Granada and Laguna de Apollo

Well firstly, I suppose I should apologize for waiting so long to update my blog. Since I last wrote I have traveled through Costa Rica and a good part of Nicaragua. I spent several weeks at a fairly isolated beach called Popoyo and am now in the City of Granada. If I have time I will go back and fill in the details of my travels, but for now I will update you on the last few days.

I left Popoyo early Monday morning as Semana Santa drew to a close. The road out it typical of a Central American coastal road, that is to say barely a road at all. It consists of asphalt with so many potholes the locals drive beside the road if possible and the odd patch where the asphalt has been completely eroded and now there is just dirt. I have discovered that there are two approaches to driving on such roads. Option A is employed by the more prudent driver involves a painstaking attempt to avoid as many potholes as possible. Option B is slightly more reckless, simply gun the vehicle in as straight a line as possible, suspension be damned. My driver on the way out happily opted for option A and both I and my surfboard arrived in Rivas in one piece.

I hopped on yet another chicken bus for the hour and a half ride to Granada. Situated on Lake Nicaragua, Granada is one the countries jewels. The Architecture harks back to the colonial period and recent restoration coupled with new paint in the requisite bright colours and white trim means the city has a rather civilized feeling.

This is only emphasized further on entering any of the high ceilinged houses as wicker rocking chairs and ceiling fans descending on long arms adorn the interiors. Perhaps it is my English roots but I always expect to see someone requesting a, "spot of tea" in such surroundings.

There is a lively market, situated in the remains of a dilapidated building, that sells everything including kitchen sinks. There is also a wonderful and frugal food mall for want of a better description. Mall does not quite do it justice as it has a slightly more thrown together feel than the word implies. The food, however, easily exceeds the fare available in a western equivalent in quality if not in variety.

After two days spent wondering the city streets I opted for a day trip to Laguna de Apoyo, a lake that sits inside the crater of a now inactive Volcano. The water is a balmy 28 degrees and contains sulphur. My Canadian host assured me the sulphur would do wonders for my skin, but also eat rapidly through my sunscreen, a double edged sword if ever there was one.

The crater is said to be some 200m deep and home to at least three species of fish that are unique to the Lagoon. I wonder about these claims on occasion. Nicaraguans also claim to posses the only lake with Freshwater sharks. I am aware that the same species of shark inhabits freshwater in both the Zambezi and Florida, whether it has made into a lake is another question, but I approach such bold claims with at least a modicum of skepticism.

I spent a relaxing day around the crater and have now returned to Granada. I will spend another day here and then head back to the coast. Two friends from Canada have just arrived in Central America on their own trips, and I would like to meet up with them.

I will strive to update this more often, but I am keeping a Journal too and by the time I have written that the last thing I feel like doing is sitting in front of a Computer and attempting to retell the same story.

Lobster, Mud and Decent Waves

When last I wrote, I had just acquired some 15 lobsters from a local fisherman. I took 5 of the lobsters and boiled them in pot of salty water. I served them plain with a little butter and kept the shells for later. That night, I sautéed some carrots, onions and celery with the shells from earlier and a few heads from the remaining lobsters. I added Chilean white wine, salt and pepper and let the whole concoction bubble away. Meanwhile, I boiled the remaining lobster tails, and set them aside once cooked.

After a solid hour of simmering, with the aid of a strainer made from a 5 litre water bottle with a few holes poked into the bottom, I drained the shell mixture and discarded the solid contents. I reduced the resulting liquid and added some cream. I tore up the lobster tails and boiled some pasta. Once the pasta was cooked I added the lobster meat to the sauce and served it on top of the freshly cooked pasta. To say it was a sumptuous feast for the 5 of us would be an understatement. It turned out far better than I expected. My biggest regret was that there wasn't any more for the days following.

My cooking adventures have been curtailed of late by the invasion of messy Scandinavians at the hostel. They cook, but don't clean up; I along with everyone else have grown tired of asking them to clean up, or doing it for them. So, I have returned to the local fare. The supermarkets have a real paucity of local food, and far too many goods imported from the US and Canada. Betty Crocker cake mix is readily available, as is Smuckers jam and JIF peanut butter and Canadian made Nutella to name but a few. Limes on the other hard can be impossible to find. I'm not complaining, just surprised.

Yesterday, fed up with surfing the swell starved reef breaks we decided to make the trek over to the Island of Bastimentos and up over a hill to the swell catching beach breaks on the other side. This was unequivocally a mistake. It has been mainlining heavily and daily for over a week here, the result of so much water can best be described as resembling a lava flow of human excrement. I apologize for the graphic description, but it really does capture what the trail no looked like. The mud was, at points, knee deep, although more often it was only shin to ankle deep. In patches where the sun shone threw the mud had been warmed to a surprising degree, making my previous analogy all the more pertinent and simultaneously distressing. Of course, in parts the trail shallowed out just enough to make it feel like a skating rink. Given that gravity holds sway over water, this tended to be on climbs or descents, just where it was least welcome. The trail ploughed on over hill and through dense jungle, where the humidity made the sweat drip off all of us. Still, one by one, we made it over the hill and down to the pristine beach where the waves of legend awaited us, right?

Not a chance. The beach was stunning and for once the sun came out, but the waves were lack lustre and disappointing, they were definitely not worth the hike. But the sun was shining and my thoughts on more than one occasion reminded me where I could be right now, and so I smiled and enjoyed what was there.

Today the much anticipated swell finally arrived. I took a boat out to the reef break on the leeward side of Isla Caranero and hopped in. The swell was clearly larger, but the wave still didn't seem to be working properly. Still it was fun. After approximately one hour, it was as if someone flipped a switch, the waves glassed off and began to roll through. The occasional wave even began to barrel. I caught wave after wave and tried desperately to pull into the barrel, but never seemed to get it right. Once, had I been a little better balanced during the take off the barrel would have been a given, but I fell too far behind and the wave left me in its wake.

Word spreads quickly when the waves are working and the line-up began to fill with surfers. A couple of Argentineans seemed way out of their depth and almost hit each other almost every time they tried for a wave. It was comical, but only because they were doing it to each other and not to me. Then, as suddenly as it had started the waves returned to their former shape. I caught the next boat in and ravenously devoured a little Pollo com arroz.

And now, I think I'll get in a sunset surf.

Bocas Del Toro, Panama

I am currently on the island or more accurately the archipelago of Bocas del Toro. Originally settled by United Fruit as a gateway to its Banana plantations, the island now survives on a combination of tourism and real estate. The population is diverse consisting predominantly of indigenous locals, European descendants, Afro-Antillos and Chinese. The latter two groups arrived during the construction of the Panama Canal along with the Americans. (A sizable number of Americans remained behind in Panama City and are now called Zonians, the moniker was derived from the now extinct U.S. Zone around the Panama Canal, but I digress ... )

My hostel is a ramshackle wooden building with a corrugated iron roof; its large deck, and the majority of the building for that matter, extend out over the ocean. The practice is standard throughout the islands due, in part, to the almost non existent tidal variation and makes for quaint and picturesque shorelines.

The waves have been decent and I have managed to get four days of surfing in, including one particularly pleasurable wave that left me with perma-grin for a solid 24 hours. The swell has dropped recently allowing me some time to read, write my in journal and relax. The drop has also coincided with the mild aggravation of an old injury and so is, at least to a degree, welcome.

I am contemplating a visit to the mountain town of Boquete, renowned for its coffee and flowers while I wait for a new swell, but for now I am content to remain here.

I have found the Panamanians approach everything with what might politely be called a lack of urgency; it appears they have adopted their Caribbean neighbours approach to the rigours of daily life. As you might expect, Panamanians do wear Panama hats and immaculately pressed linen shirts. Oddly, however, the hats are made in Ecuador.

Akin to the rest of Latin America the staple diet consist of arroz y frijoles or beans and rice with some kind of protein, usually chicken. The food is not as bland as I expected and on the Caribbean side there are some wonderful hot sauces available to make up for the lack of spices used in the cooking.

As I sat typing this, a local paddled by in a dugout. Having heard some rumours I yelled out to see if he had any lobster. 'Yes' came the smiling reply. As he drew closer, I could see that the bottom of the dugout had some 15 medium sized cray fish, mine for a mere 20 USD. To put this in perspective one of the local restaurants sells one butterflied tail for 22 USD. So for now at least I am going stop to put on a pot of boiling water and enjoy some fresh Lagosta

Sent from my iPod

Panama City

I'm currently sitting on an American Airlines flight from Miami to Panama; after a day and a half of travel my utmost thought, or at least the one I'm prepared to share, is that I hope the food improves. I spent the night in a Dallas airport motel where the only food on offer was chicken fried steak or Domino's pizza. This morning the best breakfast I could find in Miami International was a medium rare burger. I ate less than half. So as I sit here aboard my third flight,
where no meal is provided and the only thing that isn't junk food available for purchase is the same sandwich I bought on the fist leg, I find myself wondering about Central American beans and rice. Can a whole regions cuisine really be as dull and unappetizing as some of you would have me believe? I certainly hope it isn't.


-- Post From My iPhone