Rainy season

Once again I find myself in the position of having passed through a whole other country between blog posts. However I am happy to say that, unlike last time, I quite enjoyed this one.

Our first stop in Nicaragua was Granada, where mammoth LCD screens in the town centre display an infinite loop of Coronation Street reruns. Being the third Spanish colonial town of its kind that we have visited, I was beginning to notice a pattern: the streets are as a grid, and if followed to the centre one will find a park, with a fountain, next to a cathedral. This is not a bad blueprint by any means.

Aside from a brief visit to a nearby market I personally spent my time wandering around the town, and sampling the delights of the Chocolate Cafe which, I´m disappointed to inform, only serves chocolate based products and is not in fact made of chocolate itself. Granada is a town which I´m sure is worth spending more time in, but of course that´s just not the way we roll; after barely two days, we moved on to Ometepe.

Ometepe is an island in the middle of a lake, with two dormant volcanoes. One of the activities it is possible for one to participate in is climbing one of these volcanoes. At this point, I should mention that May is officially the start of the rainy season in this part of the world. It took a few weeks, but ever since Utila there has been some kind of terrific downpour every day, usually at night. The rest of the time it is of course still hot and humid. But obviously Thor was feeling particularly humorous/vindictive at 6am that day, and created a lovely thunderstorm just at the point at which we started the drive to the volcano. We waited it out for a while, and it did actually stop. Then we climbed, and it started again.

I remember that whilst we were waiting to go up Guy said to me that he hoped it wouldn´t get any wetter. To which I replied, how could it possibly get any wetter? So in a way, it`s kind of my fault. We made it about halfway up before the slippery ground and tropical storm convinced us to turn back. And you know, I´m pretty damn sure that in descending we crossed a river that wasn´t there on the way up. We returned all as drowned rats, and with ruined everything.

I sit now in Costa Rica with more to tell, but without the time. More posting shall be forthcoming. For now though, I am going to take the opportunity to wish a public happy birthday to my dad. Happy birthday! Your present is that I´m going to be home soon. I bet you can´t wait.