Morocco

Plane ticket has been purchased, parents were notified I wouldn't be home for Thanksgiving, and rough itinerary has been planned. It's time to get away from the cold weather in Columbus and see my long-lost boyfriend. Anyone want to come??

Dates: Nov. 17 - Nov. 25
Itinerary: Probably will be Casablanca-Fez-Marrakech.

Though my first blog post provided was a disclaimer and promised no sort of insight or existential questioning of any kind while visiting far-off lands, I know my blogging is still not all that interesting to read. Sorry guys. And a very special "damn you" goes out to Soumen for making me feel even more inadequate on that front :).

Missing Days, Vol II: Ometepe, San Juan del Sur, etc.

Well, vacation time expired over a week ago, and I still have not chronicled every other step I took in Nicaragua. Though, my stomach is still feeling a bit off, and I'm haunted by images of meat/gallo pinto/fried plaintain dishes, so I suppose the vacation spirit lives on...

We woke up again to the ringing of the breakfast bell. Breakfast and dinner at the Hacienda Merida were served buffet style at designated times and announced by a bell (pre dinner bell, everyone sort of perches at the edge of the benches to be at the front of the line). Packed up our stuff, and headed to the nearby bus stop to catch the 10:00 bus to Santa Cruz. From there, we'd walk a few kilometers to the Finca Magdalena, a plantation/hostel owned by several Nicaraguan families. A number of us are sitting there waiting; the lady at the small restaurant by the stop informs us there will be no 10:00 bus today. About half the waiting party decided to walk it to Santa Cruz--crazies. We waited for the 3:00 bus and kayaked to Monkey Island (no monkeys!) in the meantime.

About halfway to our destination, it started pouring. Tropical weather/rainforest pouring. A local with a truck offered us a ride for a small fee but then got stuck in the mud, so we plodded on the rest of the way along the road and for the 1 km up to la Finca Magdalena. Luckily, I had a pack cover (thanks, Sarah!), so only the clothes I was wearing suffered the resulting mildew-ness of being soaked and air-dried in the extremely humid air. Calvin's stuff got a little wet. But, after drying off and hanging our clothes, we enjoyed our first cups of good coffee (and a caffeine buzz! woo hoo!) in rocking chairs on a covered patio with a gorgeous view of the gardens and Volcan Concepcion (picture below doesn't do it justice), so I suppose it was worth it.


We grabbed a cab back to Moyogalpa, ferried back to San Jorge, and took a cab to San Juan del Sur, a beach town on the Pacific side. Relaxed there, drank a little rum, had some excellent pasta and pizza, and headed back to Grenada the next day (half-bus, half-cab. I'll spare you the details of the transportation problems of that particular trip).

Our last day, we took a canopy tour around Volcan Mombacho. The bus ride there was rocky and I almost got sick, but the actual tour part (platforms, zip line/harness thing above the tree canopy) was tons of fun. We heard some howler monkeys but didn't see any. Unfortunately, we didn't bring the camera for that in fear that it would fall. Got back to Grenada in time to catch a bus to Managua and the airport.

There was a big celebration going on in Grenada that night, so many of the roads were blocked or closed, so it took the bus driver over a half an hour to find a way out of the city. But, he booked it the rest of the way to Managua, and we made it to the airport with time to spare.

And that's about it. Recovered from a cold I caught from Calvin toward the end of the trip, helped him move his stuff, shipped him off to Taiwan/Cambodia, and headed out to Columbus for work. I experienced my first 10+ hour day in MONTHS, along with my first tornado warning in years. Around 7:15 p.m., we all had to move down to the basement of the building and wait out the warning. The weather gods have not been kind to me.

Missing Days, Vol I: Laguna de Apoyo, La Isla de Ometepe

First, I must say that it is FREEZING back here in SF. 55 degrees--wtf?

Oh, and photos have been posted!! http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeanniemm

After another night in Grenada in a different hostel but still with the same city-wide power and resulting water outages (read: electricity going out at night, resulting in no water in the morning, and coming back mid-day all sticky and nasty in hopes of finally showering, only to find the water still not back up and working), we grabbed a cab to the Laguna de Apoyo. Water!

A little walking, grabbing another cab down the hill, and more walking found us at the Monkey Hut on the laguna, where we hung out with some other backpackers for a while, went swimming, and set up a taxi to San Jorge and lodging for our first night on Ometepe. A minor issue with the taxi company left us waiting for a bit, but we made it to San Jorge in time for the last ferry to Ometepe.
(Calvin waiting outside for our taxi)


The ferry from San Jorge (close to Rivas, see map below) drops off at Moyogalpa on the western end of the Volcan Concepcion half of the island. Took a taxi to our hotel/hostel in Merida.



In our various planning stages, we had been keeping the option of hiking one of the volcanoes open, depending on how we felt. However, as the ferry crossed the lake and Volcan Concepcion kept getting bigger and bigger, we knew that wasn't gonna happen. 10-hour hike? No thanks. The smaller of the two, Volcan Maderas, is an 8-hour hike, which we also passed on.

Instead, we decided to do the hike to the San Ramon waterfall. The entrance to the trail was about 4km down the road from the place we were staying and the hike up was supposedly 3 km (though that last km was more like 2) and was much steeper than I had expected. If I didn't know it before, I do now--I am not cut out for hiking. But, it was worth it:

Grenada, part II

Sorry--we were on La Isla de Ometepe for 4 nights and (followed by a night in San Juan del Sur) and didn´t really have internet access. Ometepe is basically 2 islands, both with large volcanoes, connected by a small isthmus in Lago Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua). Did about a 15 km hike from our hostel, up to the San Ramon waterfall, and back, and got to experience the typhoon-esque rains of the Nicaraguan rainy season while making our way to Finca Magdalena, a Nicaraguan-run plantation (with good coffee!!). For the most part, the coffee isn´t all that great. The good roasts are generally exported and are too expensive for locals, so they mostly have instant coffee. Have a pound of Finca Magdalena organic coffee in my bag, if anyone wants to stop by and try some. Will write more and upload pictures tomorrow night or Monday when back in SF.

Grenada, Nicaragua

Don´t think this posted yesterday, since the power went out when I was trying:

We took a taxi from the Managua airport to Grenada,
The taxi driver dropped us at the Parque Central, where we had our first meal, vigoron, which is a sort of salad of cassava, shredded cabbage, and chicharron (fried pork skins) wrapped in a banana(?) leaf.


To give a brief description, Grenada is a smallish town on the large Lago de Nicaragua, has colorful pre-Columbian architecture, checkered tile sidewalks, and smells faintly of horses from the buggies that drive people around.

I will try to post some pictures soon, but Calvin is currently snoring away with his head and torso on the bottom bunk, legs dangling off the side. We barely got any sleep on the plane.

We set ourselves up at The Bearded Monkey, a hostel/bar/restaurant/internet cafe, chilled for a while ´til I grew tired of the reggae-ish remix of Dark Side of the Moon that was playing, so we walked to the lake in hopes of finding yummy street vendor food, which we really didn't find, apart from a few ladies grilling corn and cutting up watermelon and mangoes. We did, however, go into the "tourist center," which had some dilapidated-looking carnival rides, benches near the lake, where some locals were swimming, and a main thoroughfare lined with restaurants and nightclubs.

Today, we found a new hostel with a private room. We stayed in a 12-person dorm last night. There is currently an energy crisis in Nicaragua, so the power randomly goes out, as it did last night. A 12-person dorm with no air circulation is not so good for sleeping. We headed to the market, where we took lots of pictures of random foods, and stopped by another hostel to deliver a letter to one of Sarah´s friends from when she and Nick were down here. He invited us to get some food and drinks with him and some others at 3, when he gets off work. Am hoping some of them speak a little English...

Til then, I´m off to chill in the hammock and drink some coffee. Adios.

Nicaragua

Seems it is time to refresh my travel blog, template and everything!

Calvin and I leave at 1:30 a.m. this evening/tomorrow morning for an 8-day trip to Nicaragua. Attached picture shows our rough itinerary: Managua --> Grenada --> Ometepe --> San Juan del Sur, with some stops along the way. My friend Sarah, as well as two of Calvin's roommates, have spent some time in Nicaragua, so they've filled us in on all the things we shouldn't miss. ATM has been visited, lists have been made, backpack has been acquired. Just have packing left to do and I'm off!

We have a really short layover in San Salvador, and, luckily, we're just in time for increased security measures. Apparently all sunscreen, toothpaste, and items of such consistency must now be in checked bags. Perhaps the luggage fairies will bless us and we won't arrive in Managua sin equipaje.


Note: All photos will be taken by Calvin, so that is why you might notice a marked improvement in my travel photography.

San Francisco

I'm home and am recovering from jet lag. boooo

I spent my last day in Bangkok and being sad that I was missing the New Year celebration (water festival) and that I was going home.

I'll be making my pictures private and will send you all an email with the link.