The trip to Nicaragua!

March 10, 2011
Well after a 1 hour ferry ride, 4 hour bus ride, a night in San Pedro Sula, then a 13 hour bus ride we finally made it to....Leon. We were originally going to head all the way to Grenada today but after joining up with a group of travelers and enduring more than enough time in that freezing cold stinkin bus we decided Leon it would be. Its supposed to be Grenada's rival city. We formed a nice little group of 9 when we all got on the ferry from Utila. Made up of 5 Canadians, an Israeli fella, an English lass, a Swiss girl and a girl from the Netherlands. Three out of the five of us Canadians are of the Quebecois variety but thankfully forgive our uni-lingualness and speak mostly English in the group. I do however enjoy the ocasional exclamation of "tabernack!". We make quite the formidable group. We took every last dorm room here at the Bigfoot Hostel. We just got back from an authentic Nicaraguan buffet! I couldn't tell you the name of anything that we ate but it was all delicious. Much better than last night's beleada run. We were warned that walking anywhere in San Pedro Sula was not advised as it the murder capital of Central America. We figured a couple thugs wouldn't mess with our crew so we went 2 blocks to find some food. The first thing we found was a fast food style beleada place. A beleada is a tortilla with beans and rice and egg and whatever other type of mixture you want in it. Chad's was stuffed full with a chilly type mash and I went for the egg...tasted like a nasty olive. The hostel we stayed in was really nice actually. It felt like we were at someone's house. There was a living room where we all sat on futons and drank beer and watched a movie before bed. We stayed in the dorms and it was so hot we couldn't really sleep that well. The bus ride here was absolutely brutal and it was supposed to be the first class bus. First of all we had to be at the bus terminal at 4 in the morning to leave the city at 5. Our cab didn't come to pick us up until 4:30 so we were a bit late but at least we made up about half of the passengers so they wouldn't leave without us. The shoved all of us into two taxis including all the bags. For some reason they charge by the person and not by the trip so we didn't even save any money being packed in. Once we finally got on the bus we were getting ready to sleep the rest of the morning away but the AC was on full blast and because it was 28degrees out at night no one was wearing sweaters or pants or touques (which were almost necessary). I complained once and got the typical shrug response. Thankfully we got a flat tire and had to stop at a service station to get it fixed, at which time I had to sort through all the bags to find mine and get out all my warm gear. Had a coconut sugar cookie and an OJ for breaky and we hit the road again. No more stopping breaks for us until the Nicaraguan border. Crossing took slightly longer than the other crossings we did and they even searched some bags (didn't happen any where else so far). It cost $15 to enter Nicaragua and some of the group didn't have enough money. We did a pool and got them through, we think maybe the drivers took a bit of the cut because all the guide books said it would cost only $7. Another currency to learn! Here in ole Nica its the Cordoba. I already think that I'm going to like it here. There is a cathedral in the center of town that is supposed to be the biggest in Central America. That's the plan for tomorrow...walk...church...walk...church...food....walk....drink....walk....sleep! Once big difference already that I have noticed is that there are fruits and vegetables!! Yay! Starting to think I'm coming down with scurvy! or the bends or whatever.