Dynargh dhe'n Blogofrob

Thursday 17th March 2011

Our general plan (always vague and never particularised in much form until three or four days prior to the present) was to avoid big cities in Central America. However the necessities of transport led to us spending time in two such cities in as many days. Our grudging acceptance of this was made all the more reluctant by the bus companies' habit of locating their terminals in the most notorious barrios of these cities.

The need to catch a very early bus meant that we were obliged to spend the night in Managua, Nicaragua's capital. The bus being at 5am, we found a hotel a couple of blocks away from the terminal, located in Barrio Martha Quesada. A sense of unease hung over us as we checked into the guesthouse, cast by the array of comments on the internet and in guidebooks about the place, all marveling at its danger and population of petty thugs ("The place is full of thieves"..."Take a taxi after dark, even if you are just traveling a couple of blocks" etc etc). After we checked in, being growled at continually by a nasty off-white little poodle sittnig in the reception, we walked through the neighbourhood looking for an internet cafe. It is low level and run down, idlers lounge in doorways staring, boarded-up shacks sit on corners and the local grocery store was covered in thick bars (like our hotel and many other buildings) with service being offered through a small aperture amid the bars, even mid-afternoon. The place did seem heavy with a silent menace - but perhaps it was just the guidebooks creating that. We were fine and had gathered enough confidence to eat at a road side diner that evening, amongst a sizzling stove and plastic chairs scattered along the pavement. That said, we were gripped with a vague terror as the security guard let us out of the gate at 4am next morning and we half-ran along two blocks of darkness to the bus station.

The bus took us to Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital - or more specifically Comayagüela, a neighbourhood on the dodgy side of the river. The Lonely Planet goes to town on how dangerous this area is, with a long piece about keeping your hands on your luggage at all times, not waring shorts or sandals (so to stand out less - it is impossible, the book says, to not stand out at all)and how the Honduran Congress was suspended because members kept getting mugged on their way home. We didn't stick around to test the accuracy of the report - only a couple of hours, including a short journey in a clapped out taxi, along shambolic streets which sit under hundreds of tangled telephone lines, and past gangs of policemen gripping semi-automatic rifles and pump action shot guns. I did think it a shame though, driving out of Tegucigalpa and looking across the hill strewn valley in which it sits, not to see more of the city - but perhaps the better side of the river.

144 - posted at 20:13:28
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Sunday 13th March 2011

San Juan Del Sur is a funny little surf town on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua. Bars with names such as 'The Iguana Bar' and 'Big Wave Dave's' crowd around the beach front. Drinking in them, one can find middle-age American women with ankle-bracelets doing their own 'Shirley Valentine' ("I said goodbye to my Australian boy this morning, so sad, the sex was incredible" - this wasn't said directly to me, but it was conveyed throughout the bar at such volume receiving the information was unavoidable). Also hanging around are similarly aged faux-hippies (think long grey beard pony-tailed tied with an elastic band) who drive around town in their Land Cruisers and HiLuxes, and I think own the bars and restaurants.

These establishments convey a eco-tourististic, carbon neutral vibe through book exchanges and passive aggressive notes in their menus ("A note on why we do not supply coffee in cardboard cups: Too many people grab a coffee and jump in their car. This is wrong" and "Apologies for the slow service, Our kitchen is a converted laundrette - we never intended to become a full-blown restaurant".) The menu responsible for this also contained book reviews in the back, by the proprietor. I vowed never to return after reading the review of Lolita. The review noted that the book's subject matter had proved controversial when it was written. "Perhaps", the review continued, "if it had been released today, it wouldn't have caused such a stir." I wonder. It's still a book about a man who marries a woman simply so he can have his way with her 12 year old daughter (who he drugs with sleeping pills). And a note about the Ponzi style book exchange operated at this and other cafes. In summary - "give us 2 books, and take one. If you don't have any books to give us you can buy one from us for US$3."

Rant over, the town was actually a relaxing place to spend a few days before we headed off to the Isla de Ometepe, an island created around two volcanoes in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. Here we stayed at a genuine eco-lodge, solar powered and complete with compost loo. The place was beautiful, and in the middle of nowhere. In the evening we stumbled down pitch black dirt tracks trying to find somewhere to eat, while marveling at the night sky, crammed full of stars. Our room was large hexagonal space, reached via a short wooden spiral staircase. Two of its six sides were completely open to the elements - no walls - and every night, smothered in DEET and under a tightly fitted mosquito net, we fell asleep to the weird and exotic sounds of the surrounding jungle. On the first night a loud screech in the middle of the night kept George awake in terror of vampires until morning. The screech didn't bother me. However the prospect of going to the loo in the middle of the night did. The compost loo was down the spiral staircase, out into the night and down to a hut a few metres away. As George had found a tarantula nestling in the area at the bottom of the stairs, I was reluctant to make the journey in the night. Consequently, I made my way to one of the open sides of our room, and relieved myself into the dark jungle. I think I can say it was the first time, and probably the last, that I have ever urinated out of a hotel window.

The island was lovely. We hiked around one of the volcanoes, under grunting howler monkeys, swam in a spring water pool, and canoed through wetland looking (in vain) for Cayman, before making our reluctant departure.

Volcano Concepcion

143 - posted at 20:21:08
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Wednesday 9th March 2011

Having been gone from Costa Rica for a few days, when I look back on it, I think of beautiful forested mountains, sun-scorched dusty streets, tough sabanero cowboys, and borderline dysentery.

It was sad to leave Argentina. George found it so hard to let go that she continued to attempt to spend Argentinian currency in Costa Rican establishments. However, the sun was shining when we landed in San Jose. We left that city straight away, and headed north, towards the cloud forests of Monteverde. The long drive to San Elena (the small main town in the area)came after the long flight from Buenos Aires via Lima, so it was lovely to arrive at our hotel, be shown to our room, a small cabin on the edge of the jungle, and watch the glow worms floating around in the dark outside.

"Eco-tourism" is big in Costa Rica, and particularly in Monteverde. I'm not sure exactly what Eco tourism is, but it always seems to involve zip-lining. And so it did here. The following morning we found ourselves in an eco theme park, occupying several thousand acres of the cloud forest. Our ticket first entitled us to walk a trail, a concreted path around part of the forest, occasionally interrupted by narrow footbridges, which took you over the forest at the top of the canopy. The forest itself was beautiful - the giant trees, dripping in moss, continued unceasing into the distance, the clouds breezed though, every now and again deigning to rain on us. But we wanted to see some animals - a couple of monkeys maybe, or one of those funny guinea pig things. Unfortunately, there wasn't a chance of this, owing mainly to the gangs of tourists who march up and down the path very loudly discussing the price of fish. Any wild creature has long since scarpered - even, I noticed, the birds.

In the afternoon came the inevitable zip line. A series of these send you speeding through and over the trees, giving you (if you're able to concentrate at such speed) amazing views of the forest. This was good fun - especially the 1km long line that George and I did in tandem over a huge valley - but it was tarnished by the fact that we were in a group of around 25 people, and spent much of the time sitting around waiting. On leaving the Eco theme park, we resolved to visit the nature reserve proper the following day, in order to avoid the other tourists and walk a proper trail.

Sadly our resolution did not take into account the painful and tenacious stomach bug with which I was struck down that evening. By morning, I had a fever. I made it with George to the nature reserve, but about 20 minutes into our walk I resolved to turn back, as I was feeling uncommonly cold, my teeth were chattering and my hands had turned blue. This was not before we spied a giant tarantula by the side of the path, all legs and hair. George carried on for another 7km or so, and said she had a lovely walk.

On our last night in Costa Rica, we found ourselves, after a day traveling north, in a town called Liberia. I was still suffering vile complications from the bug, and it was with reluctance that I stumbled out of our hotel behind George, in order to find some supper. But I'm glad I did. We got to the main street to find a huge festival underway, apparently celebrating the proud sabanero culture of Guanacaste, of which Liberia is the capital. The street was packed, in either direction as far as i could see, with hundreds of cowboys and girls on top of hundreds of very excitable horses, madly stamping their hooves up and town. I had the impression they were weirdly dancing to the music which blared from brass bands sat in the back of pick up trucks, slowly motoring between the horses. It was a spectacular sight.

Sabanero

142 - posted at 20:57:00
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Saturday 5th March 2011

Our return to Buenos Aires might only have been distinguished by more steak, shopping, a severe stomach bug for George and severer haircut for me, had it not been for George's insistence that we do something Polo related, whether that be watching or playing it. Apparently the gauchos all took to the sport with enthusiasm when it was introduced by British settlers in the 19th Century. I hadn't really appreciated the game´s popularity in Argentina before. Possibly that's because my connection with Polo is limited to ill-advised use of a Ralph Lauren aftershave aged 17.

There were no matches to watch that weekend, so we ended up traveling to a peaceful estancia outside the city for a lesson. We were in the company of two middle-aged American ladies and a couple of young London City lawyers. Apart from George, none of us had really ridden a horse at all. Naturally, this meant she was in her element.

Our teacher was Fernando, a slightly peculiar Argentinian, who insisted on warming up his horse before starting the lesson. This consisted of us having to watch him gallop back and forth up the Polo pitch, wresting the horse this way and that, before heading back towards us at full pelt and making the horse jump to a stop. I note that none of our horses required warming up.

George took to the game immediately, and was soon cantering up and down the pitch, knocking forward the ball with confidence. The rest of us found it rather less easy to master, our horses wandering around in disarray, mallets swinging chaotically. For me, the difficulty may have been caused by Fernando´s insistence that Polo can not be played left-handed. This put me at a bit of a disadvantage, something that Fernando failed to appreciate, telling me not to "invent things" when I complained to him that I was finding the mallet grip unusual.

However, I think my main problem was the bloody horse I was sat on. The trouble started when I tried to turn him in a particular direction. He simply refused - if I wanted to go right, I would shift my weight to the right, while kicking him with my left leg. In contemptuous response, he would head left. I would stubbornly persist with my "right command" pulling madly at the rein, with no consequence whatsoever. This was nothing however with the trick he decided to start pulling later in the day: stopping dead and refusing to move. I think I could have got into the Polo thing, had I not been sat on a stationary horse, a couple of metres away from the action, frantically and vainly hammering my legs up and down like an angry girl from a Thelwell cartoon.

141 - posted at 22:09:20
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Sunday 27th February 2011

We took yet another overnight bus to the north-east corner of the country. On a map, Puerto Iguazo is tucked into Argentina in a way that suggests that it's trying to squeeze through into Brazil and Paraguay.

Moonraker conveniently illustrates our reason for visiting the town. In that often underrated classic, Roger Moore, at the helm of a large white speeboat, idles along a river in the depths of the Amazonian rainforest. Without warning, a handful of smaller boats emerge behind him. Henchmen on board open fire and a chase ensues along the river. Perhaps the most threatening hazard to Rog´s afternoon cruise is posed by the boat containing Jaws - or so he thinks. Suddenly we become aware of an enormous waterfall, towards which Roger´s boat is speeding. With a barely perceptible twitch of his eyebrow, he pulls a lever, and ascends from the water on a glider, while his boat crashes over the falls. Jaws, following close behind, wrenches the wheel of his boat in an attempt to avoid the cascade. In his panic, he has once again underestimated his super-human strength: the wheel comes off in his hands, and he looks at it, stupefied, as he disappears into the foaming water.

The waterfalls concerned are the Iguazu falls, actually a series of huge and violent curtains of water that crash down with such force that, at the highest point, "the Devil´s Throat" you have no chance of seeing the river below. We visited this point, via a long walkway that takes tourists over the strangely placid Rio Iguazu. The noise and spray is almost overwhelming, the natural force on show stunning.

The falls are in the middle of a National Park, in which we spent a couple of days. We visited other parts of the falls themselves, including taking a mad boat ride along the rapids on the lower part of the river and under fierce barrages of water. It was like entering a flash storm: the weather is bright and dry, suddenly the rain drums on your face and the boat whirls around in the spume. Of course we got soaked. We also took an early morning walk along a trail in the rain forest, and were excited to spot huge spiders on webs set across the path, a gang of coatis scurrying through the forest, and best of all, a long snake that we caught sunbathing on the trail, before making its escape up a tree. Our excitement at seeing the coatis lessened somewhat when we discovered that they are ubiquitous through the National Park, and can be found hanging out at most restaurant spots, searching for scraps, nosing around in people´s bags, even climbing up the back of occupied chairs. The trees above were often frequented by Capuchin monkeys and toucans.

Puerto Iguazu is about 20 km from the National Park, and we stayed in a hostel about 5 km out of town. It had a great swimming pool out the front, and there was no problem with our room. However George and I marvelled slightly at some of the other guests, particularly the young men self-consciously swaggering around as if it was their first week at university. I was particularly amused/infuriated by one chap who constantly wore a woolly hat. This in a place so hot and humid that you jumped in the pool to dry off and drank coffee to cool down. Being a grumpy old man in hostels is a benefit of staying in them that I didn´t foresee, but am enjoying.

140 - posted at 22:50:29
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