Nicaragua 1 - Lost in the jungle

Hello Mundo,

Finally we are able to give you a quick Update where we are and what we did recently. The reason why we are not writing earlier is that our SD card had a virus and we weren´t able to upload any pictures. Apart from that where we most of the time sitting in Pubs watching the world cup…

But back to our trip: The last time we wrote you we were sitting in a small jungle village looking forward for our boat ride into the jungle. Just after the blog entry we got the information that there was a street (even it was not an official street – not even Google maps has the street…) and there is one bus passing through the jungle. Well, a bus passing through a mostly unknown street, that sounded like fun and we took the bus.  


No street shown on google maps to Pearl Lagoon

The first few hours were fine. The street was a tiny unpaved road through the deep jungle. At 6pm it got dark – at 7pm smoke started to come out the engine and a few seconds later we had to stop. The radiator from the car was broken. There we where: In the middle of the jungle with a broken bus and no tools to fix it. And this on a road where only one bus a day were passing by – our bus!!! What could we do? An intensive discussion started between the people. The bus driver suggested to put corn flakes into the radiator as (after his imagination) would make the water thicker and this was the key to keep on going. Unfortunately not too many people are bringing her serials into the jungle, so this idea was out of question. The next great idea was… “earth”. Some guy thought we could fix the hole in the radiator with earth and started to collect very exited earth from the jungle. He was so passionate and wanted that the other will follow his example – but of course, nobody did!

Soon we were out of ideas and people got ready for the night in the bus (it seemed that this was the most normal thing in the world for them). If you think that being at night in a broken bus in the middle of the jungle was the worst thing what could happen – well, think again: Soon after the people got to sleep we realized that the other passenger weren´t just passengers – we think now that this was the Nicaraguan national “snoring team”. EVERYONE started to snore. Some really loud and heavy, other really quite – one woman behind us was especially funny as she snored with every breath differently. From time to time there was a snoring break as someone woke up for a few seconds to spit in the bus – probably some special rules in the snoring competition, we don´t know.


In the bus. People in the background are sttarting to sleep - and snore

After a couple of hours lights went on in the bus and the bus driver told us happy that we can go on with our ride – but that we had to stop every 2 Kilometers to refill the radiator. We drove 2 miles –and instead of refilling the radiator we had to change the tire as one of them broke down. Carla and me where heavily involved in fixing the problem – by holding the flashlight…

Anyway, deep at night we arrived at Pearl Lagoon, our destination. A really beautiful place. There is no tourism so far and you can experience the true Caribbean. Reggie music everywhere and with people just walking through the streets doing… well… nothing really. They are just there looking around. But it was amazing. We visited some small villages nearby (and got history lessons from a guy in a village who told us everything about the “contra” movement during the war in the 70s and 80s. A guerilla movement had took over Nicaragua and the united states where worried that Nicaragua become a second Cuba. So they spend billions of dollars in opposite groups who were attacking Nicaragua from Honduras and the Caribbean. We saw the airport from the contras in the middle of the jungle and even the rests of the (only) stone house where the CIA guy was living in), eat coconuts directly from the trees and had a bath in the warm Caribbean sea.     


 THIS is the real Caribbean and not the one from the postcards - very, very poor





After 2 days at the lagoon we took a boat to Bluefield’s, a city nearby on the coast. Our plan was to take another boat from there to corn islands, a “backpacker paradise”. Boats were only leaving one time a day to corn islands. Every Wednesday – of course, we arrived on Friday. What could we do? Bluefield’s is a typical central America city. Dirty, poor, a high crime rate and a lot of drugged people on the street. Nothing where we wanted to spend 5 days. Soon after arrival we heard about a cargo ship what was leaving every Sunday to corn islands and that some locals would use this ship too to go there. Good idea. On the next day we went to "el Bluff" (a small island near Bluefields) and from there we took the 6 hour cargo ship ride to corn island.


On the cargo ship to corn islands

Corn island is a great island. It is very small, there are no streets (and therefore no cars) and except a tiny village the interior is thick jungle while on the coast you have beautiful postcard beaches. There is only one problem: Apart from us there were like 1000 other backpacker (mainly north Americans) on the island. It was totally crowded, the prices were as high as we didn´t see since Mexico and it had nothing to do with a romantic feeling itself. We looked nearly the whole first day for a nice Hostel, at the end we found something very nice. We had to walk through the jungle for 30 minutes to the other side and there were some huts built by an Italian artist. There was no electricity or anything whatsoever and we had the whole beach there for yourself. OK, we had to walk every time through the jungle to get something to eat (this was hard, especially in the evening/night where you couldn´t see anything) but it was worth it – at least for one day! 





Welcome to paradise - our "privat" beach on corn Islands 

On the second day my (Romans) old enigma faced me again as a dog bit me in my leg. This is now the second time. This are now my words and not Carlas: “I HATE DOGS!” Well, I couldn´t walk anymore and my leg was bleeding like hell so we decided to cancel the trip and go back to civilization. The world cup was waiting.

We will try to Update you in the next couple of days with more information.

Stay safe and LETS GO BELGIUM

Somos un mundo 

  

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