The 12 days of Christmas

Firstly let me wish you all a very Merry Christmas from Granada Nicaragua (or as the locals say it...Feliz Navidad!).

My last blog saw us leaving Copan after visiting a local orphanage...so where am I now?

We waved goodbye to the ruins of Copan in a local 'coach' nice and early in the morning. We traveled through the rolling hills and farmland of Honduras for the city centre of San Pedro where we were to change buses for the coastal town of Tela. Catching buses is always an experience, and the bus from San Pedro was challenging as we had to fight with the locals and work out how to get all our backpacks on the bus! A little cunning saw us squeeze most of our bags through the windows of the bus...and with a bit of sweat and grunt we managed to get everyone and their bags on!

Tela was not particularly exciting...a pretty dirty town really and the hotel was TERRIBLE (a pipe for a shower, cockroaches and other multi legged creatures) but it was a necessary evil in order to get to the Caribbean island of Roatan. We were entertained on the beach by the local Garafuna community (descendants of African slaves) with a wonderful meal and very lively entertainment...a highlight of the tour (if one could forget the dreadful hotel!).

In order to get to Roatan we had to catch a local ferry from Cieba which saw us alighting on a local 'chicken' bus (imagine an old US School Bus and you have it). Our driver, feeling peckish, decided to pick up an Iguana for dinner...much to the curious disgust of us and some of the other locals on the bus! The ferry ride over was pretty normal...and we arrived in Roatan in good time. In comparison with our Tela hotel, the Roatan 'resort' was relative luxury...and the showers were FANTASTIC!

We had two full days in Roatan which saw me swim and play with the Dolphins (cool), snorkel off the reef and attempt to fish (well it was a huge rip off...where the guy charged us $10 US per person to trawl some lines behind the boat!). I spent some time on the beach and generally enjoyed the tropical sunsets (whilst keeping the mozzies at bay with plenty of insect repellent...always a nice way to ruin a lovely sunset!). With plenty of Bob Marley tunes stuck in my head we were to sail on the local ferry back to the mainland and commence an EPIC land journey to Nicaragua via the capital of Honduras - Tegalcigulpa.

A 0545 start was not good enough for our wayward tour group to get seats on the ferry to Cieba (even though we had return tickets). I guess that the locals were heading home for the holidays...how rude!! Anyway...our poor but industrious tour guide managed to pluck a flight out of 'god knows where' and we enjoyed a 20 minute flight back to Cieba! The delay in Roatan meant that our connecting bus was delayed and with a good imagination you can see where this is going (delays on all our other connections).

Fortunately we traveled on pretty good coaches (complete with video) and arrived, relatively unscathed, in Tegalcigulpa at about 2300...time for a quick shower before hitting the sack and getting ready for another long travel day to Nicaragua!

We met up with some new travelers (who were beginning to think that we were not arriving) and took off in local taxi to the bus station. One of the girls was eagerly taking pictures of the packed market that we drove through and nearly lost her camera to a passer by...a lesson to keep ones personal belongings close at all times. The bus to Managua (the capital of Nicaragua) too about six hours, and fortunately was in a bus fitted with a Banos (dunny for those non Spanish speakers...ha ha ha). Another 'amazing race' style taxi chase took us to the local collectivo station (collectivo is just the local word for 'squish as many paying passengers as possible into a 12 seater van'!) where we had to partake in the local 'stink rush' in order to get on the bus. Lots of pushing and sweating and a few choice swear words by our Tour Guide saw us get safely into a bus and on our way to Granada! Phew! I guess this is why they call it Adventure Travel?

So...I am now in the very pretty city of Granada which is located on the shores of Lake Nicaragua at the base of the Mombacho Volcano. We have decided to do a 'secret Santa' for the other travelers and were given an hour to shop in the local markets for an appropriate gift. My present ended up being a lovely locally ripped Salsa CD (a must have for the world traveler) and some dodgy bottle of goodness knows what! Cheryl has stuffed some local sports socks (el grande por favor!) with the local cervesa (beer) which I am sure Trevor will enjoy tomorrow!

Today we were 'real' tourists and visited the local Volcano...walking around the ancient crater, admiring the views (when the clouds moved) and spying local orchards. A lovely lunch of chicken fingers (did you know that they had fingers?) before speeding down the zipline canopy tour (suspended 30 metres above the canopy and speeding along a single wire is always fun!) finished Christmas Eve!

Tomorrow we lie in before heading off for a Christmas Lunch, swapping gifts and generally being thankful for each others company, our health and our Lord Jesus (well some of us anyway!).

Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas...