Our vacation to the north

Hi everyone. We hope you are all making it through the harsh winter wherever you are. We hear that it is snowing a lot in the east and dusting in the Midwest. West coasters, I am sure you are all surviving just fine. Down here it is steadily getting hotter, much to our bewilderment. Though we have gradually acclimatized to the oppressive heat, the warmest months are yet to arrive. From what we have been told, April is a month of just trying to survive. This wet season we had little rain, which means that in a couple weeks the water will be turned off in the afternoons for several hours. We are hoping to spend a substantial amount of time during the next couple months up in the mountains. So to prepare, we took a mini-vacation last week to Matagalpa and Jinotega, both towns in the mountains.

Matagalpa has about 100,000 people in it, while Jinotega has only 50,000 people. They are both beautiful places cradled in the mountains. In Matagalpa we took a tour of a chocolate factory called El Castillo chocolate, because the Dutch guy who started it built a little castle to house the "factory." The operation is pretty small, but the chocolate produced is delicious. I was a little worried that Britsy was going to quit Green Pathways and work at the castle after smelling the sweet aromas of the cracked cocoa seeds. Fortunately my winning smile and witty charm seduced her back to Leon. We have a couple pictures of me demonstrating the seed crushing technique. Though I may not have shown much promise on the basketball court (we did win a game my senior year), I was fairly confident that my natural ability at seed breaking was going to win me a substantial job offer from the Castle. The worker next to me was giddy with surprise at my organic talent. Though she may have been 5-6 times more efficient than me, I believe my courage and care spoke for itself. If you ask Britsy she will tell you the woman was laughing at me not with me, but I am pretty sure I know when someone is laughing with me, people have been doing it all my life. Regardless, after buying probably five too many chocolate bars, one of which was 75% cocoa, we headed further into the mountains to Jinotega.

On the cusp of the cloud forest, Jinotega is the coffee mecca of Nicaragua. Here we took a coffee farm tour, watching them pick the fruits, clean them, dry them, and bag them. The farm we visited was not a tourist hotspot, so we got a lovely tour by the daughter of the farm owners. She said she was sixteen, but I am pretty sure she was 11. They were exceptionally kind and served delicious coffee.

Going a little further north, to a small town called San Rafael del Norte, we took a zipline tour in the cloud forest. Up here it was very cool and beautiful. Flying through mist enshrouded valleys was the highlight of our trip (except maybe devouring bar after bar of decadent chocolate). At one point Britsy went down one line first, and when she reached the platform and unhooked from the line, the guide told her to stand back because, "he is coming and he is out of control." When I heard this I took it as a compliment that I was pushing the envelope like only a hero would. Britsy assured me it was not meant as a compliment. Apparently it was meant that I am big and reckless. Could have fooled me. Anywho, the family run operation charged only ten dollars for something we would have paid much more. The mountains of Nicaragua are not part of the gringo trail, thus receive very few tourists. This is a shame as we have enjoyed this area the most...helped by the fact that it is so cool. But I suppose we should be grateful to get to enjoy such a gorgeous place all to ourselves...and all the people who actually live there. We have uploaded our photos from our four days there so click here and enjoy.

We hope you are all doing well and if anyone is cold remember that down here it is the "land of eternal spring" (technically that is Guatemala, but lets not get caught up in semantics), so feel free to visit.

Majestic Mountains Tour

Hi everyone,
So I (Britsy) went on my first, official tour with GP - a 3 day, 2 night tour to the mountains in the north. It was myself, Gemma and three Canadians...one of whom was the 2007 Canadian women's 100 mile run champion. Yeah, my two and half to maybe three miles on a good day treadmill jogs looked pretty pathetic compared to her. Anyways, it was a lot of fun to be on a tour and to get out of the heat of Leon. I was freezing both nights and wearing pants during the day, which was awesome. I added my photos to our snapfish account, so click here to check them out. It is really beautiful up there and oh yeah, wonderfully cold.
So for a breakdown of the trip. We left Leon and headed to Somoto Canyon close to Esteli. It is this beautiful, granite canyon that was only "discovered" (aka when white people stumbled into it) in 2003. We boated down part of it and then tubed a section. The guys jumped off these huge rocks at one point, so I told Graham when he leads it, if he doesn't jump off, then he's a huge sissy. So we'll see. Although to be fair I didn't jump either...mmmm, I blame the collarbone, which is pretty much 100% now thankfully.
After the canyon, we drove through Esteli to a place called Miraflor, it is a protected natural reserve, but also a working community that supports over 4,000 people. All the people have formed cooperatives and make a living through eco-tourism or sustainable agriculture. We camped on the property of the head of the largest coffee cooperative (the staple crop in Miraflor) the first night and enjoyed a HUGE tipica dinner, followed by a campfire. No one else was really eating the marshmallows we had brought, so I pounded way more than my fair share.
The night was freezing, windy, rainy and incredibly enjoyable. We woke up to a thick fog enveloping our tents. We had another huge meal with the family there, which included spaghetti noodles (no sauce), gallo pinto (mixed and fried rice and beans), a kind of crazy veggie concoction (including ground soy meat, zucchini, squash, soy beans), platanos (plantains cut thickly and then fried), whole wheat tortillas and rice pudding. It was insanely big and that was just a good, normal breakfast for them. Then we took a three hour coffee tour with Don Adolfo (the head of the cooperative and father in the family) through his coffee fields, coffee husk fermentation station, the massive de-pulper, washing stations etc. It was cool to see each step in the process.
We then drove further up into the cloud forest, where we took a sweet nature hike instead of eating lunch. We saw Golden Orioles, Parakeets as well as a slew of blooming orchids. The trees were covered in Spanish moss and we saw a 250 year old strangler fig. Basically it starts as a vine in the canopy and then eventually strangles the host tree, killing it and leaving a huge hollow space inside. We came back and I was asleep by 8 pm. In the morning, after an early morning tortilla making lesson, we visited the massive cigar factory in Esteli. It was really interesting, but the smell of the place was almost unbearable. They basically ferment the tobacco leaves and ammonia naturally comes out and it is overpowering. The Canadians took some samples home, so they were happy. We quickly visited a waterfall nearby, grabbed some lunch and headed home. All in all, it went really well and I look forward to doing it again - mainly for the cold. Hopefully Graham and I will be able to lead it together soon as well. Anyways, hope all is well and things are picking up at GP!

Volcano Boarding

So, I got to go on my first Graham Neale-led volcano boarding tour. I went mainly for photography purposes and to witness the magic. I was expecting to have some material that I could use to make fun of him later with, but I came home empty handed. I was extremely impressed and although our group was small and quiet (that's a diplomatic way to say it right?), Graham was informative, thorough and entertaining. He actually knew a lot about the volcano and its geology as well as history of the area etc. Nobody asked him if he was a scientist this time, which according to him happens somtimes...so I no longer believe that. Anyways, I took a ton of photos and put them up on Snapfish. Click here to see the new Volcano Boarding album.

The photos start with us driving to the volcano, where the only traffic we hit were serious herds of cows and horses. Then we get to the volcano and there are a lot of everyone following Graham, carrying their boards up the path. He stopped at various points to talk about the volcano and so there are A LOT of photos of hiim doing that too. We hike past two craters and have some amazing views along the way. Then everyone puts on their bright orange jumpsuits and goggles and Graham instructs them before sending them down the mountain. Apparently one of the guys on the tour today was the slowest Graham had seen to date, so that was kind of funny. Everything went well and everyone had a lot of fun so all in all Graham Neale's Volcano Boarding Tour was a wild success. Oh and I took a couple of videos, which I will upload later.

A few more photos...

Hey everyone,
Just wanted to write really quickly to say that we posted some more photos onto our Snapfish account from our trips to northern Nicaragua. Both our trips to the north have been in preparation for tours that we will lead through those areas. The first is in the region of Esteli in the mountains where you can almost forget the sizzling heat of Leon. As you'll see from the photos, we are bundled up...by Nicaraguan standards anyways. Here we visited organic coffee farms, waterfalls, cloud forests and fincas (small family farms) in the countryside. We have a few photos of us at two of the fincas and some of us visiting one of the lodging options for our mountain tour called Finca Neblina del Bosque (the cloud forest farm) because it overlooks some amazing cloud forest. Our second trip was also to the north to the Chinandega department, which is even hotter than Leon. This is where we will be doing whale watching, kayaking through estuaries, horseback riding and hiking Volcan Coseguina. We have some photos of the massive beach where we come in from whale watching, but we didn't take much after that. Oh yeah and then there are a lot of Graham with Bozo the kitten because I am obsessed with taking photos of her. And a few of Graham at the end that only Devon and Trevor might appreciate. So check out a few photos from our trips to the northern beaches and mountains. Click here to be taken to the new album. Hope everyone is doing well.

Merry Christmas!

We wanted to wish all of you a very, though belated, Merry Christmas! We have been kept busy at the hostel preparing and recovering from it's annual Christmas feast. There were around 70 people in total and it was kind of a hectic day or two of preparation. Graham and I slaved away in a hot kitchen baking brownies and banana cakes for the occasion...and Graham was selfless enough to be the official taste tester. It was very generous of him. However, we agree that the desserts were the best part, so it was worth the sweat. The dinner went well and it was one big buffet-style affair with a variety of meats from pork to lamb, lots of vegetarian main dishes like eggplant lasagna and vegetarian Shepard's Pie, roasted vegetables, bread and salads. And then the desserts of course, of which there were no leftovers. So although there was no snow or presents, there was a great deal of food.

We are hoping to jump into more tours with the start of the new year. Although I have been a bit out of comission lately, Graham has been leading volcano boarding tours on Cerro Negro and is becoming quite the accomplished boarder (although to be fair, it is not rocket science - you sit on a piece of wood and slide down the slope). He also earned his first tip the other day, which makes him kind of a big deal, according to him. So, we will continue to help lead the volcano boarding tours, but in January hope to begin some of the one day and overnight tours. Some of these will include whale watching, high altitude coffee and cigar plantation tours, climbing the nearby volcanoes, camping and trekking in a cloud forest and boating through a protected mangrove estuary. We'll see what comes with the new year, but we are looking forward to it.

As always, we love hearing from everyone and hope that Christmas in the states was great. Oh and we finally uploaded more of our photos from our travels from Guatemala to El Salvador to Nicaragua and then from our month long tour within Nicaragua. So click here to check them out. Happy New Years in advance from both of us!

El Salvador and Nicaragua

We would like to apologize for the infrequency of our blog posts, but having been on the move so much and with such inconsistent internet (and electricity) and pricey internet, we have been unable to post. We also have not posted any new pictures. We probably will not post any new pictures until we return to Leon in a week or two as it would take hours to get them online with the speed of service down here. So we just wanted to apologize and say we are still alive.

From Guatemala we went to El Salvador to visit Britsy´s friends. We had a fantastic time seeing their pueblo and the neighboring pueblos. The Sensentes were far too kind, feeding us and showing us their country.

From El Salvador we went direct to Leon, Nicaragua. We spent a couple days meeting the owners of Bigfoot and Green Pathways and seeing the city. From there, we have spent the last two weeks touring Nicaragua. Working our way down the coast, we have hit the main tourist spots of the country. Now we are headed down the Rio San Juan, the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, to the Caribbean side. Depending on how far up the Caribbean coast we get, we will probably spend another week or two making our way back to Leon, where we will settle down and begin working.

Again, we will blog more later about our adventures, but for now things have been great and we hope you are all doing well.

Markets, Flying and death to all spiders!

Hola,
We are back in Antigua, after a little over a week of traveling through the Guatemalan Highlands. A week ago Sunday, we traveled to Chichicastenango (Chichi for short), which is about an hour and a half north of Antigua. There, every Thursday and Sunday, Chichi hosts the largest market in Guatemala. They sell everything from fresh produce, mixed with a lot of flies and bees, to shoes, to carved masks and jewelry, along with everything else in between. As it is the low season, we have become accustomed to vendors hanging on our every move. In Chichi, this was particularly intense, especially as the day wore on. We spoke to a couple vendors who told us that they hadn´t sold a single thing all day. Among the vendors who buy ¨store¨space or stalls, there are many women who wander the maze of streets offering hand sewn table covers, scarves, tapestries and the like. At the end of the day as people started to become desperate, one older woman took a keen liking toward Britsy. With the help of my egging on, Britsy was soon being draped in various garments that the lady thought looked nice on Brits. I laughed, took pictures, and asked the woman to put more and more things on Brits. Although this was pretty funny, what was not funny was how this woman had spent, we were told by another vendor, probably around a month to two months sewing these pieces. As we had no space for them we continually said no to her attempts to sell. She started by offering them for just over $30 USD and after about 30 minutes she was down to between $3-4 USD. So she was willing to sell something that took her a month to make for 3 dollars. We tried to explain to her that it was worth more than that but that we didn´t have space for it, but she was that desperate. Unfortunately this seems to be common in many areas of Guatemala.

Most of the tourists buses dropped people off in the morning and picked them up in the afternoon to return to Antigua. We decided to spend the night in Chichi and we were glad we did. At night, all the tourists were gone and the market turned into a bunch of food stalls and a general hang out area for locals as people dismantled their stalls. There was music blaring and people chatting...and then the two gringos, the giant and the blonde, sitting and observing. Although to be fair, I think we are observed more than we observe. We think because of our height and hair color we have become somewhat of a local attraction or freak show as Britsy says. I keep telling Britsy its the gun show that people are gawking at, but she just glares at me. But in seriousness, it was fun to see the real side of Chichi, that it seems few tourists stay to see.

Following Chichi, we took a 15 passenger van with 23 people in it to Panajachel, a town on Lake Atitlan. We had communicated with a really cool guy about doing some paragliding and we got to meet him in person. After about an hour long conversation with him, I (Britsy) finally realized that I had thought that we were going to go hang gliding, which is surprisingly, quite different from paragliding. Oh well. Whatever sport we did (paragliding), it was awesome. Graham went on our first outing and due to poor winds (and maybe too much weight in the passenger seat), their flight was short. For the next couple days, we visited some of the other towns around the lake and then returned to Pana for round two of paragliding.

This time, I went first and although I was super excited about it, I almost threw up all over myself while flying. We had really good winds, so shortly after taking off, we got to start doing aerials - basically doing spinning turns in the air. That didn´t sit super well with me apparently. But it was awesome anyways. Graham also did a lot of aerials and was manly enough not to feel sick afterwards. We would definitely do it again.