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 

the island life for me...

hola mi amigos y amigas! Como estas? Yo soy mucho mucho bien 😄 I've been on utila for almost two weeks now and have done so much, that I could go home now feeling like I've had a wicked holiday. Thankfully, I don't have to go home for a while (you poor souls facing those temps aaah!) 

Last week, Jayme was here so we did lots of fun stuff like renting four wheelers and going all around the island, climbed pumpkin hill, you can see the whole island from there because it's so flat! We went into the freshwater caves, went to the fancy resort neptunes for the day to swim, suntan and have a few cheeky drinks :) 

This week I did my PADI open water scuba diving course at utila dive center (also where sarah is doing her divemaster course) it was fantastic! I don't know how I haven't been diving all my life. Diving is literally something I never thought I'd be able to do ever. At first I was pretty scared, but with more practice I really began to enjoy it! It is a whole new world underwater and such a cool feeling to be able to explore while breathing normally! Im pretty stoked for myself for stepping (hugely) outside my comfort zone and being rewarded with this beautiful new way to be closer to the ocean which I love so much! I'm looking into doing a few adventure dive courses which will hopefully count towards my advanced open water course. Or heck, I might even just do the advanced, we shall see I'm on a budget haha 

Utila is pretty cool. It's a super small island, everyone is here to dive, get certified or do professional courses like divemaster, instructor etc so it's all scuba all the time! Things here are very cheap, but more expensive than on the mainland because everything is brought in on the ferry a few times per week. Everyone basically knows everyone although people tend to stick with people from their own dive shop ( there are about five main ones ) 

We've been doing some yoga, drinking great coffee, meeting lots of new people and reading a lot. It's been pretty stormy the last few days, so lots of Netflix has been happening haha next week I'm hoping to get into a regular running and yoga routine with a few dives here and there! I just love it so much! 

Around the second week of March I'll be headed to the mainland of Honduras to go see the copan ruins and then to Nicaragua where I'm going to surf my way down the pacific coast! Meeting my momma in Liberia, Costa Rica in April for a week and then we will see where I go, depending on how much money I have left lol 

That's me for now! Life is good, I'm slowly getting my tan back and enjoying relaxing and hanging out with sarah who I haven't seen in almost a year! So nice to be back together :) hope everything is well with you guys at home, you're all rock stars for enduring those awful temperatures, I'd be crying for sure haha

Much love to everyone, sending island vibes your way! 

Peace and pineapples! 🍍

Sophie

I've got my travel fins, and my flippie floppies

Ola mi amigos! Well, it's just about that time again... One week until departure! It's been a while since I posted on here, I was too busy saving the world, one latte at a time haha its also probably because I feel way more prepared for this trip than I was for the big move to aus. I'm not stressing about packing at all, and my must have item this trip was my travel fins for snorkelling, not crazy vaccines and malaria pills. In fact, I didn't even go to the travel doctor at all! I'm feeling much more relaxed about the whole thing. Which isn't to say I didn't plan at all (don't worry mom!) I got my travellers insurance, sunscreen, vitamins and whatnot all sorted. Now just to shove it all in my backpack with a few pairs of shorts and 10 bathing suits and I'm good to goooo! 

Had a great FaceTime sesh with sarah last week who has been living the island life for a few weeks now (in our sweet bachelorette pad nonetheless) and she is loving it! She said the diving is amazing, food is awesome and everything is really cheap which is wicked when you're on a backpacker budget 😜 our reunion will fall almost a year to the day since she left our little trailer park in Margaret river to head for New Zealand how funny is that?! I am so beyond stoked to see her again!!! And her friend Jayme who is coming for the first week of the trip!

At first I was going to stay one night in San Pedro sula and bus to la ceiba then ferry to utila the next day but Jayme decided to get the little island hopper plane to arrive the same day, so I booked it too! I only have an hour to get off the plane go through customs get my bag get my new boarding pass recheck my bag get through security and get on the new plane! Sarah said I will make it because the airport is tiny and everyone is on island time haha I really hope so!!! 

The first week I'm going to chill, explore the island, do some snorkelling and hang out with the girls. Then the mermaid adventure begins! I booked my PADI open water course to begin feb 16th I am seriously so stoked for this! As part of Sarah's divemaster course, she may end up teaching part of my course! That would be so cool! I have made a vow to myself that I am not leaving utila until I have swam with a whale shark. This island is known to have some of the most  concentrated whale shark populations in the world, so I think it will be a good possibility haha it is basically the Honduran version of my Australian sea turtle quest lol I'm such a nature nut lol

I have three more shifts at work then Thursday and Friday off to finish last minute running around and packing! Then off to the airport for 430am on Saturday 😊 if all works out, I'll be sipping a cocktail out of a coconut watching a beautiful sunset about 12 hrs later!!! 

I'm amped, ready to go, ready to get tan again and stoked to reconnect with the role of beach bum mermaid that I was born to play hahaha 

Our apartment has wifi so I'll be able to update the adventure as I go. I'm thinking it will revolve around eating amazing local fresh food and taking ridiculous pictures of myself underwater sooo, sorry in advance for the #goproselfies lmao 

Love you all heaps and missing you already! If anyone's free Thursday night I'll be heading to my beloved Alice's for one last open mic night jam sesh! Come have a beer ($5 pints of beaus!) haha 

Peace love and island vibes 

Sophie xx 

on the road again...

hello my friends! it's been a while since i've dusted off the ol' blogger login and written a post. i've been home for about 4.5 months now, working at a cafe, coming home and looking up random flights on skyscanner to see where i should go next. and finally, the research has paid off. my itchy feet are finally gonna get scratched! i'm off to central america! 

the first little while i was home, i was super bummed, not knowing what my next move was. i couldn't find a job, i had no money, and the mean visa man kept saying i owed them my first born child. so i finally got my current job, where i learned to make delicious lattes (today i had an eggnog latte and it seriously changed my life and appreciation for christmas :P) and i decided that when i had enough money saved up, i was going to go to new zealand for a year. 

hmmm... have you looked at the price of a flight to nz?! not cheap man. so i decided maybe not. meanwhile, my good pal sarah, you may remember her as one of my trailer park sistas from margs, was cooking up a plan to go do her divemaster training in utila, an island off the coast of honduras. i never really thought about travelling in central america before, but one google image search of utila, a mention of the massive whale shark population, and i was in. 

so i booked my flight! leaving ottawa on february 7th for san pedro sula, honduras. i will stay one night in this *ahem* ...fairly dangerous town from what i've read, and then take a bus to la ceiba and then a ferry to utila, which will be my island home for a month! i'm stoked to get my dive ticket, work on freediving, see wicked sea creatures, and obvssss to be reunited with my lovely mermaid! after that month, no plan really, but i definitely am going to head to the pacific side for some surfing. no return ticket yet, but upon googling, we found that it is around $200 to fly home from cancun, mexico.. so i'm thinking i will try to head up that way :)

if anyone has travelled in central before, hit me up with some suggestions. i am excited to have a really open plan, basically i'm just going to come home when i run out of money lol. so ya i'd love to hear anyone's advice, what they liked, what they didn't etc. etc. and maybe some tips on where i can buy pepper spray bahaha 

anyways, that's it for now! looking forward to updating my blog while on the road again :) 
¡Hasta luego!

soph xx

he just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich

hello my beautiful people! a lot has happened since my last post. i wasn't in the best wifi zone ever because hmm... i was in the middle of the desert! haha basically the rest of my trip included a side road to uluru kata tjuta national park, back on the stuart highway to adelaide, and then the great ocean road all the way to melbourne. i had the most amazing time, met awesome people and learned a whole lot about the aboriginal cultures of the area. i spent a few days solo in melbourne, getting reacquainted with city life (aka shopping and eating a lot lol) and before i knew it, it was time to get on a plane and begin the long long journey back to canada. i flew to manila, then san fran and finally landed in toronto. i spent the weekend there with my sista jenn, her bf and their cat babies and got to see lots of friends from college. it was an all around great weekend and good adjustment back to canada :) sunday night i took the train to ottawa and headed home! it is definitely strange to be back, but it's only been a few days so i'm still loving it. my bed has never been more comfortable lol 

this past year has been such a wonderful, life changing experience for me. i feel pretty stoked that i had this dream of travelling and worked my tail off to make it happen. i couldn't have done it without the serious support of my family, friends and my travel guru bryanna ;) everyone has been so awesome, always encouraging me to try new things and make the most of every experience. from commenting on my photos, sending me christmas parcels in the mail, and good vibes through the universe. also, knowing that people are actually reading this dang thing instead of me just writing for kicks is really cool. i'm not going to go into all of the details of how i'm this totally new and improved version of myself. you will see that soon enough when we hang out, my smile tells it all.

as for right now, i'm back living at home in good old carp, enjoying some time with my fam and slowly but surely starting the job hunt once again. hoping to continue on with some travels in the new year, thinking about new zealand :) that is still a long ways away so we will see what happens! in the meantime, i'm going to be taking a break from the blog because, let's be honest, my real life is not even half as exciting as my aussie life :P 

thank you again to everyone who supported me on this journey, and to everyone who i met on my travels it has been so great to meet you all. my trip wouldn't have been what it was without all of you! loads of love to all family and friends old and new!

see ya later mate ;) signing off until the next adventure

soph xx 

Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park

Twelve Apostles - Great Ocean Road

                            

                                          

                                         

that time i licked a green ant's bum

i've started my journey down to melbs! this trip is made up of a few smaller trips combined, so it won't be the same group the whole time like my trip in jan was. monday morning i headed out around 645 and was the second on the bus. we are travelling on a 4 wheel drive bus thingie that is similar to what we used on our fraser island tour, and believe me, we definitely needed that 4WD :) 

our group is 10 people, a driver and a guide, sean and john haha there is  a really nice couple from the isle of wight named rosie and julien who have become like our british parents over the last few days lol there is a girl clair who is also from the uk and travelling solo, a girl teja from slovenia, a girl named tomo from japan, and a family from singapore with a mom,dad and two daughters. pretty cool family vacay if you ask me! 

we headed out to litchfield which is fairly close to darwin.we first went to the buley rockpools which are little pools going down a slope with water running from one to another. seriously so beautiful! one was so deep you could jump in no problem and even dive down and have to swim so far to reach the bottom. the water was so refreshing and clear.

then we went to see some termite mounds. there are two different types, cathedral termites, who's nests look like spires on a cathedral. the one we saw was over 5m tall! it takes about 10 years to build 1m, so we can guess that particular termite mound is 50+ years old! the other type is called magnetic termite mound. they are built facing north, always within 10 degrees. they are wide but very thin, which is so they are ableto use the sun in the morning to warm up the home, and then move to the other side when it is too hot. our guide sean is so knowledgeable about NT and everything, he gave us so much info on the drive. NT has a population of only 250,000 people! its so crazy. i decided to ask him about the weird ants i saw in darwin . they had green bums, for lack of a better word haha. he's like oh ya green ants, you can touch the end to your tongue and it takes like lemon! at first i thought he was just pulling my leg, but he was serious. so we found a nest and he did it first but then i grabbed an ant by the body and touched its backside to my tongue. it was very bitter and like sour sort of, definitely comparable to a lemon. he said that aboriginal people would boil those ants including their nests in water and drink the tea when they had a cold... bush tucker cold medicine! bush tucker is an aboriginal word meaning food from nature. it is so fascinating to see how the aboriginal people use the land for everything they need. 


after the termite mounds we headed to florence falls. after climbing down 135 stairs, we went swimming in this most beautiful waterfall! the water was so refreshing and we went under the waterfall and i was just in heaven! it was so great. then we headed back up the stairs and had lunch.

we headed into kakadu national park and went to an aboriginal cultural centre where we got an aboriginal welcome to the land, and learned about some of their traditions, basket weaving, painting, spearthrowing and heard lots of stories about daily life and some dream time legends. after that, we headed to coroboree billabong for a sunset wildlife cruise. this was soooo amazing! we saw a bunch of freshwater crocodiles which are smaller and have pointy noses, and we saw a massive saltwater croc! it was sitting on the bank and when we got close it got up and jumped quickly into the water. that was the first time ive seen a croc in the wild and it was absolutely amazing. we also boated through an area called lily alley, which was full of beautiful lotus plants with gorgeous pink blooms.there were so many cool birds and the sunset was spectacular. our guide really knew her stuff so she gave us lots of info about crocodiles and was really good at spotting them! she also said a really thoughtful quote that billabongs (watering holes) are the essence of australia, beauty and terror all in one place. its so true and i think that really captures the spirit of australia because there are seriously some of the most breathtaking sights ive ever seen in my life, but you always know that there could be something dangerous and deadly right around the corner, whether that be a snake, shark or croc. thats why it is such a fascinating place to me :) after that, we went to our camp for the night and had dinner and went to bed, i was pooped!

early morning the next day,we headed to the south area of the park to another waterfall called maguk. it was magical, just as you'd expect swimming in a pool at the bottom of a waterfall to be. i was so blissed out. we spent some time there and then headed to our next camp and had lunch. somehow on this tour, i got put into a room upgrade. i really dont remember paying for it, but it basically means that ive been glamping for the last few days haha i get a real bed and sheets and everything! last night i had a double bed muahahahaaaa i slept like a starfish :P i dont know how that happened, but ill take it ;) then we headed north to ubirr to see some aboriginal rock art. this was one part of the trip i was really stoked about! we learned alot about the stories behind the rock art, and the different styles etc. it is just so amazing to be looking at something that could be 20,000 years old. i remember watching a program on tv a few years ago about rock art and being like man i hope i get to see that one day.. and yesterday i saw it! i was especially excited to see the one where they put their hand on the wall and then spit the paint around to make an imprint of their hand. i saw many big ones and on one ledge at the bottom it looked like a lot of small handprints, just like how kids today do handprints in paint. it was so cool! we headed to the top of the escarpment to watch the sunset as welooked out at kakadu, and to the left is arnhem land. arnhem land is an area 5x bigger than kakadu's 20,000 square km. it is protected land owned by the aboriginal people and you need apermit to be able to go on the land. there are tribes living there following the old traditions and living off the land. it is really amazing to see the cooperation between the traditional aboriginal landowners of kakadu national park and the australian people. after the aborigiinal people got that land back, they could have just kept it for themselves but instead opened it up to the world to come and learn about their culture and traditions. since they had no written language or books, many of their stories and traditions are only passed on through the iconic rock art and through the elders and word of mouth. sitting up there on top of the world watching this amazing sunset, i felt so connected to the land and so much respect for the people who have been living on it for thousands of years. it was such a zen peaceful place and i am so lucky to have been able to see it. 

i slept like a little baby child that night in my blankets :) got up for brekkie at 6 and by 7 we were packed up and ready to head to jim jim falls. these falls are the piece de resistance of kakadu. the journey to get there is not for the feint of heart and sean did an amazing job at getting us there in one piece! first there is about 30km of dirt road. no biggie. then you go down a rocky, sandy, water crossing four wheel drivin' 8 km of road. to say it was bumpy would be an understatement! it was quite the ride. when you get to the carpark you can already tell its going to be epic. on one side is this beautiful rockwall thats so high and has tons of different layers and colours of rock. the trail starts off  with some small ish rocks you have to climb over. and then they get bigger. and bigger! there are trail markers but its basically a climbing free for all. i felt like a mountain goat in vibrams, and i was so glad to have them! i was a bit slow at climbing and everyone went ahead but john stayed behind so i wouldnt break my leg and die lol. we ended up going waaaay off the normal trail by mistake and literally had to climb these fricken massive boulders! my legs were a bit shaky haha and we ended up on the other side of the waterfall pool than everyone else lol so we had to find our way over which we eventually did. i was SO ready for a swim by then. luckily i had my bathers on already so i jumped into the water. definitely the coldest one so far but it was absolutely amazing. the waterfall was so tall, probably about 300 feet and the pool at the bottom was so big and deep. the rock wall curved around, so that when you yell it echoed off the walls. we swam all the way across to the waterfall and climbed up to stand under it. man oh man it was freezing! the water hit your back so hard because it fell from so high! once you jumped back into the water it felt so warm :) we swam our way back and climbed back to the trail. the way back was so much easier than our detour haha i felt like a real climber on the way back :P now we are on the way to a spot for lunch and then back to darwin for one night. tomorrow, im assuming bright and early, some of us who are continuing on to alice springs will be starting out on that tour :) so far everything has been so amazing and the sights have been stunning! 

loving liffffeeeee :D

update: in alice springs, freezing my ass off! free day tomorrow, then headed to uluru!! xx