Rice and beans and public buses

I've been in Nicaragua for almost a week now and am really digging it! Sarah and I parted ways on Sunday, she heading to Guatemala off to a yoga retreat and I headed to the colonial city of Leon in nica. It took me two days to get there but that is what trips to Central America are made of... Long ass bus rides of varying degrees of comfort. I splurged and took tica bus which is like greyhound back home since I would be on this bus for about twelve hours. The border crossing was easy and I got dropped off in Leon at a hostel I had no reservations at. Of course, they were full. Ended up at Bigfoot hostel which is basically a party hostel but I ended up sleeping heaps because I got a cold. Highlights of my time in Leon include:

- visiting the 300 year old cathedral in the centre square

- finding the lady behind the cathedral that everyone talks about on trip advisor who makes the best street food ever

- my inner Cheryl Strayed perishing instantly as I hiked for one hour up the Telica volcano with a bad head cold and almost died

- looking into the crater of said volcano after watching the sunset and seeing lava 

- finally buying one of those cute colourful bags everyone had in utila 

- ordering my first drink en Español 

I met this cool girl from Denmark in my hostel named Siw (pronounced like Sue) and we decided to travel together for a while since she is going the same way as me. We went to the surfing turtle lodge in las penitas, where we did not surf and we did not see any turtles lol the waves were maaassssiiivvveee and we had just missed the last babies hatching. BOO! I did end up doing lots of hair wraps and making some moolah so that was cool :) it was a beautiful place right on the beach and I could hear waves crashing from my bed and feel the sea breezes on my face. Heaven. 

The next day we decided to go to Laguna de apoyo, an imploded crater lake near Granada. Again, I had no reservations booked but I figured something would work out. We were joined by new friends Anna from Germany and jack and Alice from the uk. We got there by public transportation which was absolutely hilarious, we are so lucky that both Anna and Alice speak really good Spanish! We ended up walking around for about 5km total trying to find a place to sleep. We eventually ended up at the estacion biologica which is more of a research centre that happens to have the most ghetto accommodation known to man. Buuuut by that point we just wanted to put our stuff down and go to bed! But not before having a swim in the lake. I was so sweaty and gross from being on packed buses all day and wandering around like Mary and Joseph because all the inns were full I just ran down to that lake and jumped right in! It was so refreshing and made the whole journey worth it.

Today we have a full day to relax in/by the lake and tomorrow we move on to Granada for a few days then off to ometepe! 

Hope spring has sprung at home and that everyone is well! I'll be flying home April 11th with my mama from Costa Rica but stopping in Toronto for a few days, so really looking forward to that! 

Peace, love, and gallopinto (rice and beans!) 

Soph xx 

Also... I found these beautiful kittens today!!!!! So happyyyyy

chicken buses and Mayan ruins

Well, to say the last few days have been an adventure would be an understatement! We left utila at 6:30 Friday morning on the ferry. It was such a rough crossing people were getting seasick and I thought I was going to die a little bit. The waves were massive but we made it to la ceiba. We intended on taking the hedman alas bus to copan ruinas, but when we got in a taxi and said hedman alas bus station please, we ended up at Diana express. Didn't really matter because it ended up costing us about 13 dollars instead of 50 so that's cool. Hedman alas is like greyhound with ac and a bit more fancy, Diana express is like a greyhound bus from the '70s haha it also stops every few km to pick up new passengers. We passed heaps of famed "chicken buses" on the road thinking, hmm we'll have to go on one of those one day for the experience.... We finally made it to San Pedro sula where we had half an hour to wait for our next bus. Time to get some lunch. We went into the food court, and the options were pollo, pollo or pollo. Chicken, chicken or fried chicken hahaha! I ended up having rice and salad which was actually delicious! We set out to the road for our next bus... The driver walked towards a refurbished school bus and motioned us for our bags. We were on a chicken bus!!! Good lord. Literally. Complete with Jesus stickers, a full set of tires on two seats, and a dirty diaper, we had started on a journey few gringos had done before lol just kidding, those buses are popular with budget travellers. Every stop, locals hop on a try to sell you stuff like food, drinks, even shampoo! Hah They take a long time, we got to copan ruinas at 6ish and checked into our hostel. We walked around to find some dinner and ended up at Cafe San Rafael and had an epic cheese plate and a glass of wine. Ended up going back for brekkie today, it was so good! Wicked coffee as well, straight from the source :) there is a coffee plantation quite close to here it's nice to know they are supporting local businesses! 

Then we took a tuk tuk out to the ruins and wandered about for a few hours. This was just amazing. The carvings are so beautiful. It amazes me that they are still in tact because they are hundreds of years old. So cool to picture what life was like here so long ago.

We walked back and stumbled across a cool fruit and veggie market, along with some places to get food little more than holes in the wall with a little old lady cooking meat and making corn tortillas by hand. It was full of locals so you know that's the place to eat! We are going to try there for dinner. We got some delicious mango for snack and came back to the hostel to book our bus tickets tomorrow. Sarah is headed to lake atitlan in Guatemala for a week long yoga retreat and I am headed to Leon Nicaragua (with an overnight stop in el tunco El Salvador) to surf my way down the coast to Costa Rica!!! I'm really sad to be parting ways with my travel mer-sista, but excited to do some solo travel. It will be a completely new experience for me, and I'm ready to jump right in! 

Sending love and baleadas from Honduras xx

S