Fiesta!

(Now with picture goodness!)

Well, I´d initially planned on being on the island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua today. However, I learned that today is the culmination of the week long festival celebrating the birthday of the namesake of this town and figured I didn´t want to miss the Miss San Juan del Sur beauty pageant.

Sunset over the bay


Went to the rodeo yesterday, wow. Took some pictures of the scene and people riding bulls which I will post soon, hopefully later in the evening. It was quite the event and we unintentionally got the cheap seats, which initially involved sitting on the fence surrounding the ring. An hour of that left our butts numb and feet asleep, so we decided to join the spectators sitting IN the bull ring, on the outside edges. Up to that point it had looked relatively safe, all the action taking place at the opposite end where the bulls with riders on top were released. After bucking the rider they were fairly quickly and uneventfully lassoed and returned to their corral. As the day wore on though the crowd and bulls became more excitable and the rider being thrown was no longer the end of the bull´s ordeal. The more raucous, young, and/or drunk of the crowd would dash madly around the bull, taunting it, slapping it´s sides, waving traditionally red flags at it, and generally doing their best to piss it off. The predictable result was an angry bull, charging madly around the arena and the four of us ended up having to run for our lives. Between zip-lining, jumping off waterfalls, snakes on trails and other assorted adventures, this was by far the biggest adrenaline rush and the most scary moment of the trip. Something about a enormous and enraged animal with horns bearing down on you tends to do that I suppose. Luckily I dodged the right way, and while the animal passed within a couple feet of me, it chose a different direction. The poor Dutch girl, Marika, we were with was not so lucky though and it went right after her (to the delight of the crowd and excited commentary from the announcer) and she was nearly trampled, saved by a last second dive under the fence, being dragged to further safety by onlookers. Bull was seriously inches away from her, crazy, but quite the story for her to tell. She was also afterwards plied with numerous tequila shots by locals appreciative of the near miss.




The machismo culture was definitely in full evidence at this event, which seemed to be attended by half the town at least: man, woman, teens and children. Young toughs danced around the bulls, making obscene gestures towards their crotch in the bulls direction, garbage was thrown at the poor animals, and it was just a general scene of mixed chaos and bravado. While the bullying of the animals was somewhat distasteful, they at least refrained from stabbing them...so there´s that. There was also a fistfight in the crowd which was quickly surrounded by a huge ring of cheering people and the announcer fluidly switched to what sounded like a play by play of this new action. Was broken up before any serious damage was done and the drunken looking participants seemed in good spirits and embraced to much clapping. The event was quite open to amateurs and we were asked and encouraged multiple times to consent to riding the bulls ourselves. Our polite refusals were met with some friendly jeering and the announcer ran off an unintelligible, to me, commentary with the word ¨gringos¨ mentioned multiple times ending in the entire crowd staring at the four of us and laughing. I was also amused, though for different reasons. They finally convinced some guy, that wasn´t with our group, from California to give it a go. He was bucked off quickly, but without injury and treated to multiple tequila shots for his bravery.

Night was marked by this amazing and unique street festival/religious ceremony/party in the town square. The entire town was there it seemed and today is a holiday for just this one town´s residents. Lots of music and traditional dancing on a stage set up in front of the church kicked everything off. The interlude when it started raining hard was kind of funny, instantly a huge forest of umbrellas opened and those without scurried for cover, holding their plastic chairs over their heads. Rain passed in a half hour and the party quickly kicked back into high gear with a surprisingly impressive fireworks show. Men with wooden constructions resembling saddles held over their heads and studded with all manner of sparking fireworks ran around in a cleared center chasing the town´s children who were all screaming with glee and mock fear. In the last two days they´ve constructed this big hut thing, a blank space on a table in the middle surrounded with garlands of flowers and all manner of local fruits and vegetables. My curiosity as to what this was for was answered as a five foot plastic looking statuette of Jesus, and a separate shrine looking construction, relating to the patron Saint of the town I think, emerged from somewhere and were led to the hut among much cheering, music and dancing. The crowd surged around the icons, competing for the honor of helping to carry Jesus, though they were really dancing him along, and he bobbed up and down maniacally, almost crowd-surfing his way to the central altar thing, where he was given his place of honor and locals thronged around snapping pictures.

Huge statue of Jesus looks down on town from nearby hill


With that done, attention turned to these four giant, 8 or 9 feet, constructions dressed up as ladies in dresses. Someone would climb under their skirts and hoist up the thing, peering through view-holes in the midsection and could control their arms and some other functions with a crazy pulley system of some kind. I got a quick peek under the skirts after asking one of the handlers if I could. Kind of hard to describe, I´ll try and get a picture tonight, but they are like these huge marionette things and they ¨danced¨and spun madly at the behest of the people inside them in the center of a circle cleared for the occasion. It seemed to be the highlight, a clear crowd favorite and a popularity contest of some kind as various people cheered loudly for their favorite lady at the appropriate times. Might have just been the fact that out of respect for the locals I had been partaking somewhat heavily of their traditional festival beverages (beer and tequila, ¨When in Rome, etc.¨), but the whole scene had a somewhat psychedelic and hallucinatory quality to me, with lightning flashing regularly in the background, hazy smoke from the fireworks, loud rhythmically pounding music, a smiling Jesus with hand extended in the middle of a garlanded altar and illuminated by pulsing red and green lights that would have been more appropriate at a rave, and then these huge, wildly dancing woman puppets, spinning crazily and bouncing around with odd jerky movements, crowd members darting in and out among them, dancing with them, lifting their skirts and making obscene gestures in a scene oddly reminiscent of their behaviour towards the bulls at the rodeo. It was a hell of a good time and felt culturally immersive in a way that Costa Rica never seemed to offer.

Will post pictures soon, promise! Foot is no longer infected and the wound is healing up nicely thanks to whatever pills and cream the pharmacist in town gave me. Hope all is well with everyone and that I hear from you soon. - Azi

Nicaragua

Well, I´m currently in Nicaragua, whoo! I like it a lot here so far, I´m in a nice little beach town called San Juan del Sur on the Pacific coast. In a way all these little beach towns I´ve visited are similar, but they all seem to have little quirks of personality and character, call it a vibe if you will, that is decidedly different in each one. The general demeanor of the residents, the night and day scenes, the preferred items that street vendors sell (here it´s hot dogs and pistachio nuts), whatever it is they all seem unique in a way that pictures don´t do justice to. This town seems to have daily celebrations of some kind, fireworks shot off and a hilarious parade of cowboys on horses, townspeople strolling along and people standing in the backs of pickup trucks singing and dancing. Had a fun night out on the town the first night, a group of us played a rousing international game of flip-cup and then went to the bar. There was an extremely drunken Australian girl who kept getting up on stools and tables, dancing suggestively and flipping up her skirt...awesome right. Well, the inevitable happened and as she was dancing among three stools with some guy they suddenly both went crashing down to the ground. He came up bleeding from his head, she from her nose. Ta da! I spoke with her the next morning and she actually went to the hospital to see if it was broken, it wasn´t though.

Spent the day trying to learn how to surf! Got an hour lesson and the board for the rest of the day for 20$ Definitely a tough learning curve, but I understand the appeal now, it´s an awesome feeling to be standing up on it and cruising along a wave. Made some real progress, can easily stand up and ¨surf¨the already broken waves, but catching them before they are already just wash is tricky. Think I´ll try again though soon, after I recover. Completely exhausted from the day of surfing: arms are sore, knees scraped, battered, bruised, and sinuses flushed completely with water and sand. It was worth it though.

No picture this time around, sorry, will try to take some good ones soon. Going to the island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua on Tuesday for some hiking and relaxing and next to check out the colonial town of Granada. Should be fun and I´m looking forward to it.

Notes on travel by bus in foreign lands. So far it´s been amazingly smooth and easy getting around, as long as you accept as inevitable certain delays and roadbumps (often literal ones). Apparently at some point we sent a large portion of our school buses from the sixties to Nicaragua, which for reasons that are guessable are referred to ¨Chicken Buses.¨ My major hassles so far have been two strikes in Costa Rica that screwed up bus service. The first caused us and a huge line of cars and trucks to stop and sit in the middle of the highway for almost 2 hours. When we finally got going and passed the protestors I divined with my limited Spanish from reading their signs that it was a protest related to indigenous rights. The other time, the bus I was trying to catch was delayed almost four hours as another strike, never found out the cause exactly, but sounded like a labor strike of some kind, shut down all traffic through the major port city of Limon. Blocking the roads in a country with basically one major highway to each region or city is obviously a very effective tactic. On the way over to Nicaragua I was sitting in the back of the bus and trying to write in my journal, but every few seconds the crappy road caused me to literally shoot up out of my seat (almost hit the roof one time) it turned into a freeform drawing session instead.

That´s all for now, gonna go find some dinner here. Oh yeah, everything in Nicaragua is amazingly cheap compared to Costa Rica: a lunch of chicken breast, salad, rice and beans cost me 2.50$ and a big hearty dinner is not much more. Miss you all, keep safe and hope for the success of the Iranian protestors for me. Bye for now!

Last Post From Costa Rica

Wow, can't believe it's been a month already. Crazy. I know I´ve been kinda bad about frequent updates, so I´ll make up for it by long ones! Taking up where I left off: the National park at Manuel Antonio was as beautiful and monkey-filled as I'd been led to believe. A troop of white-faced Capuchins crossed the trail right in front of me, doing typical funny monkey stuff. Was no more than a few feet away from them at one point and got some good pictures. There's also racoons that wander around the park and apparently will steal your stuff from the beach if you're not careful. I haven't been paying extra for the guided tours, but you can sometimes just sort of meander along behind the tour groups and still take advantage of their expertise wildlife spotting skills and if you're lucky even get a peek through their viewfinders. Funny story, the girl Alison from Colorado was doing just that, and as the guide found a howler monkey she asked if she could put her camera up to the viewfinder they all carry around and take a zoomed in picture (which is really cool actually), so he makes an adjustment and then lets her do so. As she goes to look at the picture the local guide starts laughing hysterically and, as I confirmed, he left her with a picture of a nice close-up shot of a large pair of howler monkey testicles. Funny, right?

ahhhh, baby monkey on mama´s back.




Man, those damn coconuts are hard to get open,
but it´s quite satisfying to finally crack them.


Howler monkey testicles

Spent a few more days enjoying the awesome beaches of Manuel Antonio, I even borrowed a buddy's surfboard and gave it a try for 20 minutes but the waves sucked....yeahhhh, that's it, it was the waves.

Some of the *ahem* beautiful beach scenery

Next few nights were spent in the quiet surfer town of Dominical, further down the coast. It was a peaceful and relaxing contrast to the trinketed and touristed out public beach in Manuel Antonio. Felt like I was the only non-surfer tourist in town. Just kind of walked around the area and tried to let my numerous mosquito bites heal. The hardcore surfers kind of have their own little in-group thing going on and can talk endlessly about surfer related stuff. It´s easy to feel out of the loop, but whatever.

After Dominical, I was off to the remote area of Drake Bay, down on the Osa Peninsula. Took a scenic hour by boat through mangrove lined river channels to reach the tiny town. Was even more remote than Dominical, with miles of un-touristed coastline, and a permanent population of only 300 or so people, spread out over miles, with a small town center. Power was out half the time I was there and a thunder-clap was so loud and close one night that I literally sat bolt upright in bed. I think I had flashbacks to wars that happened before I was born; scared me senseless for a second. Really enjoyed myself there, felt like I had the town to myself, got to drink with the locals, eat sea bass fresh caught and practice my spanish.

Did a crazy hike hours long each way hike down the coast to a ranger station, San Pedrillo, in remote Corcovado National Park and saw a ton of howler monkeys, spider monkeys, snakes, and an unidentified little mammal guy eating mangoes. Also, spent a couple hours kayaking up the mangrove rivers which hosted caimans gliding around me *gulp*. No camera unfortunately, was too scared of capsizing, but you'll have to take my word for how awesome and beautiful it was. Made it really far into the jungle up the river, you have to carry your kayak and walk at times though to get that far in. Next was the day long excursion to Caño island an hour off the coast. Spent the day snorkeling and saw white-tipped reef sharks gliding not 10 feet underneath. Our snorkeling guide assured us they were safe, but something about that shape and those fins swimming so close still evokes some primal fear and got my heart pounding. Despite the sharks and myriad different cool fish and coral formations, the highlight had to be a sea-turtle that unconcernedly surfaced for air just one foot away from me and was swimming with me for a while, was so freaking cool, I really wish I'd had the foresight to buy a disposable underwater camera.

The river I kayaked up

Crazy big bamboo


Some as yet unidentified guy hanging out in Corcovado


Leafcutter ants doing what they do

Well, I'm now back where I started in San Jose, there's some huge party tonight that I'll be attending and then I head to the Carribean Coast town of Puerto Viejo tomorrow. It´s funny, ever since the ¨futbol¨ world cup qualifying game where Costa Rica beat the United States, upon learning I´m an American, the residents of San Jose give me sly smiles and teasingly ask whether I saw the game. It´s mostly good natured though, and they´re welcome to their justifiable pride. I´m just amused at how often it´s been happening and how happy they seem to be to have an American to rub it in that I don´t bother trying to shatter their jpy by pointing out that most Americans probably don´t even know there was a game and wouldn´t care if they did.


The party was interesting, I´m thinking of buying a small digital camera that I can bring out with me at night without fear of attracting the unwelcome attention my large and expensive one would generate at night. Their were ¨Jagermeister Strippers¨and the hostel invited a bunch of locals to come party. Was fun, and it´s always cool to mix with the locals and practice Spanish.


Puerto Viejo has one of the chillest vibes of any town I´ve been to yet and I took my first swim in the Caribbean. The town has lots of Afro-Caribe residents with a real Rasta feel and everyone is super nice and always nods and says hello when they pass by. Also, everyone rides bikes, they´re four dollars a day to rent, and it´s cool to just kind of cruise around the town and up and down the coast to the various beaches. Nights are spent partying, dancing and listening to Rasta, which is certainly a fine way to spend an evening on the ocean.

Cock shot...

I met some crazy indigent American in his mid-twenties at the beach who was all bruised up and absolutely out of his mind. I got to listen to him tell me about his fights with the devil, his drug addictions, and he shared some weird obsession with numerology, finding signs and portents in all numbers he came across. Was kind of disturbing and I was a bit relieved when I finally managed to extricate myself from his company. There was also a hilarious old white guy who was a ¨magician¨ and entertained us at breakfast with kind of crappy magic tricks and a constant stream of dirty jokes.


After a few days in Puerto Viejo, I decided to cross the border into Panama, a beatiful land of canals and hats, and then a little way down the coast and then a boat to the island archipelago of Bocas del Toro. The main town on one of the bigger islands is a backpackers paradise, with tons of travelers from all over the world. Been hanging out with some cool guys I met from Las Vegas, partied with a wild Norwegian and had a great time hanging out and talking to an Israeli and a German. Sounds like the start of a joke, ¨so, a Persian, an Israeli and a German all walk into a bar...¨

Me and a couple of Israeli guys I met and chilled with


The days are spent chartering boats to various little islands and hanging out and the nights are like Spring Break every day of the week. Every night is ¨ladies night¨at one of the various bars and is usually packed and jumping. There´s one popular bar a short .75 cent water-taxi ride away and it was absolutely crazy. Right on the water with tons of drunk people jumping into the ocean and flying off swings into a ¨pool¨cut into the deck. Unfortunately the only naked person I saw that night was a guy running around. Around two o´clock the local police decided it was too crazy a party and came and broke it up though. The hostel I´m staying at has a ¨free¨ shot called, ¨Tequila Suicide,¨but the catch is you first snort a line of margarita salt, then get a shot of their cheapest tequila, have to turn around and lean back and the bartender opens your eye and squeezes a lime wedge directly into it. Surprisingly a lot of people were doing it, it looked extremely unpleasant.



Lime in the eye...ouch!



Played cricket, well a beach version anyway, for the first time ever. Met some Aussies on a beach and they invited me to join their game. So that was an experience.



Met a really cool Jamaican dude named Livingston on one of the islands and he made us all some great food. Never knew Spanish could be spoken with a Jamaican accent. He was really funny though, spoke good English, and railed against the ¨fake Rasta¨gringos that flock to the various tourist towns to sell homemade jewelry.

Cool guy named Haroon, spent a few days with him and his buddy
Malloy. Awesome guitar player, kept us entertained during happy
hour with orginal songs.

Was hanging out a local beach the other day with some friends I´d met, just kind of chilling and swimming after our hike out to it. A ways down the beach were a group of dutch girls and some others and apparently they´d recently all smoked a couple joints but left the bag of weed just sitting out and a couple of ¨Park Rangers¨materialized out of the forest and noticed it. So the rangers start giving them grief, telling them how much trouble they could get them in if they call the real police and so on. The group asks what they can do to make this go away, probably hoping to just pay a bribe I imagine. The rangers though are apparently uninterested and pointing to a nearby little lagoon some ways back from the beach tell the group that they want them to build a canal from the lagoon to the ocean, seemingingly for some obscure turtle-nesting reason or something. So we´re chilling there, we talked to them later and got the full scoop, watching this big group of people dig this deep canal through the sand in the blazing sun. The rangers are supervising the project and just absolutely having a great time, laughing like it´s the funniest damn thing they´ve ever seen, which it might have been. Anyway, it took this big group 2 and a half hours of digging to finally finish the thing. The rangers walk around inspect the work, and then tell them, ¨now fill it back in.¨Ouch! Once it was filled back in, which didn´t take all that long, they gave them back the weed and wandered back into the jungle, still laughing. I have to assume the irony of forcing white foreigners to dig a canal in Panama was not lost on them, rather a cleverly ironic punishment actually. Better them than me I guess. I´ve been led to believe that the 5$ entry tax that Americans have to pay to get in to the country, people from the U.K. and Australia I know don´t have to pay it, is explicit revenge for when we taxed the Panamanians to use the canal in their own country prior to us giving it back to them. Go figure, right?


Today, I went on an island hopping/dolphin watching/snorkeling tour with a bunch of people I´d met the night before. The weather was pretty crappy at the start, raining good during the dolphin portion and I was afraid of getting my camera wet, which is unfortunate cause we saw some really cool dolphin action. Captain Willy drove the boat in circles, making waves, and got some dolphins to follow us and ¨surf¨our wake, jumping out of the water every few seconds. It was awesome, they couldn´t have been more than 2 meters away from the boat (some heathen unit of measurement, don´t ask) and you could see their pink noses and watch as they glided through the water. Got sunny for the snorkeling and beach portion and was a great day.


It´s funny with all the stray dogs in every town, I think I´d almost forgotten that dogs have balls too, since I almost never see ones that haven´t been nuetered in the States. Also, and this might be too much information, the female dogs all have extremely long, low-hanging and distended nipples. I swear I´ve seen some that actually drag on the ground. Just thought I´d share.



The last couple of days I´ve been nursing some scratched mosquito bites that are starting to get infected. I swear these biting insects love my blood for some reason, my poor legs and ankles look like some medical picture in a textbook illustrating the symptoms of some rare foreign disease like monkey pox. I guess I just need to be better about putting on insect repellant at all times. Careful cleaning, dressing and application of neosporin seems to be doing the trick, and I´m hopeful amputation wont be necessary. Honestly, even worse than the mosquitoes are the sand fleas, too small to really see but just as aggressive about biting.

At least I avoided being bitten by that thing!


All in all, I´m having a great time, and it feels good to be on my own travelling through foreign lands, meeting strange and interesting people and seeing amazing sights. Talking to people from so many different countries has been one of the best parts, and I´m endlessly fascinated by their perspective on us and all the idiosyncracies and quirks of different nationalities. I still miss home, with all its familiarity and friends, but don´t regret for a minute embarking on this trip. I plan on being in Nicaragua by this weekend and am looking forward to a new and even cheaper country. Miss you all and hope you´re having a great summer!