ideas for cheap stuff

First off I´d like to congratulate my beautiful friend Sarah and her husband Alan on the birth of their first child Dylan James Carroll on 30th June. The little lad was dying to get out into the world obviously, and was born 3 weeks early. I wish I was there to meet him Sarah. Laura and I will wait for our Gobnit girl to arrive some time down the line. Dylan is going to be something special though.
It´s bloody freezing back here in San Jose after the tropical Carribean idyl of Bocas del Toro. Tonge has even come down with something resembling a head cold. Anyway, I´m here to back date on the ould adventures, since I was too busy adventuring and taking stock at the time to spend time on the site updating. We were told to go have our passports stamped to leave Costa Rica on 19th June at 08:00 that morning and that we could catch a boat to San Carlos, on the Nicaraguan side of the boarder, at 09:00. Unfortunately, Liz, Tonge and I ended up waiting until 12:30 for the boat to leave, but this allowed us to meet and get to know a wonderful couple from Austria, Pietra and Cristoph, who are one of my new top ten couples. They had been learning Spanish and traveling for a few months, and are so sweet that we all got along famously very quickly. When we arrived into San Carlos, we took one look at the dump and were on the next boat out to El Castillo (the fortress), which is east down the Rio Frio. We’d found out a bit late that the boat to Granada from San Carlos only left on Tuesdays and Fridays, and there was nothing to recommend staying there for 2 days. I’m so glad we made the decision to head out as quickly as we did, for, even though we were famished by the time we got to El Castillo, it was a beautiful and remote place to hang out for 2 nights. The restaurant we ate at that night near killed us as the food took over 2 hours to come, but the full moon lighting up Devil’s Rapids, which run alongside El Castillo, more than made up for it. Next day I visited the fortress and walked around the tinchy village, enjoying the fact that there was not one motorised vehicle [particularly pointless here], and the atmosphere.
We got up Friday morning, after a few rum the night before, we got the boat to San Carlos to have some food before the boat to Granada left at 15:00. My gladness at not having stayed there only increased upon second glance, and we were happy to board the boat. Once aboard we decided to set up our new hammocks that Liz and Tonge had bought. We’d been told that hammocks were the best bet when crossing on the 14-16 hour journey. What Liz, Tonge and I hadn’t thought of was rope. The Austrians, of course, had thought ahead and had their 2 bits of rope to attach there 2 hammocks, which were much more comfortable than our last minute bought ones. So our very own MacGyver [that’d be Cristoph] attached all 5 of our hammocks to one of the main posts in the middle, and a Nicaraguan guy attached our rope to his so that all 6 of us would be held on one side by these two tiny bits of rope, while I went off begging some rope from other people so that MacGyver could attach the other end of Liz, Tonge and my hammocks to the boat railing. We were amazed when we first saw the space that a girl who’d done the crossing said there were 8 hammocks on her journey, when we crossed there were 13 for all. Unlucky for some! Its hard to describe, but I have one on my camera that’ll help, which I’ll upload another time.
The crossing was long, but I enjoyed watching Lago de Nicaragua changing from calm to rough, and back again, and watching the lightning show that surrounded us at time from the safety of my hammock. When we got into Granada it was still dark, so we went to the pier to watch the sun rise over the pier, there was a horse walking through the water at one stage, totally oblivious to us waiting for the sun. It was magical. Saturday was pretty much a write off cos we were all so shattered. The most interesting thing I did was go on the internet and get some news. Then Sunday, I got sick, again. Spent most of the day between the toilet, and my weird bed with a mirror on the headboard (seriously, what the hell?). Anyway, I was pretty useless for our time in Granada, one of the days we went to the markets of Massaya, and visited the pre-Colombian museum at Convento San Francisco, which was really good. Granada was beautiful, but I didn´t get a real feel for the place. I mostly enjoyed the company of our little family of 5 that we got going.
Headed to Leon on Tuesday 24th, which turned out to be much more my liking. We´d an early enough night the first night as our sweet couple was heading off next morning for the ¨paradise¨ of the Corn Islands. I on the other hand did volcano boarding that morning, which involved me climbing the very active Cerro Negro volcano carrying a huge wooden plank with a bit of rope on it and then sitting on the board and going down the side of it. I ended up being first out of the group and the guide from Bigfoot Hostel (only ones that do this tour) had told me to go very lightly with my feet to break as I had hiking boots on and the heaviness could cause me to break to hard. I lost control straight off and veered to the left. So started off again, put my foot down too hard on a bit of a rock trying to break and then flipped over smaking the ground with my arm and face, and the board hit the back of my head, then finally I got I just said ¨feck this¨ and zoomed down the rest of volcano, which was terrifying and terrific! What a rush! I got back to the hostel on a high, had my free mojito, and babbled for a few hours before the exhaustion of the rush hit me and I had to go to bed or fall asleep on my feet. That night we went out on a wild one and painted the town some shades of red. Was such craic, but we were slow to move the next day. Did some sight seeing round Leon and Tongie arranged to go on a private tour the next day. That Friday was absolutely brilliant. We climbed Cerro Negro, again, and then ran down the side, a lot easier than boarding down it, then we were driven to a gorgeous secluded lagoon in the volcano national park, which has been one of my favourite places of all so far, but of course I can’t remember the bloody name right now, then we went on Leon Vieja, the ruins of the first site of Leon, which was deserted due to volcanic activity 80 years after being founded. Our guide and driver were wonderful, telling us awful jokes that my mate Dee would love, and discussing Nicaraguan life and politics. Our driver told me about his family’s experience of Export Processing Zones [EPZ], which has only reinforced my hatred for these closed and non-transparent places formed in the guise of encouraging economic growth.
Saturday we headed back south and after a lot of travelling made it to Isla de Ometeppe. Spent a 2 nights in the main harbour town because I wanted to watch the Euro finals. Jaysus, Germany were asleep for that whole match! Then we went out to stay at Finica Magdalena, a co-operative of about 29 families, that grows coffee organically on the northern side of one of the volcanoes on the island. Here we vegged while reading and listening to Howler Monkeys, Tonge and I walked up the volcano and Liz did major wildlife spotting. I got through 2 books, and did as Depeche Mode urged and enjoyed the silence. Twas wonderful. It took us all day Thursday to get back down to San Jose to prepare for the next journey on to Bocas del Toro in Panama, jaysus, that was only just a week ago!