17th May 2010, Granada, Nicaragua

Hello from Ometepe, a volcanic island (made by two volcanoes) in Lago de Nicaragua. We’ve not covered as many miles since the last blog but nonetheless we’ve been pretty busy. After Managua, we caught the micro-bus to San Marcos. Micro-Bus as well offering cheap travel around the country seem to be in a perpetual attempt to break the Guinness world record for squeezing as many people into a small space as possible. Even when I thought the bus was about to burst there was a guy hanging out the window whistling and shouting incoherently, before dragging more people and their bags, children, chickens etc. into the already jam-packed space. The Spanish school was really nice, a lovely building and very friendly, welcoming people. We settled in straight away and took a tour of the gardens, we here Ulrike found monkeys which she bribed into friendship with daily offering of fresh mangos and bananas. We were supposed to be staying with a family in the town of San Juan, 15 mins down the road but their son had died the day before so needless to say they weren’t in the mood for guests, so after a night at the hotel we moved in with another family in the same town. They was also very nice and despite the language barrier we got on pretty well through a combination of watching lazytown and teaching the local girls gymnastics (well Ulrike did). The Spanish lessons were also very good, Ulrike and I got our own teacher and after a couple of hours we were almost fluent, well we could say a couple of sentences and count to 20. At least in the beginning I found Spanish easier than German as it shares a much more similar grammar structure with English and a lot of the words are the close but just end in an “o” (ie. rapido = fast). In the second week I even managed to give a lecture on nuclear energy, nuclear weapons and MAD for our teacher in Spanish, with quite a lot of diagrams and a little Spanglish though. We had signed up for the volunteer program at the Spanish school, which meant that when we were not in class we were helping out with the various programs they had going on. First of all we missed the chance to go to a local school and read with the children, in Spanish, as it was raining, which was probably for the best, for the children. Then Ulrike went to work on the organic farm where as well as general carrying, planting, watering etc. she was in charge of translating the information on the seed packets for the guys that worked there. I went to work with the handy man/builder that the school employs. In the two week we kept busy designing a new roof and patio for a local children school (unfortunately I wasn’t there long enough to help out with the build), building a bird bath for the parrots and toucans that lived at the school, chopping down trees for building new lodges at the school and designing/building some new shelves for the school from locally grown materials. It was quite different to the building work I’ve done back home and we were both able to teach each other some new techniques and ways of doing things, also it was the only time I’ve been to the local hardware shop and ended up carrying big planks of wood on my shoulders the two miles home, along a busy and very steep road, all good fun.

After the Spanish school we went to stay with one of Ulrike’s friend in Managua her huge house with a swimming pool, it was a bit of a change of scenery after our homestay and it was difficult adjusting but after not too long we were lazing next to the pool with a G&T or enjoying air-conditioning and en-suite facilities. After a short time we had to turn our backs on the lap of luxury as we headed for the Caribbean, or more precisely Little Corn Island. The plane to take us there was our first surprise, it looked a bit like an old bus with a sharpened nose and wings, and the obese pilot had the climb through the passenger cabin the reach the cockpit. Anyway, after a stop-over in Bluefields we reached Big Corn Island without a problem. I say “Big” Corn Island, but the place was barely big enough to host the rather short runway, however compared to it’s little brother it was a colossus. To get from Big to Little Corn Island required taking an hour long boat trip. We had been warned it could be a little wet crossing but the sky was clear and so we skipped merrily onto the boat without a care in the world. However, as we soon learnt it wasn’t the water from the heavens that we should have been concerned about. For most of the whole hour crossing we were heading into waves several metres high in a boat that wouldn’t have looked out of place punting along the canals of Venice. Needless to say we got thrown around a little, somewhat like being on rollercoaster with a life vest. Every time we plunged back towards the ocean a fresh wave of spray would shoot over the boat, but sometimes (most of the time) not quite making it all the way over the boat. At one point after I got hot hit by a small amount of spray and got my first taste of saltwater I looked over to the other side of the boat to complain to Ulrike. However, as I looked over I could see the now completely soaked Ulrike with water dripping from her chin and nose, so needless to say, I decided to keep my mouth shut. Once we got to Little Corn it was nice and warm and with the sea breeze we soon dried off. The first thing that struck us about the island is that there were no roads, hence no vehicles and the island was pretty small, you can literally walk from any place on the island to any other in 20 minutes or less. We lugged our things through the island and found a nice place on the windward side, a small hut just a couple of metres from the sea. The water was lovely and warm, the warm was cool and the whole place very chilled out. We spent the first day walking round and found a nice deserted beach at the north end of the island where we spent most of the day. After that we weren’t able to explore much further as due to either a virus or food poisoning we weren’t able to move further than 10m away from our toilet, which wasn’t so bad as we were still able to enjoy the beach and the sea.. After we’d removed a little we travelled back to the mainland where we went to Granada via a town called Masaya, known for its artisans. In Masaya we bought a hammock, Ulrike’s new pastime, but god knows what we’re going to do with it once we get back to Berlin. After that it was Granada where we spent a couple of days pottering around looking at the old colonial building and drinking lots of fresh fruit smoothies (which so far we’ve held down), next stop Ometepe for some hiking up volcanoes… To be continued, hopefully.

Hola Muchachos. Wie ihr seht, hat die Spanischsprachschule wirklich geholfen und wir koennen jetzt fliessend Spanisch (grins). Die Sprachschule war wirklich nett. Wunderschoen gelegen, in einem riesigen Garten um Haengematten ueberall plus einem halben Zoo an Tieren, da die Besitzerin alle moerglichen streunenden und heimatlose Tiere aufnimmt; inclusive sieben Hunden, fuenf Katzen, vier Affe, Papageien, Tukane, Huehner, Truthaenhne etc. Wir hatten also immer mindestens einen Hund der es sich in unserem Klassenzimmer bequem machte. Robert und ich hatten Unterricht zusammen. Zwei Stunden Grammatik und zwei Stunden Konversation, 5 Tage die Woche fuer 2 Wochen. Also ein bisschen Spanisch-Basiswissen haben wir jetzt, was auch wirklich noetig ist, da hier fast keiner Englisch spricht, auch nicht in den Touristencentren. Neben der Sprachschule haben wir bei einer lokalen Gastfamilie gewohnt. War wirklich interessant zu sehen, wir hier gelebt wird, ohne fliessend Wasser und mit vier Generationen unter einem Dach. Es gibt genug Wasser in Nicaragua, die Wasserleitungen funktionieren nur nicht, so dass staendig Wasser in Eimern herangebracht warden muss. Ist schon eine Umstellung, wenn man fragen muss, ob Wasser zum Duschen da ist. Die Familie war super nett, auch wenn sich die Unterhaltung doch auf ein Minimum beschraenkte. Nur der Familienhund “el Pupi” mochte uns bis zum Schluss nicht. Vormittags haben Robert und ich Freiwilligenarbeit geleistet. Robert hat den Handwerkern an der Sprachschule geholfen Regale zu bauen und ich war jeden Tag im Obst- und Gemuesegarten der Schule beschaeftigt. Unkrautjaehten, Gemuese und Obst seen, Waessern und was noch so anfaellt. War super interessan, insbesondere da meine Gartenfaehigkeiten sich bis dahin auf einen Balkon mit einer Tomatenpflanze beschraenkten. Aber ich glaube doch nicht, dass ich jetzt aufs Land ziehe. Einen Morgen haben Robert und ich geholfen das Wasser in der Gegend gegen die Muecke die Dengue-Fieber uebertraegt zu schuetzen. Einen Tag bevor wir an in der Sprachschule ankamen, ist ein Junge im Dorf an Dengue gestorben. Sehr traurig. Aber die Schule war nicht nur Arbeit. Am Wochenende ging es an einen Vulkansee mit Badewasser-warmem Wasser und wunderschoenem Blick auf die Kraterwaende plus Bruellaffen in der Ferne. Unter der Woche ging es zum aktiven Vulkan Masaya und in eine Hoehle voller Fledermaeuse. Wunderschoen und interessant.
Nach zwei Wochen Spanisch haben wir dann den Bus zurueck nach Managua genommen um eine Freundin aus Berlin zu treffen, die mit ihrem Ehemann seit zwei Jahren in Managua lebt. Wir haben fuer ein paar Tage in ihrem wundervollen Haus gewohnen, mit Swimmingpool, und unserem Gehirn eine Pause vom Lernen gegoennt. Astrid und Christopher haben uns die versteckten Ecken von Managua gezeigt, inklusive einer Besichtigung und Fuehrung durch das beeindruckenden Nationaltheater (Astrid, Christopher, vielen dank fuer alles und wir melden und definitive wegen des Waffelrezepts). Nach vier Tagen wunderbarem Nichtstun ging es dann fuer uns weiter auf die Corn Islands. Ein kleines, altes und etwas angeschlagenes Flugzeug brachte uns auf die kleine Karibikinsel von wo es mit einem Boot auf die noch kleinere Insel Little Corn Island ging. Eine Insel direkt aus einem karibischen Traum, um die man in einer Stunde problemlos rumlaufen kann. Wir haben eine suesse kleine Huette direkt am Strand gefunden wo wir die Zeit am Strand und in der Haengematter verstreichen liessen. Leider hat erst mich und dann Robert ein kleiner Virus ausser gefaecht gesetzt, aber es gibt bestimmt schlimmere Orte um krank zu sein. Die fuenf Tage auf der Insel sind viel zu schnell vorbei gegangen und am Sonnabend ging es bereits zurueck nach Managua und dann mit dem Bus ins 40 Minuten entfernet Masaya. Beruehmt fuer Handwerkskunst und handgemachte Haengematten. Das ganze Entspannen in Haebgematten hat mich irgendwie suechtig gemacht uns jetzt haben wir auch eine Haengematte, die hoffentlich auf unseren Balkon past. Von Masaya dauerte es dann nochmal etw 40 Minuten bis wir in Granada waren. Einer wunderschoenen, alten Kolonialstadt mit suessen, einladenden Restaurants, Kirchen an jeder Ecke und einer schattigen Plaza . Genau wir man sich Zentrlalamerika vorstellt. Morgen geht es weiter Richtung Sueden, bis wir irgendwann Costa Rica und dann Panama erreichen. Von dort dann mehr. Adios Muchachos.