth paved road turning into an offroad adventure, luckily I opted for the dirtbike instead of the moped. I was rambling through dirt/gravel/boulder roads. I didn't have any problems, was having ridiculous good time in fact, until I almost reached the Finca Magdalena. There was this short but steep boulder strewn hill, that I stalled on half way up. I couldn't push the bike up and was having a hard time rolling it back down. I dropped the bike probably 3 or 4 times. I was stuck at teh bottom until a kind stranger came along, saw my trouble and rode it up for me. Thank god for kind people. besides that, I had no problems with managing the bike.

I arrived at Finca Magdalena and although it was beautiful, I decided I didn't need to stay there. I will be doing plenty of farm stuff in costa rica anyway and i'm not interested in a 5-10 hour hike up the side of the volcano regardless of how nice the view is at the top. So I had a Fresca and rested (motorcycle riding is exhausting, especially when you keep dropping the bike and are trying to push it up a rocky hill). Then started back to Moyogalpa.

On my way back, I saw some monkeys, I think they were howler monkeys. I was super close to them, probably within 10 feet. So, that was another reason I didn't need to do the volcano hikes (the monkeys were something the guides really try to sell you on for the hiking tours). I also stopped a lot and took lots of pictures of the land on my way back. such as:

Locals playing baseball and soccer in the evening.

the monkeys.

Me taking a rest break on a side road. The only thing I remembered from the motorcycle class I took all those years ago was to wear protective clothing and sunscreen and drink lots of water. That and "monster head turns". The road here is so fun for motorcycle riding. its smooth and paved and mostly straightaways and there is virtually no other traffic on the road. You just cruise.



setting sun on an Ometepe field

I had two spiritual epiphanies during my bike ride:

1. I am buying a motorcycle when I get home.

2. My next backpacking trip is going to be a motorcycle tour, maybe in South America a la Che Guevarra.

Isle de Ometepe

This is a picture of the island, the volcano on the left is Concepcion, the bigger active one. the one on the right is the inactive smaller Maderas volcano.

This picture of the volcano is actually of a plume that erupted during my ferry ride over to the island.



I've seen some weird hostel pets like rabbits and turtles and parrots along with the obvious dogs and cats, but I was surprised by this deer licking me.

Here comes the hot steppers

I'm a lyrical gangster
word'er up, still living like dat
No No we don't die, yes we multiply
Still living like that

Remembert that one? that was a good one. Last song I would have expected to hear in Ometepe.


But for the last few days, I've been feeling this song from one of my all time favorite bands, punk or otherwise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgXJt5gfvgY

Pics of Volcano surfing and update

picture of me getting ready to surf down the volcano yesterday, hawaiian style.



A view of the area from the top of the crater



for scale, try to find the little figures in orange on the volcano

The speed record for the volcano run was 80Kph. that's 50 miles an hour down an approximately 45 degree slope on a little wooden plank. Everyone sat down on their boards but I wanted to do it hawaiian style so I stood up and surfed down it. sitting down you go a little faster but you have to wear goggles for the dust and the goggles are so old and scratched you can't see anything. Standing up you don't need the goggles and can see everything, plus I liked the surf/skate vibe of standing up. O fcourse, you don't go anywhere near 50 mph but it was still really fun.

Right now I am in Isle de Ometepe. It is an island in the Lake of Managua in Nicaragua that is made up of two volcanoes, one active one not. It is suppose to be really beautiful hiking and adventure touring and just generally nice and laidback. Today was a long travel day and I arrived late into town so I didn't get to see anything yet.

Luckily, I arrived during this town's saint festival. There's going to be music, dancing, drinking, bullriding and chicken fighting supposedly. Hopefully i can go to a chicken fight and make up for the one I missed in Leon. Apparently I've been living a day ahead for a long time now. I thought it was Friday, but it is only thursday.

Today I caught a cab in Leon to the bus terminal, a shuttle south to Managua (managua is a real shithole), taxi in managua, 2nd class busliner to Rivas, taxi in Rivas to San Jorge, San Jorge ferry to Isle de Ometepe. all in all about a 6 hour journey.

I was outside having a smoke and enjoying the cool night air when a distraught young man crying and banging his head and shouting "todo basura" (it's all trash) walked by. He was red eyed and leaking snot. I felt bad for him but I also wondered if he was working a con on me. He sat down next to me and starting talking and gesticulating, I told him I didn't speak spanish but he kept talking and I guess he got his phone and other things stolen while drunk. I think girls were involved. There wasn't much i could do for him so I offered him a smoke. He took it. after he finished that he borrowed my lighter to smoke a bowl (of marijuana). then he offered to buy me a beer. So I'm not too sure why he was so upset if he still had pot and money for beer.

Leon Guatemala: July 22, 2010

went surfing today. Down a volcano. It was pretty cool. I was on a wooden board sliding down the black ash slope of an active volcano, when all of a sudden the volcano exploded! I was racing down at 80 or 90 miles an hour trying to outrun the lava avalanche. The eruption had awoken an ancient dragon as well and it was flying down chasing after our tour group. The girl in front of me fell and so as I raced past her I swept her up into my arms. She told me she was a princess from a line of ancient Mayan kings and queens and that her presence had awoken the volcano and that the dragon was chasing after her to kill her and take back the golden Chalice of Eternal Life she carried on a string around her neck. She showed it to me and it looked like a cheap knock off you get on the streets, I didn't say that of course, it'd be rude to insult her chalice and there were more pressing issues at hand anyway. So with the princess in my right arm and holding the chalice in my left, we raced down the mountain on a wooden plank when all of sudden a group of banditos sprang up from the bushes and started shooting at us and demanding our ATM cards and cameras! I was like "WTF?!" Luckily I had just bought a gun from a kid at the volcano park entrance for $USD 3.50 so I was able to defend myself. I only had 8 bullets and there were ten banditos, but I killed 4 of them with one bullet so I had three shots left over for the angry dragon that was still chasing us. We were still traveling at tremendous speeds down the slope of the volcano and the lava was still coming, but I was able to put a bullet right in the lower left chest of the dragon where I saw it had a weakspot from a missing scale. I killed the dragon and had two bullets leftover so I shot a couple of victory shots into the air.

we came to a slow stop at the bottom and she was about to passionately kiss me when, ironically, those two victory shots I fired into the air came back down and killed the princess, and broke the Chalice of Eternal Life in my hand. That's a bummer, but it was a cool experience and it makes a good story, i guess. I'll post pics of all this later.

chicken bus poetry

the chicken buses here all have really poetic little phrases painted onto the interior, some of my favorites so far:

Calle pero elegante

Mis mejores momentos fueron contigo

donde hubo fuego cenizas quedan

Small world

if theres one thing i learned on this trip, is that it is a small world. In the Papaya Lodge I was staying at in El Tunco, I met a Swedish girl named Kola. She lived by Tongs. Tongs the surf spot. Tongs right next to Waikiki. Tongs next to Kapiolani Park, Tongs, a 10 minute walk from my house. She was in El Savlador because she had to leave the states so she could get her visa renewed and go back into hawaii again.

another story about this small world of ours: I was in a shuttle on my way to Flores/Tikal with these three guys. two of them were from london and there was anothe girl on the shuttle from london as well. they started talking and they found out that she used to live on the same street as they did. and apparently, the guys had a friend who had a cat that ran away. Turns out, this girl (they never met before) took that cat in and adopted it. How crazy is that? strangers from london discovering a connection because of a cat on a shuttle bus in the middle of Guatemala.


One of the best part of hostel living is the scantily clad sweaty sleeping female bodies, you can see everything.

Leon, Nicaragua

The bus dropped me off at Leon in front of these two gas stations at 9pm at night. I bought a pastry, asked the security where the hell i was and then took a cab (which I hate doing at night with all my belongings on me) to my desired hostel. I found out that the two hostels I wanted to stay at were full, so I wandered around town in the rain at night to two other hostel which were also full. i finally find one that had space. i had been up for about 16 hours and I felt terrible when i finally got into bed. I realized later that i was sick. I spent that night, the next day and the next night in bed. totally comatose. I felt good enough to get out of that hostel by the second day, I wanted out of there cuz they had no food or water or even toilet paper in that place. Luckily I was only sick for for those two nights. ALthough I wish I hadn't gotten sick, I am thankful it wasn't worse. I don't know what it was that made me sick. it could have been that filthy water at El Tunco, something I ate, the exhaustion from all the bodyboarding and poor sleep or just some bug i caught.

If I hadn't gotten sick I might have been able to make it to the weekly Sunday Chicken fight I heard about from a guy named Mike (whom I had met at El Tunco and is at Leon now). Normally I don't approve of those kinds of things, but i'd do it for the experience.

Leaving El Tunco

El Tunco is probably the one place I didn't want to leave. I felt sad having to leave. I don't know why, maybe it was the waves, the cool peope there, the cheap food, the beach vibe, i don't know.

But at least the 8.5 hour bus ride to Leon was great. it was one of those morale boosting things. It was worth every dollar of the $51 bucks i paid. i rode a Kind Quality bus, there were seven other people on the bus so I had rows of seats to myself. The bus served two sandwhich "meals", two snacks with coffee, there was too-cold air conditioning, there were movies (i watched Taken with Liam Neeson and Panic Room and two other movies i didn't pay attention to) and a bathroom on the bus. It was heavenly compared to 8 hour shuttle rides stuck in the seat between the driver and passenger seat.

And the border crossings were ridiculous. The border officials come to you inside the bus and check your passport. You never have to leave the bus. It was luxurious.

El Tunco:friday

I mentioned to some people at the hostel that at the pier in La Libertad you could get fresh stingray (and baby hammerhead sharkts). Shandra jokingly suggested we get some and cook it up at the hostel. Anna took that seriously and decided to do it. So a big group of us went down to La Libertad and went to the pier and bought sting ray and red snapper, we also went into town to buy some other ingredients. then we went back to the hostel and we cooked it up and had a stingray feast.

Picture of us cooking in the hostel kitchen

picture of the table where you can get your fish cleaned and filleted at the fish market.

one of the merchants suggested we cut the stingray up into small pieces and cook it with egg whites, salt, pepper and lime juice and cilantro. which is what we did. It was surprisingly good. I was vey skeptical at first. I was only going to have one or two bites, i thought it was going to taste really gross or fishy but it was actually quite good. it had a really light, delicate fishy taste. I think it was better than the red snapper we had, the snapper might have been a bit old.

us enjoying our stingray and red snapper and guacamole and chips dinner.

chicken bus ride to La Libertard? 25 cents.

Body board rental with fins? 8 dollars a day.

roast chicken with rice & salad? 3 dollars.

Over the counter Diazepam at any pharmacy for one dollar a pill? Priceless.

El Tunco: Friday

I woke up at 6am this morning to surf, but it looked really shitty. the tide was high and it just looked small and mushy everywhere, so I decied to catch a chicken bus back to la Libertad (25 cents) and check out Punta Roca. I think it was the right call. it was a head high at the peak but still fun. That spot definietly has potential. there are three seperate little breaks, Punta Roca proper and two smaller inside breaks in the bay. on teh right swell I can see that wave lining up anywhere bewteen 200-300 yards.

Theres not much to do in El Tunco in the eveings, so luckily I've been watching movies at this bar/restaurant called Al Suave. I watched Sherlock Holmes and Inglourious Basterds, the past couple nights. and listened to pink floyd's The Wall. weird.

El Tunco: Crossroads

between the morning and evening sessions, i've been spending my days sitting in my hammock reading a book ( i picked it up just to kill a little time but I got sucked into it, it´s a bit of a modern-lit chick flick type of thing). But as I was sitting in my hammock today, I realized there was a young boy in the rocky river bank below me, he was fishing with string and hook. I watched him for a while and was deeply affected. He seemed so happy with the four guppy catfish looking things he caught. none of them were longer than my hand.

after that disturbing reminder of the poverty I was joyriding through, I had lunch. At lunch there was a stray dog that latched on to me and gave me puppy eyes the whole time I was eating. In the end, I gave him the chicken skin from my grilled chicken.

Between the book i was reading, the boy fishing for food, the dog begging for food, the Travel & Leisure magazine I read (which highlights the different dimensions the poor and rich live in) and the wad of greenbacks in my pocket I felt like I was at a crossroads. although there were lots of potentially paradigm shifting thoughts swirling in my head, they refused to articulate themselves as epiphany.

El Tunco: Wednesday

all these pictures are of Sunzal. except for the dog with his nose in the bag of chips.

I was able to rent a bodyboard (with fins!) for USD$8 a day here, I was so happy and excited about that. I woke up around 6am and went out to Sunzal. The surf spot of El Tunco is disgusting. it's a river mouth break. They are all river mouth breaks actually, there are river everywhere here. But the water in front of El Tunco is so nasty. It's a murky brown water with bits of plastic and shit floating in it i wanted nothing to do with that, plus it's a shitty looking wave, closeout, short rides, choppy etc.... there were better looking waves further left and I actually paddled all the way out there, but when I looked towards the shore I saw in big giant spray painted letters "Only Locals". I decided to play it safe and paddle to a different spot. I found out later that gringos surf there all the time.

It was pretty good at Sunzal. it's kind of a soft wave, mostly a right, you can definitely catch lefts but you get stuck on the inside with no channel if you go left. I caught one left and was surprised to find myself deep in a barrel, I was not expecting it. I was so surprised I lost my board. I got blown up in the barrel and the bicep leash went straight off my arm. You have to catch it in the mornings when the waves are either really light or offshore and there are less people as well.

Surfer Mode: Engaged

I arrived in El Tunco and I liked what I saw. I am in slippers and boardshorts and shirtless and sitting in around in hammocks all day. More pics and posts to come. Epic posts to come.

La Libertad, El Salvador

What a shithole. La Libertad the city, La Libertad the beach and the hostel Im staying at. The hostel is awful and full of mosquitoes, luckily I had my mosquito net so I McGyvered up my bed. I knew there was a reason I was dragging that net around central america.



I walked around trying to get a bodyboard (i found only one in this entire shithole city that is supposed to be a surf mecca) and ended up following a kid who took me to this sketchy shanty town right past town and in front of Punta Roca. He showed me this ridiculous board that was so old and water logged it weighed more than a longboard. The kids proudly pointed out the plastic they stuck into the bottom of the board as makeshift fins. I tried not to laugh and told them I would come back if I decided I needed it. The pic below of the yellow board is of the board they tried to sell me. they were in teh water while i was eating lunch.

I checked out Punta Roca and it looked like it had potential. the winds were on shore, but it looked like it could line up really nicely (a la J-Bay) on the right swell and wind direction. I was planning on buying a board this morning and going out if it looked good but I couldnt wake up in time for the morning glass, when I did get up the winds were already mucking up the wave. The water in the bay is disgusting, I dont want to know what kind of shit gets thrown in the rivers upstream. the water is brownish with lots of little pieces of plastic trash floating in it, the shore is all black boulders. But Im pretty sure the current pushes it all away from Punta Roca.

I am going to go to El Tunco in a couple of hours, I heard there are lots of boards for rent and sale there as well as good waves as well as good hotels. I will probably stop by Libertad on my way back and I may try to surf punta roca then.