I'm a mum get me out of here....

Well after a great deal of travelling we are in Nicaragua. The journey was an interesting one, what i didn’t tell you before was that the gangs in El Salvador had threatened to do things to the buses in protest to a new law which had been introduced recently. We heard various stories, from buses being burnt out to drivers being killed (which I think in one case was true) to everyone on the bus being shot. What I am starting to realise in Central America, is that they do like to exaggerate things slightly, still there was an element of truth to it. However, apparently they were targeting the Chicken Buses so the Tica Buses should be fine we were told. This is all very well but after a crap nights sleep at the Tica Bus hotel, waking up at 2am to get on the bus, it all seems a bit scary again...but you will be pleased to know that we weren’t shot and arrived in one piece.

The Tica bus is nice and big (but smells funny) the seats recline and when you travel at 2am they bring around a blanket and a pillow (which smell funny), they turn out the lights and you go back to sleep until 6am when you reach Honduras, that is if you are able to sleep on a rollercoaster in the dark, wondering if you might get shot! At the border you stay on the bus and a few important looking people check your passport and away you go, the guide on the bus then brings a Burger King breakfast bap around (which is just what you need after 3 hrs on a roller coaster) and away you go.

After 8 hrs we arrived at Managua in Nicaragua an hour early and played Monopoly cards on the floor of the station until our driver arrived. I had emailed a guy in Popoyo and asked if he had rooms free, the one we wanted was taken but he did have a dorm style room which we could rent for $12 per night. After 4 more hrs in the car we arrived at the top of the guys road. The roads in Popoyo have been pretty much washed away as they have had a really wet few months and we had to cross about 4 flooded rivers and ditches and navigate thousands of pot holes for the last hour (at one point the driver wasn’t even sure if we would get across one of the flooded areas). Mike is a lovely, softly spoken American guy who showed us the dorm...think I’m a celebrity get me out of here and you are on the right lines! It was basically a porch with 2 sets of bunk beds and mosquito netting tacked around the edges...open to the elements on all sides, with a tin roof and nothing else. We decided to stay one night and see how we felt as Mike had been so kind. His wife begrudgingly brought us dinner of tough leather and rice and beans and then we chatted to a couple of annoying Americans before bed who told us stories of the scorpion that they found in our room and the big spiders etc, we would have stayed up longer but the woman who ran the bar was glaring at us and the Americans were freaking us out so we headed for bed. It was an interesting night, none of us wanted the top bunk so me and sam shared the bottom bunk, then I moved in with Will, until there was a huge thunder storm overhead and Sam got scared as we were practically out in the elements so I moved back in with Sam. At 7am Mike came down to drive us to the surf and we all agreed we would look for another room that day. Mike understood and agreed to drive us to wherever we found.

So I am writing this from a nice room back on the beach with three beds and an en-suite (with hot water) Will is currently surfing with a guy from Chipping Sodbury, Sam is dozing and we are about to sample a Nicaraguan breakfast...it all turned out well in the end