Nicaragua

It took 2 days from Antigua, Guatemala to Granada, Nicaragua with a night in San Salvador, El Salvador, and that was a night in the biggest kip of a hotel in the biggest kip of a city in the world!! had to be done though, the hotel was joined to the bus station so we didnt have to leave, thank god! On a brighter note, the bus we got was amazing, really comfy seats, tvs etc.... which was great and the journey didnt drag at all. All cental american countries have come togehter now as one (like europe) for immigration purposes so no more stamps for the passport as you go into another country, although everyone still feels a bit confused about the whole affair!

Granada is like Antigua a little but alot shabbier and poorer but its got a nice feel to it, with a great italian restaurant or two... There isn´t a whole pile to do here and not very touristy compared to the likes of Guatemala, we went to Isla De Ometepe, which is an island in the middle of lake Nicaragua, its beatuiful sailing out to it, took 4 hours from Granada in a rickedy little boat, but coming up to the island the volcanoes looked amazing. I wanted to hike the larger one which is aperfect cone shaped volcanoe but there wasnt enough people to climb it, guides wanted a 5 person minimum so i couldnt do that (Emma was happy ´cos she didnt want to do it!!) so no guide would just take me on my own. SO we cut our losses and went to the beach (guess who´s idea that was!!!), we wanted to try surfing and stuff, and just relax because it felt like we were just on bussess for the previous week. We eventually got to San Juan Del Sur and went to a remote beach just further up the coast, it had a few surfers and backpackers and we met an American couple to hang out with which was cool. The beach was amazing (pics to come some other time), with big waves and exeptionally warm water (warmer than carribean, suprised beacuse i thought the pacific was still cold this far down). We basically just chilled out, sat on the beach, Emma got a tan, i burnt and was mistaken for a lobster. Last night we were sitting on the beach and a turtle came out of the water, this thing was huge, there was a few locals around taking an interest too but we ignored them.

It was amazing, this turtle crawling up the beach towards us and dug a hole beside us to lays its eggs. It was absolutely stunning to see this creature digging a hole beside us and sitting into it and laying its eggs. But the local guys took a closer interest and it was then that we realised these guys were poachers, waiting for the eggs. They had big macheties and made it known to us that they had these knives!! Eventually they just lifted the turtle off the eggs and moved it to the side and started to scoop up all the eggs. We didn´t know what to do, some of the opther people that was staying there came out. (we later found out that the woman who owns the hotel has a rifle that she takes out to scare poachers off, but only if she see´s the turtle first, ie before the paochers so she can claim it, she´s got into loads of fights before, then she would take the eggs and lay them somewhere else).
Together with some american girls we bought the eggs off them, and with the help of the owner we burried them in the sand in her property. She does this every year so she knows what she´s doing with them. But the poor turtle, it didnt know what to do, it just flapped around, all scared! it was really sad, poor thing! The poachers then just lifted the turtle and put her back in the sea and that was that! Couldn´t believe it!!

We came back to Granada for the night and are going to a crater lake in the morning to stay for the night, its supposed to be beautiful... From there we are going to the Bay Islands in Honduras (Utila), and there is a Full moon party/Rave on there on a little island on Sat night so we might make that (see www.sunjamutila.com). On a bitchy note, We want to outline how crap the bank areGuatemala, Emma´s atm card was sucked up but the bank said we´d get it back the next Day (lots of peoples cards were taken that day) but she never got her´s back (there was a huge pile of credit cards the next day but somehow the atm cards went missing). We cancelled the card straight away but we just checked her online backing and around €400 was stolen from her current account!!! Really sucks so if your ever in Guatemala.... BEWARE!!!!!