:( sad face, my sloth days are numbered.

Time here has gone so fast.  My two weeks are almost up.  This is such a great place for taking photos.  As well as the fact you can never take enough pictures of sloths because they are so cute the sanctuary is just abundant with photo opportunities.  The flowers, trees and the lagoon.  The birds, crabs, lizards, bugs, iguanas, nests of baby humming birds and howler monkeys.  The place is just fantastic.

Sloths, like a lot of animals, have their own personality.  Some are love-junkies and always looking to climb all over you.  Some love a bit of attention and being hand-fed.  Some come running (or the sloth-climbing version) when they see food.  Some just give you a dirty look and pull the towel up over their head.  So pretty quickly you get your favourites.

I like Jasper and Tuffy.  Jasper is a hungry boy who is always hanging off the door before you even get there with his food.  Tuffy is in the last cage in the row and just looks at you with big sad eyes because he's had to wait til last again.  Sometimes I take him his first and he just looks at you all confused like 'what the hell?' 

Piphany and Zoe are cute, they're really light, almost white in colour and all smiley.  And the little brady's (the 3-toed sloths) are cute.  They come and try and crawl all over you as soon as you open the door of the cage.

Of the baby's I love Poco and Rolo.  Poco looks like a little fluffy possum.  Roly-bear looks like a tiny bear and is so feisty.  He loves running around on the jungle gym and eating dirt.  He also doesn't like sharing so will bite anyone who gets put on the jungle gym with him.  The first time I had him at baby time he got shitty because I took him off the jungle gym, so he bit me on the arm.  It was pretty funny. He hasn't bit me again yet, but not through lack of trying!

I've just got back from being taken to the incubator room.  Those babies are so so tiny.  Like the size of your hand.  Baby sloths are born fully formed with hair, claws everything.  Just damn tiny.

More sloth goodness and Easter Crime

So my first week at the Sanctuary is almost over already!  The sloths are so cute and I've taken about a billion photos and videos.

The girls, the other volunteers, are great fun.  :( - sad faces for Nicole and Sophia who left this morning.  Sophia has been telling us about the fantastic Norwegian tradition of Easter Crime where over Easter they watch and read a lot of crime shows and novels.

So Easter morning we get up and go feed the sloths, Mia, Erin & Sophia were having a sleep in as it was their day off.  When we came back to the house for breakfast there was a big bloody sign at the door saying 'Easter Crime'.  It was all very exciting, especially when we heard screaming and went inside to find a bloody knife on the floor.  We followed the conviently place paper arrows upstairs to find a body on the floor of a room with lots of Easter chocolates everywhere.  Easter Crime and Easter bunny rolled into one.  It made the morning feel much more Eastery.

We also followed up that night with some fantastic vegan french toast made with mashed banana & coconut milk covered with cooked mangos and a chocolate and almond sauce.  Tast-tee!!  Then a jug of iced rum & chocolate and a couple of rounds of 'telephone pictionary' (will teach you how to play when I get home) and it was an all-round successful easter.

Aww widdle swoths

Monday I arrived at the Aviarios del Caribe, the Sloth Sanctuary.   It's in a beautiful part of Costa Rica, although from what I have seen all of Costa Rica is beautiful, with the amazing rainforests, giant trees and bizarre animals looking like something out of Avatar or Star Wars.

The life of a volunteer is a hard one.  You get woken at 5 by screaming howler monkeys, then get up and got feed the sloths their breakfast.  After their breakfast you go home for yours.  Then you go back and play with the baby sloths, take them for walks and let them crawl around on the jungle gym.  Then you peel about a thousand carrots and camotes (kinda like a potato).  Then go home where there is a nice hot lunch waiting.  In the early afternoon you go back and feed the thousand carrots to the sloths.  After that, the day is done and it's time to relax.  Catch a bus to the nearby towns or go to the beach.  Very hard life.

The sloths are so much fun and so cute, especially the babies.  The brady's I think look like ewoks and the other babies look like little bears.

Volcan Concepcion and the uber-fit germans.

I only had 2 days in Nicaragua, so I went to the Isle de Ometepe which is a large island which has two volcanos on it.  One is a live volcano, the other is extinct and has a lagoon and cloud forest at the top.  I only had time to climb one, so I picked the live volcano, Volcan Concepcion.  According to the guides, tt is one of the toughest climbs in Nicaragua. The slopes are very steep and the volcano is one of the highest in Nicaragua.  

The hike up Volcan Concepcion was pretty hard, and up and back took about 8hrs, but it was not the hardest hike I've ever done.  However, I did feel a bit second rate doing the climb seeming the only others on the tour were to uber-fit germans who just raced off up the mountain leaving me for dead.

But I kept on going.  And going.  This volcano is the second steepest in the whole of central america.   And it is a mix of slippery shoal and steep rock so hard to climb.  So I was using my hands as well as my feet to climb up.  After a while the guide came back for me, and he took my bag which made things a little easier.  And finally I made it to the top.  The view is pretty spectactular, you can see the whole island and the other volcano, as well as down into the crater of concepcion.  The crater was smoking and but you couldn't see right down into it without probably falling in.

The hike down was just as hard as the hike up because of the slippery rocks and shoal.  The german girl struggled and a one stage fell and rolled about 3 times before stopping.  When I asked if she was alright, she said it was about the 10th time she'd fallen, then she sat down and started crying.  Which was good, made me feel a bit tougher.  I may be slow but at least I didn't cry!
 !
On the hike back my guide was telling me how in the morning he didn't think I would make it to the top.  I sure showed him.  I just took my time doing it!  However, I think he took a bit of a shine to me as I was down at the bar of the hostel looking through the menu when he appeared.  He'd come to the hostel looking for me.  Then he told me the hostel kitchen wasn't even open tonight and asked if I wanted to go have dinner with him.  I couldn't really be bothered, but he'd already caught me going through the menu so I couldn't tell him I wasn't hungry.  It felt a little like an awkward first date, as he was asking all these questions about whether I think I'll get married and have babies and telling me his life plans.  But he was nice and helped me practise my Spanish, so I just mentioned 'mi novio' a few times to make sure he wasn't getting the wrong idea. 
Anyway, Sloth Sanctuary next! Yippee!

Lanquin tubing

The hostel I was staying at in Lanquin was a good place, especially once they gave me a bed.  It's called the Zephyr and had a great vibe as well as cheap beer, good food and a fantastic view.

My second day in Lanquin I went tubing down the river.  It was pretty much the same crew who went on the cave tour the day before, but with hangovers.  It was an easy 3 beer trip though, so a relaxing way to spend an afternoon recovering from the beers, shots, limbo and twister from the night before.

I would love to have had time to spend another day or two in Lanquin hanging out at the pools and such, but los peresozos need to have their poo cleaned up by me soon, so I was back on the road again. 

Another 9hrs back to Guatemala, a missed bus and overnight stay in a hotel that looked like something out of a horror flick (nearly as bad as the Rosedale hotel).  Then a 24hr bus trip in the second class bus, including 3 border crossings throughout the night, being stopped for another 1/2 hour for a random bus search, and at the last border an El Salvador passport nazi who didn't want to let me through because some doodle 3 borders ago had stamped my passport incorrectly.

And then I was only in Managua, 3 hours away from my destination.  So then I got a taxi with a mad old lady who kept yelling at the taxi driver, me and random people on the street.  I got out at the bus port to be absolutely mobbed by guys trying to take my bag and lead me to their bus.  So I blew up, left them fighting - literally, over my bag and just went back to the taxi.  So the nice taxi man sorted it out for me and I got on another shitty bus for a couple of hours.  Then I met an american couple and we decided to split a cab, except I went to the wrong place and then had to catch a cab back.  The cabby was playing this crap rap, mixing songs like 'do ah diddee diddee dum diddee dee' - you know the one, with new words about getting pussy, sucking cock and shit like that.  It was so bad and he played it so loud, and I just agreed when he said it was good, so he tried to give me the cd!

So finally I got on a ferry over to the Isle of Ometepe.  It's a nice looking island.  It has 2 volcanos, one live and puffing up smoke and the other is extinct and has a lagoon in the top and cloud forest.  Tomorrow I climb to the top of the live one.  Should be cool.

Sensational Semuc Champey

Friday 2pm I left Antigua for the 5hr trip to Lanquin.  I arrived 9hrs later at the hostel only to find out they hadn't received my email, had no booking for me & no beds left.  However they did have a spare hammock out the back and that's where I ended up for the night.

The next day I joined a day tour of Semuc Champey.  Amazing.  And the tour guide was excellent and there was a good group of single-serving friends on the tour.

It was seriously one of those days where you are just 'wow, this is the best day ever'.
We started the morning with a cave tour.  The caves had underground streams in them so all we had was bathers, shoes and candles to light the way.

We had to scramble over rocks, climb rickety ladders and climb a rope up a waterfall.  You had to swim along holding your candle above your head.  At the end it opened up into a fairly deep pool.  Up on one side you could climb up and jump off.  It was about 3m high, but if you jumped too high you would hit your head on the ceiling and if you jumped too far out you'd hit the rocks on the other side.

So I climbed on up.  It wasn't til I got to the top that I remembered I don't really like heights or jumping off things like this much.  I must have looked like I was shitting myself because everyone was cheering me on.  So I jumped, it was way easier than trying to climb down again, and I didn't want to look like a pussy in front of everyone.  Peer pressure such a great thing.  It was so much fun.

Outside the caves there was a river and a swimming spot with a great rope swing from this huge tree.  In the water were a couple of old guys having a bath, soaping themselves up while they watched us on the swing and nodding their approval and giving you a 'muy bien' if you landed well.  It was a great swing, about a 4m drop when you let go above the water.  One of the girls did the hugest belly-wacker I have ever seen.  She just dropped straight on her gut from about 4m.  And yeah it took her a long time to get out of the water, the next day it was all red and bruised looking. Ouch!  And the old fellas were all 'ohhh muy malo'.

So after the caves we went to Semuc Champey.  First we climbed to the lookout where the view was just sensational.  The pools of Semuc Champey lay in the bottom of a steep, narrow valley. The series of pools run along the bottom and the water is a bright aquamarine and crystal clear.

So we went down for a swim and went from pool to pool sliding down the rocks like slides and jumping off others.  A perfect day.

Volcan Pacaya - My first volcano

So I've spent 3 days in Antigua, exploring the town and an overnight trip to Volcan Pacaya.  I wanted to go to Volcan Fuego as it is more active, but they weren't running any trips there til the weekend.

Antigua is a pretty little town.  Cobble stone streets, lots of cool little galleries, markets, antique and used book stores.  Kinda like Hobart if it had decent weather.  That and there's a fuck-off size volcano overlooking the town.

Actually there are about half a dozen volcanos, but I only had time to climb one.  So I did an overnight camping trip to Volcan Pacaya.  It was so good.  On the trip there was myself and two american girls.  Really nice chicks.  With us was our guide, two other guides who hadn't hiked that route on that mountain yet, a local guide and some old guy who looked about 70 - who was there for security. Overkill anyone?

Anyway, we did the drive up to the start point where we were bombarded by about a thousand
kids trying to sell us walking sticks for about 80 cents.  So after wading through needy children we set off.

The climb was pretty easy, all through dusty shoal which can be a pain with a pack as it's slippery, but we reached the camp area in about an hour.  Not a hard hike but enought for my sexy new hiking boots to give me some killer blisters.
 
From the camp we could see straight out over the volcano.  Pretty cool.  The volcano is live, with the last eruption being May last year, but you can't see any explosions or lava flowing, just smoke coming out the top.
 
After the guides set up our tent for us - see that's why you need 3 guides,
we went walking out on the old lava flows.  We took our marshmallows and found an open
crack that was warm and toasty and began to eat.  On the way up we ran into a couple coming down who had the best marshmallow stick I'd ever seen.  It was pretty much a tree of marshmallows, and the guy gave it to us as he went past.  Bless his cotton socks.

After having our fill of marshmallows we went back to camp for dinner, some wine and a few more marshmallows around the campfire. I love a good campfire.  And it was perfect campfire weather, cool not cold and no wind.  And the american girls and the guides were all pretty fun people.  I went to sleep with my jaw aching from laughing.  One of the girls farted in the tent our tent conversation turned into something that so made me feel like I was back home camping with Krichelle, Casey, etc. LOL for real.

Living la vida Oaxaca

So Oaxaca did get better with a little sleep.  I spent two more days there, getting out to see some of the ruins, the main zocalo and the markets.

I hired a bike and rode to Monte Alban.  For future reference, and I may be stating the obvious for some, but Monte means mountain.  I kinda realised that when I set out.  But two hours later when I had been riding uphill - not just up hill after hill - but continually uphill for the entire time and I had rounded three mountains and was thinking surely I'd taken a wrong turn I saw what I thought could be a ruined temple in the distance.  Another k and there was a sign, finally I was going  the right way, and 3 k after that I got there.  I was pooped, but I knew the whole way home was downhill so I managed to trek about the ruins for a couple of hours.  They were in pretty good nick and similiar to those in Mexico in style.
 
The ride home was sweet, except for when I found the bike didn't really have breaks and the couple of times I realised I was riding on the wrong side of the road. Der!  You'd think I'd have it figured out after a month.

The other ruins I went to see were the Mitla ones.  This town is a little further out of the city than Monte Alban so I caught buses.  The first bus I caught was the right bus, but going in the wrong direction.  By the time I'd figured this out, I was like 'ah well I'll get a bit of a city tour', which was fine except this guys driving was shocking and I was feeling pretty queasy by the time I got off.  The Mitla ruins were good too.  Quite a different style to the Monte Alban ones.  Mitla also had quite a large market area.  There are a lot of cool handcrafty things and traditional dress clothes and stuff in the markets, but markets are markets.  The cool shit in Mitla is the same as the cool shit in Oaxaca.  And the cool shit in the first half a dozen stalls is repeated through the rest.  I do like all the Dias de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) decorations and trinkets though.  That stuff is cool.

Antigua; nice people, good music

I've just spent the last 24hrs travelling from Oaxaca, Mexico to Antigua, Guatemala.  The bus I caught took me to Guatemala City, getting in just as the sun was going down.  I had been tossing up whether to stay in Guatemala City and then Antigua or go straight down to Antigua.  But the drive in Guatemala didn't look too impressive and from what I'd read/heard there wasn't much to see and I didn't have a good vibe about the place, so I decided to go to Antigua straight away.  However, to get there it was a cab and a second class crowded chicken bus with all my gear after dark then another cab.  Or a A$50 cab straight there. So I took the cab. 

But the cabbie didn't understand the directions to the hostel as I had them written in English.  So I explained as best I could, but to no avail.  However, I think he was dumb as opposed to my bad Spanish being the problem.  He stopped and asked directions from this nice policeman.  We showed him the directions and I translated the bits I knew again.  He got it straight away.  He explained it to the cabbie, who still looked baffled.  He explained it to me, I got what he was saying.  He cabbie still looked baffled.  He explained it again.  The cabbie decided the best thing to do was give up and find an Antiguan cabbie to take me there.  So the nice policeman came and explained it to the new cabbie who knew exactly where it was and got me there in 2min. It's nice when people are helpful.

So I checked in.  The hostel here is really nice and in one of those cute cobble-stoned streets with the cool old buildings.  I had a nice hot shower and went across the road for dinner.  It was a real lovely little restaurant, with these fantastic photos everywhere, a big outdoor garden and they were playing old music like Ella Fitzgerald.  The nachos and fish crocettes were so damn tasty.  A lady, on her way out the door, told me it was her last day here otherwise she'd be back for the homemade ravioli which she said was fantastic. 

While I was eating I looked at the table across from me to see a lady down a shot of something.  I thought 'woah, she downed that pretty easy', my thought must have been written on my face (reminder as to why I don't play poker) because she started laughing at me.  So I asked her what she was drinking and it was some kind of liquer thing made from a flower.  Hibiscus maybe.  Anyway, she poured me one as she had the bottle sitting on the table.  It was pretty tasty but went straight to my head.

After dinner I thought about going to the bar next door as I could hear a band and a girl in my hostel room said she would be there with friends, but I couldn't be bothered.  However, from my hostel room I can still hear the music from the bar.  It's been really good.  First there was a blues band.  Now it's just a guy and a guitar and he is good.  So I'm just vegging out in bed listening to the music.

Antigua after only a few hours is nice people and good music.

Bye bye Puerto :(

Last night was my last evening in Puerto before catching the night bus to Oaxaca so before leaving I went with a few friends to watch the sunset over Playa Carrizalillio and have a beer.  It was hard, I wasn't really keen to leave Puerto as it is such a good place, and I'd met some cool people and I like being by the beach, but I didn't want to stay too long as I don't want to miss out on anything later down the track.

So we hung out and watched the sunset, went and had some food, the sopa pasole again. Yum.  Then I hopped on the night bus to Oaxaca.  Worst sleep ever.  Luckly I wasn't queasy from the windy roads, but the constant corners and then the bus slamming on the breaks for random potholes and speed humps made for a well interrupted sleep.

I got to Oaxaca quite early, so dropped off my bags at the hostel and went for a walk.  I had been wanting to come to Oaxaca because I'd heard a few people talking about it and they all talked it up.  For me, so far the jury is still out.  I like the fantastic old and colourful buildings.  I like the markets everywhere.  I like all the crafty stuff.  However, I don't like the large amount of beggars, especially that alot seem old or disabled.  Who is supposed to be looking after these people?  I don't like the spitting everywhere, it's disgusting.  And I especially was not a fan of the old man who grabbed my arse in the street.

I think maybe once I've had some sleep the dislikes won't seem to outweigh the likes so much.

After I'd had a walk and then returned to the hostel to check my stuff in, I spent the afternoon doing some domestic chores.  Took my clothes to the laundry.  It's good, you pay like A$2 and come back in a couple of hours and it's all done for you.  After that I went and got my hair coloured.  I usually do it myself, but didn't want to in a hostel as whoever had the shower next would probably think someone had been murdered in there with the red everywhere.  But the hairdressers here was good, it only cost me like A$25.

Now time for a little planning of what to do in Oaxaca and how to get to Guatemala, then a big long sleep I think.

The gambler, the fisherman and the tiger.

Today is my second last day in Puerto.  I spent it having a Spanish lesson and wandering around a couple of beaches taking some photos.  Puerto is one of those towns that feels as if you've been there forever after a couple of days, but when it comes time you leave you feel like you've only been here a few days.  I've met quite a few people who have come here and have now returned or never left.

The days are hot and sunny.  I've now adjusted to the ridiculous heat and have bought myself a big sombrero so life is good.  I've been spending my mornings taking Spanish lessons, in which the theory is going well but the practise not so much.  Israel, my teacher is always telling me I should be practising.  This morning I tried practising on a guy playing a flute on the beach; he's now taking me in his canoe in the lagoon tomorrow morning for $300 pesos.  So I'm still up in arms whether that was a success practise or not.  I was also practising with a cabbie this afternoon.  He told me he loves living in Puerto and has for 10 years.  He loves Puerto because this is where his 3 daughters are.  Or he loves Puerto because this is where he has 3 girls on the go.  I'm not sure, I just kept hearing 'tres senoritas'.

So I've been checking out the different beaches, Manzanillo is a small beach where you can go do some snorkelling.  The other day Matt, Dr Kennedy's friend, and I went out there for the afternoon.  The water had cleared up a little since I had last been there and there were a few large schools of fish so it was good.  We swam and snorkelled, had a little nap on the big beach recliners and played cards.  Matt showed me a game called Cabul which I'd never played before and we also played shithead, but his rules were different.  So I kicked his arse at cards and then we walked up the cliff to the bar at the big posh hotel and had a couple of beers while we watched the sun set.

Matt's been fun, we've been playing a lot of cards.  But he likes to have little wagers on the games.  For example, I still owe him a dinner.  But he left Wednesday, so sorry Matt :(  We were also playing at Fausto's place while Fausto was busy prettying himself up for the night.  We were playing that the loser had to put on a mask and wear it for the next game.  So we're playing cards, I'm in a fox mask and Matt is in a chicken mask with a hat and sunglasses as well (obviously I was winning).  But there were also dances to go with the masks.  I also lost a bet where if I met anyone that night I had to introduce myself with 'Hi I'm Kelly and I like to party.' - Hod rod style.  Matt also had to do the same thing but introduce himself as Voltron.

Nadine, a Swiss girl I've met, organised for her, Matt & I to go out to the waterfalls the other day.  It cost us about A$30 each, and the taxi man drove us out there, hung around waiting for us all afternoon and drove us home.  The trip out there was a bit longer than we thought.  We were told half an hour only to discover it was an hour and a half, along windy, dirt roads, so needless to say, the trip ended up being even longer when we had to stop for yours truely to get out and have a vomit.  But the queasiness was worth it.  The falls were big, but not gigantic, maybe 20metres high and they collected into this big pool which was great for swimming in.  The water was alot cooler than the beach and freshwater too, so it was lovely to swim in.  The rocky river it the falls led into reminded me a little of being up at the channels at home, although the vegetation was a lot less bushy.

We've also been eating a lot of good food.  The other night we had these tasty tacos from a street vendor.  We also went to a local restaurant that had awesome burritos and this soup called 'sopa azteca', which is like a tomato-based soup, it's thin and not chunky, but has corn chips, cheese and avocado in it.  Yummo, although I am not a big fan of the cheese here, it lacks flavour and smells like it needs another couple of months to mature.  Nicole, you'll be happy to know that you can get pancakes for breakfast anywhere and everywhere. 

But last night was a great meal.  I went fishing with Nadine, a friend of hers and her husband who is a local.  I feel bad as I've forgotten their names alreadty, but they were really lovely and had a little boy who was just turned 1, so cute as.  The hubby was fishing with a net, so i got a few cool photos of that.  It looks like pretty hard work and it would take a bit of practise.  Once he'd caught a few fish, they invited us for dinner.  So we just had this fantastic fresh fish cooked up for us, along with some guacamole, tortillas and a couple of beers.  Yum again.

So yesterday before we went fishing, Nadine took me for a bit of a ride on her scooter.  That was pretty good fun and the roads here are fairly quiet so it was too hairy a ride.  But those things can get some fair speed up.  We drove up out of Puerto in a direction I hadn't been before which was fun and I got some good photos of us out on the road.  But before that we went into town.  We passed a bus and suddenly were face to face with a tiger.  No shit!  In front of us was a ute with a cage on the back and a real live tiger inside.  I was like WTF?  The poor thing though, stuck in the little cage in 35 degree heat all afternoon while they were driving around with a megaphone on the roof spruking about a circus or something.

Anyway, I'm off to the lagoon tomorrow with the man with the flute and tomorrow evening will catch the night bus to Oaxaca where I will hang out for a couple of days.  And, yeah I'm slack, but photos will be coming soonish.