Honduras - Part of Nicaragua

We went to Rotan on July 14th, Monday (which is the bigger of the two islands) and it was extremely gorgeous. Muy muy! It was more expensive though, our air conditioningless room was 25 bucks! Patooey! We wandered around and drank at a fun bar on Monday night, met some cool people and watched the sun go down over the island. Tuesday we woke up early to go kayaking and snorkeling! It was SO fun. We rented the kayak for 8 hours at around 1145...we went out really far and snorkeled for awhile right at the start, then we kayaked to another bay on the island. It was such a workout. oh my gosh. After awhile it was like my arms weren´t even part of my body they were so tired and just on autopilot. We explored corals and bays and chased fishes for awhile, we saw a sting ray and this wild fish that cruised on the
bottom of the sand and slightly underneath it that was totally the color of the sand. He was so cute. We harassed him for quite awhile. We went ashore and took a break and had a few beers and some chips and salsa...there were more tourists in the second bay and there were lots of tubby pale kids to giggle at. There was also a chic with boobs the size of my head that I was pretty scared of. We put on sun
screen like 8 times during the day (more about that later) and after snorkeling for a couple hours started the ridiculously long journey back to the rental place. As the sun was going down we went out farther into the ocean and watched it....and then we all went overboard! We were fidgeting around trying to get in a good viewing
position and it all went to hell. Anton lost his sunglasses, we both lost our goggles and snorkels, and we each lost a flipper. Naturally without our goggles it was a loss to try and find stuff, and it was also way too deep. We were so deliriously tired from rowing and everything that it was just hilarious. I was laughing so hard it took everything in me to get myself back on the kayak...and then I fell off again. That resulted in even more laughing and weakness and inability
to get back on the Kayak. I managed, and it was a very long long long
journey back to the rental place.

Once we got back I started to realize that I was of course very very sunburned. I was a mess. I was also covered in bug bites. My back had like 15 bug bites...grumpy alecia resulted. I moped for awhile and then we got some super sunburn cream and that cheered me up. Luckily the sunburn on my back kinda destroyed the bug bites...they were gone the next day...I don´t know how that worked but I was glad. It was pretty ridiculous...My back and my legs were pretty fried. That cream worked wonders though. On Tuesday we just took it easy...wandered around and ate and stuff. There was a really yummy place called the Cannibal Cafe...the shirts there said 'We´ll have you....FOR DINNER'. Mildly amusing. Wednesday we took the ferry back to La Ceiba at 6AM and had to wait around 7 HOURS for the stupid ferry to
the other island, Utila. We finally got to Utila and it took forever to find a hotel. Utila was kind of annoying. It was super pretty and all...but everything was closed like 5 days a week...everything was mainly open MWF and the roads were super torn up and everyone was not all that nice to us because we weren´t divers. They´re an exclusive bunch, jeez. We made it fun though. We stayed there for 3 nights. We had to switch hotels after 2 nights but it wasn´t a big deal...we
took the ferry back to La Ceiba at 6 in the morning and took a taxi to the bus station. We got a bus to the capital, Tecegulpa or somethign like that? Some weird name I can´t pronounce. That place was freaky. It was so dirty and polluted...our hotel was in a pretty sketchy area and the only places around us only served fried chicken. We went across the street to get a beer and the bar was in a cage, like jail because it was so sketchy. We sat down for a beer and this WASTED guy
comes up and starts begging Anton for money...we told him no like 15 times and then he tries to sit down in the booth next to me. Anton of course was not having any of this and stood up and picked him up off the booth and the guy fell to the floor all wasted and dramatic. This did not deter this dude. A bunch of the people in the restaurant were yelling at him and he tried to sit down again! A cop with a massive
gun came in and slapped him hard on the back (it was such a hard slap, oh man, he was not messing aruond) and the guy flew towards the door and walked right into the wall next to the door he was so drunk. The cop pushed him out finally and we decided we had seen enough of that place. We bought some beers to go and went back to our hotel to read and watch CNN.

We were going to take a direct bus from there to Managua, Nicaragua but it was full, so Sunday we took 4 different public buses and one dude on a bicycle carriage and finally made it to Managua. We found a hotel and took a taxi to a sports bar and had some food and beverage and everyone here is much nicer. It´s also super cheap. It was mad hot though.

We were in Managua for two nights. That city was ehh, it was pretty boring and just big city ish. We had fun wandering around on Monday though. We saw a dead cat that Anton insisted on taking pictures of. Now I skip through that section on my camera very fast. Dumb boys. The hotel we stayed at was $15 a night but it had air so we were excited...needless to say there was a ´´power outage´´ at 7AM Tuesday and we both woke up sweating and miserable. There wasn´t even a fan, just dank and hot (and managua is a pretty warm place). The guy assured us it would come on later and that didn´t happen everyday. We were out all day and came back after dark and it had returned, so we were glad. We went out and had drinks that night and when we returned it was still on.

We woke up around 6:30 with no power. We´d asked around the day before and nobody else had power out so we figured he was just lying to save money and rarely had people stay at the dump more than a night to figure it out. So I freaked out. I started yelling at the guy and telling him to stop lying to me about there being a power outage and turn the shit back on. He´s like ´´oh no, it´s power outage, no power from company´´ so I walked across the street and they had power, he said that it was only on this side of the street. So I walked next door and asked if they had power, which they did. So I resumed yelling at him and told him that he needed to turn it back on ASAP or refund some of our money. He grumbled something about one hour and I returned to my room. I waited like 45 minutes and of course it didn´t
come back on. So then I lost it even more and yelled at him for like 20 minutes and he kept making up excuses like he couldn´t turn it back on and all this bullshit and cowering and then he got one of the ladies to talk to me and she was making up different lies and then the guy started yelling ´´shut up! shut up!´´ and giving me the bird and I just laughed, and they then found a guy that spoke english who told
us FIRST that there was no power because, and i quote, ´´the light in the clouds was here now´´ and we told him that we were told we´d have power and didn´t give a shit about the sun coming out, then we were told that they´d only turned the power off in our room (which wasn´t true because previously he´d demonstrated that the power was out in the lobby to try and get me to shut up) because we had to leave because that was the end of our stay! At 7 am they try to tell us that! I told them all a few choice words and we got ready and showered and hung out for a couple hours to piss them off and then left, Anton threw the key at the guy as we left. We also left a
toilet full of lots of crap and toilet paper, which i imagine was a very fun thing to clean up, considering you can´t put toilet paper in the toilets there. Haha. Fuck them.

So Tuesday we went to Granada. It was a really cool city. We found a decent hotel with a good fan for like 15 dollars a night, the only problem with it was the ceiling was so low Anton couldn´t stand up all the way. He hit his head on the door frame about 6 times, I estimate. Poor boy. Granada is beautiful though, It´s really old and has lots of cool old buildings and a really nice central park area with
fountains and statues and lots of trees. There are also horse drawn carriages all over, which I of course loved.

Tuesday neither of us felt all that great so we wandered around and had some food, had some drinks at a pretty cool bar but decided to call it quits pretty early due to our lack of feeling good. There were also lots of really douchey traveler people there, which was amusing. This one guy was trying SO HARD to get laid, he was just so desperate. He hit on anything that walked in. We laughed at him for awhile.

Wednesday we explored some more, we had a really good meal (I had pork and Anton had a massive full fish), went to a market, and went down to the lake just in time to get caught in the rain. We stood under a tree and waited for it to stop, then resumed our wandering. We went out for some drinks that night but the cool bar we liked was closed for a private party, so we explored a few other places. One had like 2 people in the bar, one of whom oddly enough used to live in Murray. His daughter was also born there, I imagine in the same hospital as me. Random! We went to another bar that was pretty lively but the drinks were expensive and the service was so horrible. We found some yummy Nicaraguan Cheladas at the third place, but they were closing so we went to the only bar open past 11 and finished up there with warm rum that was really gross. They didn´t even have shakers at this place!
Ridiculous.

Thursday we got up around 10 and got our stuff together, we had to take a bus back to Managua and then another bus to La Roma, where there was a boat that would take us to Bluefields. We got there at 6 only to be informed that the boats only left at 5.30 in the morning and at 2.45 in the afternoon. So we had to stay in a creepy little town in a pseudo creepy hotel. It had a good lock though, heh. We found a good restaurant there and had bacon wrapped steaks (hey, we´ve only been eating one meal a day...) with rice and fried plantains. Fried plantains are everywhere here. They are tasty, but we´re starting to miss potatoes. They´re not as easy to find.

This morning we had to wake up at 4.30 to catch the boat. It was a speed boat with room for like 15 people, it zipped us down the river in about an hour and a half. We were planning on taking the ferry to Corn Islands but after much confusion and incorrect answers we finally found out that the ferry is broken. Of course. So only one boat a week goes there and it´s on Wednesday. SIGH. So we got plane tickets for later this afternoon. They were $65 which is annoying compared to how cheap the ferry was, but we can´t hang out in this shitty town for a week and especially not when it´s Anton´s birthday on Monday! We´ve been very stingy overall though, so I don´t think it´s a big deal. Anton is very annoyed though. He´ll get over it. I´m almost kinda glad I don´t have to endure two 9 hour boat rides...I think the one will cause enough spewing for me. Well hopefully not, but I can´t
imagine I´ll feel too great.

So we´re killing time here for a little while...gonna get some Lobster (hopefully), a lot of the restaurants we go to are out of it or it´s expensive so we´re crossing our fingers that the places we read about do not have those problems. I´m not sure if the Big Corn Island is going to have internet or not. They don´t even have an ATM so I wouldn´t be suprised either way. But the only boat a week leaves Corn
Islands Thursday morning, so that´ll be the soonest we´ll be back to
the main land.

Nicaragua overall is beautiful. I think the people here are a bit nicer than in Honduras. It´s hard to say though. There´s dicks and there are really helpful people in each city. This place definitely feels more tropical. Hopefully the Corn Islands will be nice and drug fueled and wasted and all of that...we´re going to actually get a nice hotel there if possible for a few nights...I´m excited about that. A-C, cable TV, hot water....Where do you think this is, America!?

In other news I´ve read gobs of books. I´m out of control.

-How We Are Hungry, Dave Eggers (big fat EHHHH, not impressed)
-Rant, Chuck Pahlaniuk (i liked)
-The Traveler (don´t remember who it´s by, but it´s way good. First part of a trilogy.)
-Scar Tissue, Anthony Keidis (Love love loved it.)
-The Reality Dysfunction (massive 1224 page sci'fi book...i know. GLIVEN! I´m a huge nerd. But I loved it. Totally loved it. It´s also the beginning of a trilogy...i´m fucked.)

I´m currently reading the Kite Runner, which has made me cry like 3 times already and I´m only halfway through. I guess the ending is even worse...I´m going to be a mess. Poor Alecia, such a crybaby.

Miss everyone!