Last days of Gallo Pinto.

Yes I'm still alive and kicking but things were busy. Some pictures of what I was up to lately...

after one month of begging they finally found me a laboratory who wanted to analyze sludge samples of the shrimp ponds. puppy eyes FTW

Playa Hermosa.

Crabs everywhere.

Playa Hermosa.

Today was my last day of thesis research after a few days off. Last week there were 2 days of celebrating Central America's independence and since I consider myself an inhabitant now I thought I was allowed to take some vacation as well. I planned to flee the world of thesis and shrimps for some more surfing (or something like that :-) ). I was actually doubting about going to the Caribbean coast or at least do something more cultural but 4 days of ocean-happiness seduced me so I went back to San Juan Del Sur. 

Hostels kick ass, especially if you travel alone so with a bunch of Israeli's, Belgians, Austrians, Kiwi's, Aussie's and more nationwide peeps I spent my last days of Nicaragua life. 

Surfing happened this time at Playa Hermosa, a protected beach that you access by sitting one hour on bumpy truck through the jungle. The beach was awesome and waves (maybe a little too) huge. I strongly believe one day I won't be surfing like a clown anymore... To bad on sunday the fin of the board broke and I got into this drama-discussion with the hostel lady about what they wanted to charge me for it. Mamma mia what a word-fight... Never try to discuss with a Nicaraguan hyperactive woman. Luckily a US girl who just started working there (with the supercool lastname "beverage"), could arrange something so I didn't end up paying way too much. On saturdaynight we got some vip passes a live music party at a hotel full of rich Nica people. It didn't took long before the hotel was taken over by hippie/backpacker peeps and soon people were jumping into the pool and stuff. The guards went bananas. I was way to tired ( maybe also caused by the huge plate of seafood for dinner, Yummie) and on sunday my last chickenbus ride of this summer took me back to Chinandega. 
Wednesday I'm flying back home! Sad to leave this beautiful place, relieved the research part is over though and also very looking forward to be back home with friends for longer than only one week since France. Belgique j'arrive!...
PS. If you guys want Nicaraguan stuff: hammocks, iguana's, monkeys, plantanes,... Last hours of ordering are starting now... 

most beautiful sunset I saw in Nicaragua

definitely kidnap material.

Isla de Ometepe.

No better way to take a break from thesis research than by going to Isla de Ometepe, what literally means "island formed of two volcanoes". This piece of paradise lays in lake Nicaragua and you get there with all transportation modes you can probably think of. 

Friday I travelled to the concrete jungle of Managua to meet up with Maurine, we spent the friday night "American style" in a shopping mall watching Managua's rich kids having fun in the frozen yoghurt bar. Quite weird to be thrown back into the modern world all of a sudden in a city so dangerous as Managua. On our way to the mall, we saw this gigantic christmas tree made of neon lights in the middle of a roundabout with Ortega's campaign slogans around it. Apparently his wife likes christmas decoration so it stays there the whole year round. This little anecdote just to give you an idea how politics work around here. 

The white line is the only main road lingering around the two volcanoes of the Island. We stayed in Balgüe.

Saturday morning we hopped on a bus to Rivas. A flat tire, taxiride and smoky loud boatride further we arrived at Ometepe. A bus took us to our hippie farm hostel "El Zopilote" in the middle of the"jungle". Actually it's just highland, but since our dorm was a wooden cabin with a palmtree roof and you could spot monkeys when you looked out of the "window" , it felt like jungle to me. Pictures will tell you more then words can say.

On the boat, left hidden in clouds Volcan Concepcion and right Volcan Maderas.

two happy thesis students in weekend modus

arrival at Isla de Ometepe

Sounds cliché but the moment you get there, it feels like you're in another world. Everything is peaceful, a million colors everywhere, nature is  just breathtaking, people smile and talk to you about life on the island, you can walk around without people shouting "chella" "chella" what is a relief compared to walking around in Chinandega or even worse, Managua. 

On the bus taking us around the island.

Lake Nicaragua

cutie and a big tree

On sundaymorning we rent mountainbikes from a family and the grandfather of the house held  us company the whole way up to Merida. The 62 year old was so proud of biking around the Island with two foreign girls, so funny. We hired kayaks in Merida and a local from the island (who made a weird noise during the kayaktrip to attract Caimans) companied us to guide the way from the river up through river Istiam. And lucky us, we saw a Caiman staring with his mouth (closed) right at us. No picture as we barely saw him 10 seconds before he disappeared again.

Kayaking to the rivermouth with Volcano Concepcion in front of us.

jungle book.

mangrove

On the island one "road" lingers around the two volcanoes: Volcàn Concepcion and Volcàn Maderas. And people live in farms, "finca's" and small houses on and around that road. We stayed in a get away hole for lost hippies near Balguë, "Finca Zopilote". I felt even more stupid I forgot my mosquito net back in Chinandega as I saw this beauty just before going to bed. 

The dorm was just a wooden house with open holes in the middle of the woods so a lot of bugs visiting at night, we even saw monkeys.

There was also a mirador at the farm that stuck out of the trees and gave a view over the island with Volcano Concepcion dominating the view. Perfect zen place.

On monday we had to get back to Altagracia, a port 2 hours away from the farm and we fixed a ride with a guy who told us they were  building an airport on the tiny island for international flights. I guess the tranquility and mass tourism free times won't last much longer...

And now back to thesis-land, my return to Belgistan is getting closer and my work is far from done here.

Oh mamma I want to go surfing.

This was my weekend:

Friday night: watching sea turtles laying their eggs on the beach. The females get out of the water at night to do that. We went to natural parc La Flor, we were lucky the guides told for the amount of turtles that night.
 (not my picture as we weren't allowed to scare them with flashy camera lights, but it gives you an idea...)
What did we learn? turtles DO run fast and make funny breathing noises.

Saturday Surfing.

Yummie breakfast = Carrot-muffins + watermelon-pineapple-orange smoothie
Coffee House, El Gato Negro, San Juan Del Sur.

Epic Beach. Only we were there and some other dropped surfers.

ICE-CREAM.

Maurine, Hannah and me.
2 x 2 too strong caipirinha's = more ice-cream

This is San Juan Del Sur. I Like.

If one day I have to flee the country, I know my shelter place. <3 SJDS

Epic.

It was quite an effort to get there with all the public transport hussle, luckily my travel crew could convince me to come over cause it was totally worth it. Surfing is becoming one of my  healthiest addictions so far.

My batteries are charged for a new week of thesis-battle.

In the meantime, what the heck is going on in Belgium dude? Hurricanes, storms, apocalyptical festivals? 

It has almost come to the point my heart rate rises automatically when I'm waiting for the Standaard's website to load in the morning.

Hang on there tigers!

Save your breath to cool your porridge.

Hi di Ho, 
haven't told much about my Nicaragua adventure the last weeks cuz it's an all round working game here.
Getting up at 6.30 AM, sometimes skipping breakfast to go on a lab or farm visit early in the morning. (before the sun burns too strong). Some days, working at the company = running, mailing, stalking people to give you the information you need. And then from time to time realizing that all the hours you've put into some file or document was all for nothing, just because you or they misunderstood. 
Yes yes, thesis time gotta love it. But it feels damn good after being busy with something for so long ( not knowing at all if it's right what you do ) and then hearing your thesispromotors say that they think you're doing fine. I doubt if it will stay that way...


Anyways, I knew it wouldn't be a piece of cake and research goes with ups and downs, but I'm a bit stressed out at this point. And we all know how I get when I'm stressed.
Luckily my good old crazy granny and crazy friends are approachable for peptalk even at 2 AM int he morning (thank you Skype).
It's all about diplomacy here, trying to stay calm and friendly with so many people as you try to explain them as good as you can what it is you need. Not so easy if you're thesis research is about "exergy" and "life cycle assessment". Say whaaat?
Since I've got to deal with quite enough stuff lately to train my "I'm not gonna lose my cool" face(I thank the universe for that), I'm not behind bars for murder (yet).
So we keep going, I still believe that at some point it will all fall in it's place.


Last weekend I didn't even left my place just to continue to find some structure in the whole catastrophic mountain of data... But this weekend I'm out with our weekendtravelcrew wherever it is we're planning to go... Do I hear roadtrip, surfing and saving turttles in the same sentence?


Don't get me wrong I'm still happy that I'm here and not in rainy Belgium but it's just frustrating to be in such a beautiful country and only being able from time to time to do the things I really want to do. (surf surf surf and hike volcanoes, that too) 


One more year of schoolmess dude and then I take a long break from seriousness.  
Enough Einsteins in the world to save the planet.


And in the meantime, 
a caipirinha a day keeps my nervous breakdowns away.
Cheers.

Gringa in Somoto Canyon.

Long time since I gave a sign of life, I blame the lazy internet connection and too high temperatures to write something that actually makes sense.


Since last thursday I couldn't continue with my thesis research, I hadn't received new data to work with, so I decided to spend my time in a more useful way then reading articles about shrimps (can always do that in rainy Belgium too, I guess...)
I took the microbus to Léon where I met some other travelers planning to go to Somoto canyon that weekend. I was heading there as well to meet up with another Belgian girl that I actually didn't know but she's a friend of a friend (hey it's a small world!) and with Hannah a US girl that I met during surfing here. So on friday, Jessie and Joel (the australian part of our weekend team whom I met in Léon) joined me on the chicken bus to Estéli. We waited for two hours in that freaking hot bus before it actually left. And for your information, in Nicaragua a two person seat is made for three, so you can imagine how we looked (and smelled) like when we finally arrived in Estéli. Luckily during the trip I got to meet this Nicaraguan girl, Xilma who told me all about life as a student in Léon and her tourism work as a volunteer, hopefully we can meet up again for (iced) coffee.
The only hostel in Estéli we all had planned for our stay there was full and in expectation of my two other travel compagnons coming all the way from Managua we decided to rent a 5 persons room in a shithole hotel. But hey, for 100 cordobas a night you can't complain.  (1 euro = 30 cordobas)


I was a bit worried if Hannah and Maurine would find us that friday night but luckily they did. So on saturday morning the five of us left with a bus to Somoto, a town nearby Estéli. The canyon just got explored in 2004 by a group of Czech scientists, although before it was already a well known playground for the locals. We met our guides for the day at their family house and after they had provided us with these ridiculous life jackets we took off. We arrived after a small hike at rio coco and paddling, swimming, tubing through the water we arrived at the canyon. So nice to float with the current through these rocks when above your head a tropical scenery takes place. We could also jump from cliffs into the canyon, since the depth of the water reached up to 20m the only thing we had to do is step forward and go for free fall. 


When we got back to the guides home we got a nice lunch (which off course included "gallo pinto" = rice and beans and mais tortillas). On sunday we just had a lazy long breakfast at this hippie organic cafe thing where they baked their own bread and stuff. And then it was time for all of us to go back to our different destinations. So funny that no one of us five actually knew each other but spent the whole weekend together. 
So now I'm back in home sweet home, Chinandega, full of energy to get back on track with the thesis stuff. And they still call me  "gringa gringa" on the street as I walk to work in the morning...

i'm so proud of this picture (central market in Léon)

still in Léon

Lady peeling and selling coconuts, yummie.

Our group for the weekend. Me, Jessi, Hannah, Joel and Maurine.

Somoto canyon.

Lunch and Tortilla's

Saterday Lunch at the guide's house in Somoto.

As I'm writing this blogpost I just discovered that they're playing "Berling calling" on television dubbed in Spanish, so awkward and funny at the same time. Only a month ago I watched this movie with a bunch of Erasmuspeeps in Montpellier, good times.

School's out, Let's go surfing...

Just got back from an amazing weekend in Léon.
And I'm exhausted, in a good way...


Friday night after working a full week for my thesis at the "shrimpy factory", I really needed an escape from serious people. So when I woke up saturday morning I just packed my bag for the weekend and left. I managed to catch a cheap microbus to Léon, "biggest" university town of Nicaragua.

Arriving there I did what I always do when I travel, finding the most cheery hostel in town. You just got to love hostels, you meet people in no time and there's always stuff to do. This time, Bigfoot hostel, amazing hippie-, organic-, pure earth- minded place. It was again freaking hot that day so after a stroll downtown and looking to some churches and stuff, I headed back to the hostel to hang the rest of the afternoon in one of their hammocks on the patio. Napped a bit, read a bit, chatt a bit and so I met these two English backpackers Louise and Ben. We went for dinner and by the time we got back a whole bunch of hostelhippies, lost US surfers and other crazy people were ready for a party night in Léon. Music in clubs here is, let's face it, even weirder than in France. I even heard a Nirvana song in a reggaeton remix. And the mix of partying Nicaraguans and foreign people is such great fun. I had a blast.

Sunday I signed up for a day of surfing with some people of the hostel. Ronnie, an english dude, escaped his country to surf a bit everywhere and ended up as so many others in Nicaragua given surf lessons. The whole group drove in an "almost-falling-apart" van to Las Peñitas, one of Léon's surf beaches. There's nothing there only miles and miles of beautiful beach, some wooden beach houses with hammocks and perfect waves. One of the Nicaraguan families that lives at that beach, stores up the surfboards for the hostel and we could use their beach house to hang out for the day. Surfing here in the pacific ocean is nothing compared to the few attempts I did in Belgium. I felt so tiny in that massive amount of foamy water, even with a longboard. Haaa, I think I have a new addiction.

We took a quick lunchbreak and surfed more in the afternoon. 

The day just went by soooo quick and after some rest in the hammocks at the beach house we drove back to Léon and I, with two red knees and elbows of the surf adventure, catched a microbus back to Chinandega. I got to know some people at the hostel to travel with next weekends, so goodbye hotel boredom!

Tomorrow back to shrimpbusiness. We're visiting a lab somewhere in  nomansland at 7 AM madderfakkers! Don't get me wrong, so far I really like the stuff I do here for my thesis, but I get very ill and itchy of seriousness. I'm so signing up for life as a travelling hobo after university, promise made.

Luis.

Iglésia.

Basilico.

Léon city life.

Bigfoot Hostel

Chillin' in the hammock.

Paradise.

Surfs up. 

Pacific Ocean Baby

Landlords of the beach.

Volcanoes in the back.