The last stretch --- Nicaragua!

So, we made to our last country on our list an d friday we will be on our way to the Big Apple!

While still in Honduras we went to visit the national park La Tigra, 11 km from Tegucigalpa. For this we had to get a chicken bus in the morning that took us nearly to the entrance of the park ( all uphill by the way). On this bus we had an old Italian guy and middle-aged biologist /historian which completed our bus ride with a detailed briefing of the hi story of the European continent and of the Central American continent (not bad for a sunday morning:)

We got to the park with the sun beating down on us and alraedy with the full knowledge that we were going to miss the last bus back to town if we were to cross the entire park (11km), which was our goal that day :) So up a steep hill we go for at 1km. The park was beutiful but we didnt get too see too much wildlife although it is home to many different bird, insect and mammal species such as jaguars!! We only got to agoutis (sorta of a big cute rat and rounder and browner :) and quite a few insects but we only heard the birds as the park was very dense. After our arduous climb it began to get easy and we made it throught the uneven path, crossing many Hondurans on the way, to find a beautiful waterfall (this park is where 70% of Tegucigalpa's water comes from). There was a TV station with a camera there filming the people that came to see the waterfall so we might have been on TV this weekend :)

We crossed the entire park in 3 hours and of course got to the end to find that the last bus had already left so we start our walk down to the little quaint town on Valle dos Angeles where the lonely planet told us was definitely worth seeing. As we are quite lucky on the way down we found this nice (rich!!) Honduran couple who were looking for the old mine and decide to be nice and take us along with them as they were heading down to Valle dos Angeles as well!!! So we found the old mine, which is now closed and then went down in their very nice and comfortable car to Valle dos Angeles where they said that if we did not fin d a bus they would be more then happy to take us with them back to Tegucigalpa (I love nice people!)

Valle dos Angeles is very beautiful. Its a small town and since it was sunday night everybody was out walking and taking their kids to the central plaza for ice cream and cotton candy. We decided to stay there for dinner so said goodbye to the nice couple. We walked around and took some pictures before settling down for dinner on the main plaza. After,as we had been told that there were taxis that could take us to Tegucigalpa, we went looking for one, to find none whatsoever!! Everyone told us there wasnt any taxis and all buses had left. When we saw that our only chance would be to hitch hike back we were told of a nice man that might take us as he was the only taxi driver of the town...so we went to knock on his door and negotiate our trip back (as we would be leaving Honduras the next day we were running low on lempiras!) He was kind enough to take us in his beaten up taxi and we got back to the Hotel at the decent hour of 8 at night :)
Early to bed as today we had to get up at 4:30 in order to catch our bus down to Nicaragua!
We got the deluxe (although there are not very punctual around here as the bus is supposed to leave at 6, the customers didnt arrive until 6:30 and the man supposed to run the office didnt arrive until 7 and we had been there since 5:15!! ), although it was the same price as the normal bus and it wasnt even on our guide! We even had breakfast served to us and the chairs could recline almost to sleeping position---how's that for comfort?! At the border we got the foreigners treatment and didnt get our bags searched while everyone else had to -- I call it favourable discrimination or mayb e they just cant be bothered to check backpackers as they are tough to look into without taking everything out hehehe

Made it to Managua (the capital) by 1pm and after a quick stop in an ATM machine got on a minivan down to Granada, the most beautiful colonial town of Nicaragua.
It is quite beautiful and the hotel we are staying at makes it even more so...called The Oasis, it acutally has a pool in the middle of the spacious courtyard (which our room gives out to), there are hammocks, free internet, free phone calls (each person gets 10min each day) and it is locally right in the centre of town! Oh, and we ran into the couple we had shared the dormitory with 2 nights before (its quite common when backpacking : )

We had a nice walk around town this afternoon looking at the colonial buildings. At one point, after lunch, on the way back we walked to a side street full of kids that as soon as they saw our cameras came rushin g to us to get us to take photos of t hem and they even asked to take photos with our cameras :) We stayed with them for a while letting them play a little with the digital camera and Jo letting them see through his camera but of course not letting them take pictures hehehe
We got back to the hotel for a nice dip in the pool and we will probably hit the bed early as tomorrow we would like to go to another colonial town known for its artifacts called Masaya and chill in Granada in the afternoon before heading down to Isla Omotepe on wednesday :)
Its almost over guys...thanks f or sticking with us and dont forget to send us your comments!

Love,
Jo and Fil