Up Creek and Paddling



Chicken bus heaven

A feature of Central America, that initially causes amusement and the swiftly becomes everyday, is the use of decommissioned US school buses as a primary means of transport. The Chicken bus, so called either because you're packed in like battery farmed chickens or because you're more than likely to be accompanied by a few. feature more often in the life of a traveler than rice and beans.

But eventually you do tire of the posters of the Virgin Mary, the written exclamations 'Jesus es el Señor' and the old ladies who cackling hand you a mango as you alight. So Rachel and I, in the last week have entirely swapped buses in favour of boats. It started with a quick one hour hop over to Isla de Ometepe- a twin volcanoed island in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua. After climbing a volcano and relaxing in a hacienda entirely staffed by flirting fifteen year olds we set off in search of the holy grail. A town that could only be reached by boat, El Castillo on the 'mighty' Rio San Juan!

It says something about a place when the easiest way to get there is by a twelve hour boat across an eerie, misty lake followed by a three hour (one and a half express) lancha up the river. However finally, after zig zagging across the river to pick up and drop off all of Nicaragua, you reach a bend and there stands El Castillo. One road lined with wooden stilt houses nestled in verdant rain forest and perched above it all the crumbling fort that gives the town its name.

 So enamored by boats have we become that our tearful goodbye to Nicaragua could only be conducted by boat. Stamping out in San Carlos we glided down the nomansland of the Rio Frio before stamping in at Los Chiles, Costa Rica and much to our consternation... getting on a bus.

Captain Jack Sparrow hell

You realise you've gone a bit off track when the toothless old man who runs your hotel apologises that there's no running water upstairs but if we need to brush our teeth there's plenty downstairs (and gestures to the river), but tiny, sleepy El Castillo does get its fair share of visitors. Principally for acting like and imagined town out of Pirate story.



El Castillo de la Inmaculada Concepciòn de Maria (the fort) was originally built by the Spanish as a river block (it overlooks a set of fairly nasty rapids) to catch pirates as they snuck up and down from the Caribbean to the wealthy city of Granada who would otherwise be carting off the gold they themselves were carting back to Queen Isabel in Spain. At some point we, the British, got in on the act, took the castle and started making it difficult for both the Spanish and the Pirates.



The entire town.



History dispensed with by the morning we chose to sample El Castillo's other delight, kayaking. After tackling the rapids that make El Castillo so strategic (an experience complicated by the drybag of cameras clipped to Rachel's chest) we enjoed a peacful paddle through the Rio San Juan's tributaries and waterways. The air punctuated by unknown birds, unseen monkeys and the ocassional river turtle fleeing from our amateur splashing we seemed a world and an age away from dusty Leon and chi-chi Granada.





Sandinistas and the Pig Witch - an unlikely couple.

I have always had reservations about visiting somewhere like Auschwitz. I worry that the solemnity of the place would fail to impact properly on me and I´d find myself thinking about what I was going to have for lunch. For things like that I´ve always preferred to stick to the history books over real life.

Depictions of torture on the side of La Veinte Uno

Bit, if there´s one thing they know how to do in Central America it´s an atmospheric museum. In San Salvador we visited the house of Archbishop Oscar Romero whose assassination (along with six Jesuit priests, the housekeep and her daughter) is credited with kicking off the El Salvadoran Civil War. The clothes that the nine had been wearing that night, still bloodstained and ruptured by bullets were hung in the museum, invisible man style for the full effect.

If that disturbed our English sensibilities that we were totally unprepared for the Museo de Leyenda y Tradiciones General Joaquin de Arrechada Antigua Carcel de la Veinte Uno. Technically it is the National Guard's 21st garrison which until 1979 held and brutally tortured an assortment of political prisoners, freedom fighters and lunatics. I was expecting akin to Stasi Prison with its chillingly stark rooms that barely suggested what took place within them.I'd forgotten I was in Central America. Interestingly in the few rooms of La Veinte Uno the white walls were covered in simple black drawings depicting the set up of each room and the activities the prisoners might have been engaged in. Outside, the garisson's walls were further drawings of the methods of torture used on the prisoners.

So far, so affecting and quite a moving tribute to the inmates. However the rooms were far from empty. In some bizarre attempt to remind visitor's of Nicaragua's rich cultural history, as well as its violent one, they had set up life sized plastic models of characters from Nicaraguan fairy-tales. And so began our tour round possibly the weirdest museum I have ever visited. We learnt, in the same breath, about the horrors inflicted on prisoners and also about the Pig-witch, a pig with the head of a woman who runs about robbing people.

In fairness to this strange museum the cast of Nicaraguan fairytales are an interesting lot but it does detract slightly when you walk in to a cell and come face to face with Toma tu Teta.

Toma tu Teta (Grab the tit)

Eyeballing her enormous nipples scared me more than any hauntingly bare room ever could. Toma tu Teta is a character who due to her massive breasts and manish arms is unable to get a man. Instead she runs around town, chasing unsuspecting men and ordering them to 'toma tu teta' (grab the tit) whereupon she will force them to suckle until she is satisfied and runs off!

My other favourite character was el Duende. Anyone who's her studied the Andalucian poet Garcia-Lorca will understand el Duende to be the dark, momento-mori of inspiration that is necessary in the creation of great art.

El Duende - inspiration or gnome?


To the Nicaraguan's he is a gnome. A gnome who steals away unbaptised babies at that. I could only smile as I remembered my Spanish professors warning that understanding Lorca could only be achieved through an understanding of el Duende. A gnome.

So after our confusing experience at the museum we fled from lefty, Sandinista Leon. Leaving behind its political murals and chaotic streets we exchanged it for conservative Granada where our liberal souls have been ashamedly soothed by its pastel painted order, where the museums focus on the pre-Columbian and gloss over all that nasty business with Sandino and the company, in Leon at least, he keeps.

Sad times in 'Sleepy' Suchitoto.

This post was going to be about the sleepy El Salvadorian village of Suchitoto. It was going to extol the place's colonial charm, it's white washed building and their red tiled roofs. It was going to wax lyrical about pupusas, the latest in a long line of food stuffs that involve tortilla, and it was going to say that Suchitoto is the perfect place to chill out for a few days.

Then we decided to walk to the waterfall.

Yes that's right, after surviving a night in San Pedro Sula (Central America's murder capital) it was in tiny Suchitoto that Rachel and I had a gun pointed at our heads and our bags emptied.

In the role play section of my GCSE Spanish oral I had to pretend to have been robbed so I am blaming the entire incident on my Spanish teacher Senora Costello, it was her who taught me the word 'testigo', clearly equipping me for this event in my future.

This picture come courtesy of Rachel who didn't get her camera stolen

I actually didn't have to use my muddled Spanish. Rachel whose fluency makes her the best travel buddy ever hastily described what happened whilst I attempted to chip in and just generally make a nuisance of my self. As amazing as her Spanish is Rachel is not clued up on her gun lingo. After repeatedly describing the weapon as a pistola the policeman asked us to draw it and then glancing at our attempts (Ms Lewis, my art teacher never prepared me for this) sighed and corrected us. 'Un revólver'. This was followed by a surreal moment in the police station where everyone was getting their guns out for our comparison and drawing their own version of what we attempting to describe.

The report finished and our contact details left (they even asked us for our facebook, not the most official of channels) we were done. Our entire foray in to violent crime lasted about two hours and left us both with a deep sense of annoyance. It is just one of those things and Suchitoto is genuinely a great place to visit. It was only after our mishap that we learnt you could get the tourist police to walk you down to the falls and avoid such unfortunate incidents.

But, as my father said when I called him to break the news 'you live and learn' and I guess we will.

Getting Muddy in the Mangroves





The great thing about volunteering at the Iguana Station is that you get to see a side of the island your average visitor doesn't venture to.



Mr Osgood and his well behaved dog Popali.



Every Monday, at our weekly meeting, there's usually a great clamour to sign up for a trip and more specifically to go out with one person, Mr Osgood.



Osgood (the Mr is a Caribbean sign of respect) is a reformed Iguana hunter and former chief of police for the island (presumably at the same time). A living legend, he lives next door to the station with his mad German wife Elke. Occasionally when we're chilling on the balcony across the darkness will float Mr Osgood's cry of 'Sammy I hear you' or 'Sammy, what you do?'.



So Once a week Osgood leads a few excitable volunteers through the mangrove swamps of Rock Harbour and over the petrified coal of Iron Bound on an iguana hunt. Except only Osgood, with his hunter's eyes, is any good at spotting them so the rest of us pretend to be looking for knees and elbows (supposedly how you find them) whilst he gets out his fishing rod, bootlace attached, and wrestles a vicious pregnant female from her tree.

Washing our boots at Rock Harbour





Rock Harbour on the northern side is Mr Osgood's favourite hunting spot, and ours too since he will usually leave us to swim on the rarely visited beach whilst he runs off to catch a few more iguanas. Getting there also involves a 100m wade across the lagoon, made more difficult by the station's un-official dog, Beauty, who gets tired halfway across, tries to turn around and ends up getting carried the last 50m.



Guess which foot I lost to the mud?





I reckon the reason why we love going out with Osgood, apart from his hilarious stories and dire warnings that I will die on the mainland, is that he lets you feel like you're ten years old again. Squelching though muddy bogs, jumping from precarious mangrove root to precarious mangrove root, losing a foot or two in the stinking mud, it's like everything your Mother told you not to do.

We return with pillowcases of iguanas, caked in mud and after all that adventure, in need of a nap!