Fishing trip and crab war

Last week we took half day break from surfing and ...went fishing. The fishing trip cost us $ 35 per hour which taking 6 people on board was $ 35 per couple. It was really a nice sunny day, the guys who owned the boat put 4 rods in the water and we were waiting....and I was the lucky one to catch the first jack mackarel;))))It was the biggest fish I had ever caught in my life!!!At least 6 kilos!!!We managed to get 8 of them after 2 hours only...and were ready for a big fire and grilled nice fish. Alvaro helped us to clear them, we made the fire ...and put the first fillet on it. At first sight it actually looked like a big, nice, meaty, full-blooded steak!!!yumm, yummm you would say...But after the first bite-well to cut it short - very intense taste. We had like at least 8 fillets (we gave the other fish away) but we managed to eat 2 of them between 6 of us. We had to kill the taste with the rum-there was no other option. Actually until now I a kind of shake off on the sole thought of it....

But guys what I am talking about...the rainy season came-just four days ago. And actually we do not see it so much by the amount of rain...as by the amount of crabs..we are officially in the state of war against them. It is after 9 on a hot tropical evening and I am sitting on the chair on our beautiful patio with my legs up as the floor below me is actually moving. We have like around 50 crabs around us and all of them are trying to get into our room. It all started 4 nights ago when the first raindrops fell. I woke up in the middle of the night hearing some strange noises: some small tip-topping, some crawling. I got off the bed and put the light on...and here we are: at bunch of nice, quite friendly-looking, black, orange and violet crabs, not so big though-a size of my palm, running swiftly, sideways along the walls. For fuck sake-I said!!!The sole imagination of that small animal crawling on me and pinching my ears gave me the goose skin. Unfortunately we are bigger then them and apologies to all animal-friendly people but we had to kill some of them and throw them away. We slept ok but we found some more of them hiding behind our backpacks and in our shoes in the morning. From our patio we gathered the full bucket of them. Next night was pretty quiet. We figured out during the day that they squeeze in between the spaces between our door (we have one net door and one wooden). We slept with both door closed but there was no rain during night-so no unexpected visitors either. Last night we had enough-even with the both doors closed they slipped in after some rain. We threw them away from our patio. Now we are actually thinking about the strategy to scare them off from our room. I think we must investigate the problem on internet-they are definitely looking for a dry place, we are trying to build some kind of a bridge for them so that they can walk away freely from our patio and find some other nice place under some plants maybe or basically away from us. We will solar-tape our door tonight and will see if it works. For the time being though we are observing their habits and keep our legs up (In the morning one of them managed to crawl on the chair I am sitting in now and jump on my thigh). Alvaro actually told us that the amount of crabs now is nothing comparing to the real rainy season. We are laughing that in each country in South and Central America we are in we have to have a small fight with the local animals: we have had frogs, mice, cockroaches during some nights...but I would never say I would have to fight with crabs (FYI there are not eatable).

The life here seems to really go around nature and animals. Yesterday after morning coffee we found out that a kind of monkey who was hanging on the tree the day before died.....Today a small kitten who was missing for a couple of days was found somewhere near power generator. We will see what will happen tomorrow;))))

First week of surfing

I must admit that it was pretty difficult for me. As I am a beginner who is able to do only white water surfing – I was practising it for the first two days (I am using 7''6 BIC so very basic and Marcin 7''2 Southpoint). Then I went on to try the bigger waves and got really frustrated. This is not an easy sport: you get washed out all the time, when you do not make it before the big wave you get twisted and turned many times, sometimes with surfboard hitting your head. So I was about to leave it and basically try something else: like diving. I decided to make one day break chill out and leave my frustrations behind. It worked: I started paddling harder and catching some of the small green ones yesterday next step will be trying to jump on the board on them. We are staying here three more weeks so I am curious about my “progress”;))))

Marcin is doing better – definitely catching the green and trying to surf along the waves.

Camping Matilda

This is like a little Wonderland. It is secluded from the world, hardly any infrastructure. It is located around 15km north east from San Juan del Sur. You need to take a jeep ride which goes through some bumpy roads and then walk around 20 minutes on the beach. When the tide is low there is no problem, but usually after 6 it is hardly impossible to get here. Our camping :called Matilda as well is simply sweet. There are a couple of yellow-painted shuts with red roofs and green doors. Thw owner Antonio created a very pleasant atmoshere: there are many different things glued to the walls: like different kind of fish, mussels, dolphins, butterflies, pelicans, little sculpture frogs stand around, little mashrooms and god knows only what else. There are plenty of plants of different types, huge trees and loads of hammocks hanging around. Also animals are wondering around: 4 dogs (two of them are named after presidential couple of Nicaragua: Daniel I Rosalia), couple of cats, crabs, lizards and there is one (someone called him) crazy shit animal screeming at night and nobody knows how it looks like. There are also plenty of nice places to sit around and chill out. But my favourite is definitely hammock;)))The person who made it up is a genious. The first thing I do in the morning is crawling out of bed and crawling into a hammock to wake slowly up in the overwhelming heat. Life in the tropic is not easy, it is slow but the heat makes you absolutely lazy. You could spend the whole day in hammock just reading and napping in turns. One must get used to being constantly covered in sweat. Coffee helps though and wakes you up for at least two hours. Well anyway it is better then sitting in the office;)))) 

Chickenbus trip in Nicaragua

So in the end we got to the ocean...The trip from Managua was quite funny as we took the chickenbus -which was completely filled up. At each stop there were a couple of salespeople coming in the bus and selling absolutely everything: from toothbrush through jacknives to ready packed meals in plastic bags: chicken with something I think. If anyone will ever travel from Managua please be careful especially on the bus terminals: when we were getting off the taxi a hord of men attacked us or rather our bagpacks and were trying to persuade us to take their company bus.We got a bit confused but in the end accepted one guy's offer. It appeared later that we wanted a tip from us for this (just for showing us the bus). Bastard!!!Of course we had to give him it as we are still a bit precaucious about everything. But here we are in San Juan del Sur. We found a perfect camping place where all the surfers stay with hammocks hanging in front of our room on a nice patio and crabs walking around (seriously)!!!It is a bit away from San Juan ( around 15 km) but it is worth it. So we decided to stay here for a month to practice surfing;)))we have a beach 20 meters from the camping, nice sand and well.... what do you need more?Beer is here as well;))))
We are going to rent our boards now and hopefully will catch the first waves this afternoon;)

talk to you later!!!

Managua

Ufff....it is hot in here.....The heatwave hit us straight away after we got off the plane. Two days befor arriving I started reading Ryszard Kapuscinki's book "Football War"-in the first two pages he describes how difficult it is to sleep in the tropics unless you get drunk on  rum. So we will see how it goes.... Managua shocked us. We a kind of knew what to expect but still it is a very different city from the ones we are used to. We went to see Cathedral and Palacio National but Cathedral is a ruin (it was not rebuil after the earthquake due to the lack of funds) and it is quite dangerous around Plaza Manumental. All the taxi drivers were warning us constantly.There is also National Museum and some government buildings around but we decided to skip them. Generally there is not much to see. The main turist attractions are located in Granada and Leon therefore we will concentrate on these two towns which are apparently more tourist-friendly. But first we will head for a long surf session in San Juan del Sur after Marcin's bag arrives from Amsterdam (it didn't arrive with us yesterday and poor Marcin is suffering wearing long jeans).
Farita: the watermellon mission ended up sucessfully: we bought one;))))))

Starting tomorrow...

We are almost packed...I just have to look through my staff again and trow away some -T -shirst (my ever lasting weakness). We have all the medicines and only summer clothes(winter ones will be worn only untill we reach Panama). I have just taken the first malaria pills which we are supposed to take all through the journey. Talk to you all later;)

First Goodbyes...

So... we said Good-bye to Ireland....it was not easy...altogether it lasted 2 weeks, but the last 5 days were the saddest and the worst for my liver...Great party time though (as usual in Dublin);)))But now...I am free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I can't wait for the new experiences, explorations and culture.... I will absorb everything and I think it will be so much different from our last trip...
Time to start planning seriously. As a matter of fact we have only one week left - not too much time actually...
But second thing- we will say Good-bye to Poland - which means another party weekend which probably will be a bit quiter then the last one;)))
Tomorrow we are going to see a doctor who specialises in tropical diseases. I wonder how much will she say about dangers and other inconveniences. Actually malaria is the most dangerous disease that scares me, but I am sure there are more things like sharks in Lago Nicaragua or spiders (I am a serious case of arachnophobiac)...