Hitchhiking And Badger Monkeys - Not As Dangerous As You Think

Once again this blog comes to you from a bus, my second one of the day and it's only 9.20! We are heading back up to the Nicaraguan border after a whirlwind two weeks in Costa Rica but this post will take us back to when we arrived. 

Very happy to be back!

As the month went from November to December we went from Nicaragua to Costa Rica, more specifically to the town of Santa Elena, famous for cloud forests and cheese. Interesting combination, I know. 

Before we got there we had a border crossing which is obviously our favourite part of travelling, especially when we get conned into spending $10 on an immigration form and then ripped off when we have $20 of change stolen from us. Good times.

Costa Rica is a richer and therefore more expensive country than either Nicaragua or Honduras. It has a much stabler and stronger economy resulting in higher employment and higher living standards. Ticos (the Costa Rican people) are some of the happiest people in the world to the extent that their army was abolished in 1948. You can't go anywhere without hearing the phrase 'pura vida' (literally pure life). It's used as hello, goodbye, thank you, you're welcome and in a hundred other ways and is the best way to summarise and understand the tico view of life. 

As Costa Rica is expensive and we are extreme cheapskates we were looking for as many free activities in the area as possible especially if we were going to spend $20 on entrance to the Monteverde cloud forest . This lead to what we ended up doing on our first afternoon. 

A bit of cultural trivia for you here. Before I arrived in Honduras I was a hitchhiking virgin. However in Honduras and Central America hitchhiking is much more common and possibly even safer than it is in the UK. To be fair it's much harder to be kidnapped when you're in the open bed of a truck, all you need to do is jump out at a red light. Anyway, back on topic, hitchhiking is something we've come to do more and more in effort to save money wherever we can. 

On this particular afternoon we decided we wanted to go to Monteverde's famous cheese factory, set up by the Quakers that first founded the settlement. According to our bible (Lonely Planet's Guide to Central America on a Shoestring) it was a bit of a walk away from where we were staying so why not hitchhike? 

The only problem was that with six of us and the fact that the trucks from Nicaragua and Honduras had been swapped for bulky 4x4s most people are usually put off straight away. So we decided to make it more interesting - two teams and a race to see who got there first. Winner gets eternal bragging rights. 

My team was Amy, Lucy and me and we decided to keep walking so that even if it took ages to get picked up at least we were making progress. What actually happened though is that after a while this car passed us with a speccy face and a head of curly hair peering out the back. Jesse, Tom and Calum had passed us. We got picked up a minute later though and not two hundred metres up the road we saw them where they'd been unceremoniously dumped on the pavement. 

In case you're interested, these are what winners look like...

We made it the whole way to the cheese factory in our ride and had time for a celebratory selfie, to peruse the cheeses on offer and pick out ice cream as a prize. The others eventually made it with their new friend Jeff in tow. Jeff had followed them from where their second ride picked them up, running alongside the car and barking away. 

We got another ride back, all of us together this time and got talking to the American lady whose car it was. She was even nice enough to show is something free we could do the next day on the way back. That evening we were joined by Lucy's friend Mac who was going to spend about 10 days slumming it in Costa Rica with us. 

Initiating Mac into the traveller lifestyle in the best way we know

It's hard to top a hitchhiking race to a cheese factory but we tried the next day with a trip to the Reserva Biológica Bosque Nuboso de Monteverde. We wanted to see some animals but were told it was unlikely because of the time of day. We must be the next David Attenboroughs though because we saw a monkey badger thing! Yeah I don't know what it is either... If anyone does please let me know! 

Here we see what is professionally known as a monkey badger... thing...

The view across the cloud forest

In the afternoon we set off to find the free sight we'd been told about yesterday - the ficus tree. There were actually several within ten metres or so of each other and they were like something out of a fairytale. It reminded me of reading the Faraway Tree, this massive spiral leading the way into what could be another world. In reality it just got tight, damp and dark at the top but I can still pretend. 

That pretty much concluded our stay in Monteverde. We left the next morning for Montezuma, a beach town on the Peninsula de Nicoya on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. Santa Elena was a charming town that reminded us a lot of a European ski resort and at the end of our short but sweet stay left us enamoured with it. 

Both of the hostels we stayed in in Monteverde were covered in murals as was the whole town.

Nicaragua, You've Treated Us Well

After being chased away from Isla de Ometepe by the threat of hurricane Otto (a threat that never manifested, for is a least) we were back in Granada but for more than a night this time. The hostel we wanted to stay in was now open but as it is actually a bit outside Granada we had part of our first day to hang around the city until the free shuttle arrived. We found a place to leave out bags and off we went to explore Leon's sister city! 

The iconic view of Granada's iconic cathedral

We found an Irish pub!!!

After being a bit let down by Leon, I had high hopes for Granada. We spent that first afternoon wandering around the Central Park and taking in the stalls and the impressive Cathedral on one side. Eventually it was time for the shuttle to our treehouse hostel on the side of Volcán Mombacho! 

The view from our Treehouse

I'd heard many things about Treehouse, one that it knows how to throw a party and another that by the end of your stay staff feels like family. By the end of my stay I'd seen both of these to be true. We spent a whole day just chilling in treehouse and three nights partying away and when it came time to say goodbye to all the people who had looked after us, it was hugs and Facebook requests all round.

Despite not actually staying in Granada versus being right in the centre of Leon I felt like I got a better feel for Granada. It is definitely the more touristy of the two and you can tell - cleaner streets, a fresher facade, and gringas everywhere. Saying this, there is a surprising lack of tourist activities in the city. You can of course visit the gorgeous mustard yellow and burnt red cathedral or climb the tower at Iglesias de la Merced to get incredible views over the city but otherwise you mostly have to look to the surrounding area - Las isletas in Lago de Nicaragua, Volcán Mombacho or Laguna de Apoyo. Overall I enjoyed my visit to Granada more than to Leon.

Iglesia de la Merced - best views over Granada

However, if asked which city I would prefer to live in my answer would be Leon. For me it has a more lived in feel and was made for the people rather than the tourists. As tourism has increased in Nicaragua Leon has stayed true to its roots as a political hub, full of pride and energy and has a lot more to it than meets the eye. 

We did Leon in a bit of a rush, with only one morning to actually just wander around the city with the rest of our time taken up by going to the beach or volcano boarding. Our plan now is to go back for a few days on our way to Utila in Honduras for Christmas and I'm excited to have another chance to dig through the surface and see more of Leon, something I think is part of the city's charm. 

After Granada we headed to near by Laguna de Apoyo, a crater lake where we planned to stay just one night. However in our usual flexible style we ended up staying four nights, partly because we loved it there so much and partly because Lucy managed to get her volcano boarding wound infected and needed an extra day to recover. 

Laguna de Apoyo

Our hostel at Apoyo was called Paradiso and that basically sums up my feelings about it. Lazy days of swimming, kayaking, watching incredible sunrises and sunsets and enjoying good food at their restaurant - I'm actually surprised we left at all!

One night we ventured over to Volcán Masaya, the only place in the world where you can get as close to actual lava. Yep, actual lava. You can't see too much because of the angle of the crater and the pictures definitely don't do it justice but it's one of those experience you don't need pictures for. It was incredible.

The depths of hell - just kidding but it is real life lava!

When we could finally drag ourselves away from Laguna de Apoyo and Hotel Paradiso I couldn't be sad for long because our next stop was... COSTA RICA!!! I feel like we definitely ended out time in Nicaragua on a high, with one of our favourite places so far. Nicaragua has treated us (and our bank accounts) very well and we will definitely be back - Sunday Funday and Leon round 2 await us!