BubblesandBugs.com - Travel and Scuba

Taking full advantage of free, semi-fast internet in Granada

Yes, that’s right. Our hostel, Hostel Oasis, offers free internet AND a free 10 minute phone call each day. So last night I got to speak with my parents and my niece McKayla (hi Kayla!) - it was awesome.

First off, a huge shout out to my friend Jenny @ www.jen-and-steve.com for creating a lovely, new banner for our site. If you don’t see it, just hit refresh. Jenny has offered her services to keep our banner fresh as we travel throughout the world. And if you are in need of a graphic designer, check our her site www.pumpkinjuice.com. She’s amazing!

Today Jason and I woke up at 6 AM and headed to Volcano Mombacho. We paid 190 Cordobas ($1 is about 20 Cordoba) for entry to the park and a ride to the top. At the top we hiked 1.5 kilometers around one of the craters and then stood on a platform for an amazing view of Granada, Lake Nicaragua, Laguna de Apoyo, and Volcano Masaya.

We decided to do the Canopy Tour on the way back down the mountain. It was only $28 for 16 zip lines, and Jason had never done one, so we went for it. It was awesome! However, the guides kept insisting we give them our camera and we kept insisting on taking our own. I finally agreed to let him take a picture of Jason and together on a bridge near the end of the trip - and the guy took off with our camera. He kept saying he was going to take a video of us at the end and I told him about 9 times, very forcefully, to give me back the camera. He didn’t. We did however get the camera back with some videos, but the guys lost their tip for being such jerks about taking our camera. We are a little over protective, but I think we have the right to be. The afternoon ended on a high note when we spotted about 7 howler monkeys in the trees above.

We are heading to Laguna Apoyo tomorrow, hopefully to stay a night if we can get a room. Then it’s off to the beach and some surf lessons!

Nicaragua…my first time…

…this is Cindi’s 2nd time. We barely made it however….more on this in a bit.

So at the time of last update, we were in Copan Ruinas, Honduras. A beautiful little town with cobblestone streets. We stayed at a small place call Hotel Guest House for 2 nights. It was ok…but we didnt’ have water. Bastards…I know they had water in the sistern…but they were playing games turning it on and off to our room. Not sure when they thought the ideal time for a shower was…but we obviously didn’t agree on this matter. For 16$ a night…you think water would be included.

The Ruins were spectacular. Below are a few pictures. We spent about 4 hours walking around the structures and taking pictures. It was a great first time Ruin experience. Cindi said she appreciated it more the 2nd time around…but maybe only because she had been to 6 or 7 sets of ruins the last time she came to Central America. Mom, I think you would have loved this place.

We tried to find a place to take tortilla making lessons, but failed miserably…so we just decided to get on a bus towards southern Honduras and make a pit stop at the highly recommended Pulaphanzak Waterfalls. We were also told about a cool Hostel/Brewery called D and D. American owned…this place was supposed to serve great Home Brewed beers and offer good tour service. It was ok…I got a cot for 2 nights and Cindi was sleeping on a couch….for 2$ a night. There were no other hostels or hotels anywhere clost. The owner was kinda rude at first…but they said he was relapsing on Dengue fever…guess that could piss anyone off. The food was great…and after the first day the owner offered to show me his collection of handmade honduran guitars and Mayan pottery. He took me into is Marijuana hot boxing room…i could only tell because I couldn’t see him 2 feet away…but he did play slide guitar amazingly. I had to get out of there quickly. The beer was extremely tasty..but after 7 or 8 home brews you should be singing to the birds…we weren’t. I guess it was really weak.

He set up a bird tour for us on Lake Yojoa. It blew. Don’t ever take a bird tour here. Birds are boring enough…without the shitty boat, non-english speaking tour guide, …for 4 hours? Who does that? Maybe this is why he smokes so much pot. Cindi got a good picture of the boat all 5 of us sat in…

So by this time, we are frustrated with the place and these waterfalls better be worth it. Holy Shit they were. I would say this is one of the top 10 things I have ever done in my life…a few slots behind running with the bulls in pamplona. They are about 160 feet tall…and roaring. Looking is an experience in its own. They a young guy on a bike asked us if we wanted to see the cave behind the falls. Only 5$ per person. People…this is by far the best 5$ I have ever spent in my life….It was 30 minutes of crazy, chaotic, scary, insane, and fun. He takes us to the bottom of the falls…only in swimming trunks and strap on sandals…and climbs over a few rocks…then gone. Where is he? Oh just jumped down 20 feet into the falls…and now he is smiling and waiting for us. Oh yeah…for about 30 minutes we made our way through the falls amidst the pounding water, crazy mist in your face (i lost a contact lens), and rocks you can’t see. We then powered our way under the main stream (all while making sure you don’t go over the edge to your death) to a small cave. Cave was lame…but getting there and back was awesome. If you are ever within 3, 6, 9 hours of this place…come…enjoy, you won’t reget it. Here are a few pics:

From the falls, we took 4 cabs, 5 buses, spent some time in Tegicigalpa, and a night in Managua…we are now in Granada, Nicaragua. Crossing the border by bus showed us some beautiful scenery and Hillary Duff in Cinderela story.

And yeah…we almost didn’t make it across the border. They were claiming we overstayed our Honduras Visas…I know we didn’t. The guy at the airport in San Pedro Sula wrote that we had 60 days on our passports and visas…we stayed about 50 days in Honduras. The guys at the Nicaragua border wrote over the 60 days and made it 30 days. And now they are telling us we might be stuck here…and maybe we have to pay more money. After some help from some Miami based americans…we were allowed through the border into Nicaragua. The entire bus had to wait for us for about 30-40 minutes. Hopefully we will be ok when we go to leave Nicaragua…who knows.

Ok…off to explore Granada.

later jason

Moving on….

After a long day of riding the Utila Princess, a cab, and 2 bus transfers - Jason and I have found ourselves in the lovely city of Copan Ruinas, Honduras.  We thought long and hard about going to Roatan for a few days before heading south - but decided to change our pace and discover some of the mainland.  Plus, from what we hear, Roatan is expensive!

Tomorrow we will head to the Copan Ruins - Jason has never seen any ruins, so we are looking forward to it. 

We left behind a lot of great friends; 2 Israelis, a few lovely Brits, and some Irish, Danish, German, Canadian, a Peruvian, Australian, Honduran, and of course American people…..and we hope our paths will cross again.  

We hope to head back to San Pedro Sula Tuesday to visit a National Park with a huge waterfall and by Thursday we’ll head to Granada, Nicuragua where we’ll veg on the beach at Lake Nicuragua and visit the volcanos and just enjoy all the colonial goodness Granada has to offer.  We will then head to a beach town in Nicuragua and then cross to Costa Rica where we are excited to welcome Julia, Travis, and Willits. 

Hasta Luego!

bet you have the cubicle blues

we don´t….

It was just another plain few days on Utila.

Sunday, we swam with 90 wild dolphins…

Cindi celebrated her 100th dive… she was supposed to do it naked…

and I have been working on my tan….

there are a few more pics on flickr….

later - enjoy work

jason

We are Divemasters!

After 4 long, hard (if you call 70 dives in 4 weeks hard) - Jason and I have completed our divemaster training!  That’s right, you can now refer to me as Cindi Davis, DM.  We are down to our last 2 weeks on Utila before heading to Costa Rica to meet up with Julia, Travis, and Willits. 

We have also moved apartments.  Our landlady was going to charge us a ton to rent for 2 weeks instead of monthly, so since our dear friend Kelly departed last night - we have taken over her place.  This place has 2 huge perks - 1:  it’s right across the street from our dive center rather than the 15 minute walk we’ve been doing and 2:  CABLE TV BABY!  Tonight we are taking full advantage of watching TV, getting some Seven Seas takeout and doing nothing.

We completed our snorkel tests - congrats to the new divemasters Rachel, Dan, Helen, Jason and I.  Here are some new pics of Jason pre-test and the group afterwards:

Later!

Back to Good

Last Sunday night we did the craziest, most chaotic dive I’ve ever done. We did a night dive to the Haliburton wreck. It’s a huge ship sunk about 100 feet. We went with all the Utila Dive Centre staff (mostly DMT’s, which are Dive Masters in Training like ourselves) - we left shortly after 6:30 PM and by the time we got to the wreck and underwater it was pitch black. Jason loved this dive - I was a complete wimp and decided at 29 I am still scared of the dark. Glad I did it, but on the next one, I’ll be sitting out.

The next morning Jason and I headed to the dive center. He was feeling pretty crappy and when we got there it just seemed to get worse. I got him a ginger ale and we sat in a hammock for awhile before heading home with no dives. It was only the 2nd day in 3 weeks that we hadn’t dove.

He continued to feel crappy and had a fever - so we sat out Tuesday as well. Then came Wednesday. His eye started hurting, but the fever was gone. Come to find out - 3 of the contacts he brought were ripped (brand new straight from the manufacturer!). So now he is on his last pair of contacts. I think Jason’s mom will try to send a box or so to Julia in hopes she can bring him some to Costa Rica.

Wednesday night he was feeling better - so we went to dinner with some friends. Suddenly after eating I felt completely miserable. I headed to the restroom and puked up everything my stomach had in it. On the way home we stopped for some ice cream thinking that may help - nope, puked that up too. And all the water I drank.

The next morning we had to go diving to complete our last open water course. I drank a sprite before hand and after the first dive, I puked that up too. I couldn’t figure out why I was so sick - and if you have a weak stomach, stop reading here………

Jason went to our locker at UDC and noticed the loaf of bread we had in there had a huge hole in it and there were mice/rat feces all over the locker. I am pretty sure I touched something in there and it somehow made it to my mouth. I know, I know - disgusting! The thought alone still makes me want to hurl - but today I am feeling MUCH better. I had a cup of noodles Thursday night and it stayed down.

Friday was July 4th. We finished our last course and went out our first fun dive in 5 days. That night we went to RJ’s for some BBQ and as we were walking over the bridge to Tropical Sunset - we saw a huge fireworks show from the other side of the island. It definitely made my day. I LOVE the 4th of July! All of the obnoxious Americans sang the Star Spangled Banner and all the Brits rolled their eyes. It was entertaining to say the least.

We completely our Emergency Assistance Plan and our Mapping - so now we just have to complete a lead in the next day or so and we will become official divemasters.

Last night Jason played chef and cooked up a bunch of banana pancakes for dinner - YUM!

Today we finished our Nitrox and Wreck specialities. I returned to the Haliburton in full day light - much more my style.  We got to go inside the wreck using a reel, very cool.

We posted a few pictures on flickr and Jason has completed his first and only Honduras Beer Report. That’s it for now!

Cheers and Hope everyone had a lovely 4th of July!

save us from utila beer

ok …i know i know - you people are waiting for the beer report. i finally had a few minutes to spare in our busy diving schedule.

besides…the beer here is terrible and shitty.

there are basically 4 beers on the island…and because of the poor turnout this will be the only beer report while we are on utila.

The only one we somewhat can handle is “Salva Vida”…translated into English means Life Saver. Yeah - please save us from:

Honduras Imperial: we can only hope that Imperial from Costa Rica is better. I once woke up sitting in C-bottom in a recliner in the dorms at 4am…must have been asleep holding that beer for a few hours…someone had put a cigarette butt in it….and it was warm. i had a swig…and it was better than this beer.

Port Royal: for some reason this ass juice costs 10 lempira more than the others…

Barena: we saw some dutch guys drinking this and all the girls were teasing them that is was girly beer. tastes kinda like a cross between corona and mgd light. nasty.

Salva Vida…costs 25 lempira or a little more than 1$. unless you look really like tourists and someplaces will get your for 35 lemps. When I asked Cindi what it tastes like she said “no idea…not good” definately worse than miller lite…pabst…schlitz…and all the regular cheap american beers.

On another note…we have found that the best way to drink is to buy a handle of Flor De Cana rum…from the local dirty habit salesman. he sells the rum for 265 lempira and it lasts a long time. tastes great with coke, lime, and “purified ice” - yeah right purified my a$$. here is a shot of cindi with her grog..

hope everyone had a great 4th of july.

jason