Heading back to the UK

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I was unsure what I was going to be up to for Christmas. Nicaragua is great: I’d made a nice little circle of friends that I know I’d have a good time with, the weather was good and getting better, it’s cheap, … On the other hand, I’ve not been back to the UK for about 5 months, and there’s a bunch of family stuff that I should really do, even on top of the normal Christmas drill.

Then, one Friday night I was heading out to my normal 2-for-1 G&T at Pelican Eyes when I stopped off at the ATM to get some moolah. The ATM had power, a connection and money so it started promisingly, but my “Transaction was not able to be processed at this time”. Thinking that HSBC had forgotten I’d told them (twice) that I was in Nicaragua, and it really was OK for me to use my card here, I went to Pelican Eyes and made a note to call the bank the next morning.

When I did call them, it turned out that someone had cloned my card and used it to buy $1600 worth of (probably crap) stuff in a Wal-Mart in Houston, TX. So! The card that had been on temporary hold was now cancelled, and a replacement could only be sent to San Francisco.

As I now had $5 cash to my name, and no obvious way of getting any more, I decided take the hint and go back to the UK for Christmas. Apart from anything else, the Nicaraguans have a charming tradition of “waking the baby Jesus” in the run up to navidad, which involves running through the steets at 2, 3, 4 and 5am shouting, trumpeting, drumming and beating pots and/or pans.

So! I am now back in Costa Rica, flying to LHR via Houston on Sunday morning. Will stop off in Houston and beat the shit out of the first person I see in 800 pairs of budget white socks.

Fun and Games in San Juan

The last couple of weeks have been really good. Lee and Rachel – the couple I’m staying with – have been showing me round and introducing me to lots of the ex-pats down here (of which there are loads).

Last weekend in particular was a blast: on Friday we went for 2-for-1 cocktails at Pelican Eyes, a swish hotel up on the top of the hill with a great view of the bay. It’s quite strange; to sit up there drinking G&Ts surrounded by uniformed help with an immaculate pool and bar feels more like LA than Nicaragua, but it’s definitely nice for a change.

On Saturday, we went for a walk up to the northern headland of San Juan del Sur, where they’re building an oversized statue of Jesus. At least I think he’s oversized: if not, I can see why he was such a crowd-puller back then. The view from the top was great, across San Juan and into the next bays as well – you could even see Costa Rica in the distance.

Later in the afternoon we went and said hello to some monkeys they keep in a little zoo here. I made friends with a little capucin monkey called Lucas who was teething – he was a big fan of nibbled any exposed flesh within his grasp. I’ve only ever seen primates at distance before so it was great to see them in action: their hands and prehensile tails especially.

On Monday I went surfing with Rachel’s visiting friend, Wendy, at a beach just to the north of here. We were planning on going on Sunday, but there was a cheeky little storm and the ocean was too rough. We had a one hour lesson from a leathery Peruvian called Freddie, then kept practicing till the sun came down. I can get up and stay up reasonably reliably now, but will probably do one or two more days on a long board before trying a shorter one.

I’ve put up some new pictures here but I’ve been a bit crap in taking them – I’ll do better.

Power cuts!

Had a little rash of power outages today, mostly small – just a second or two – but long enough to knock over the whole internet, which was a bit annoying. Coming back from an awesome chicken dinner at about 7pm, I was walking up a street when there was a sharp crack sound, and a huge plume of bright blue sparks shot out from a power line. Everything still seemed to work, but it was pretty dramatic!

My buddy Christoff just found this video from Burning Man this year – it’s shot at the Deep End, the day-time party, right at sunset. There’s not actually that many videos around as video cameras are quite tightly controlled due to all the weird stuff happening everywhere, but this is a pretty decent one: hundreds of people in costume, dancing for hours in a dusty wild west mock-up in 100ºF heat (in the shade)

Only 292 days until next year’s festival!!

Municipal Elections

There were national elections here in Nicaragua two nights ago. Apparently, Latin Americans take their polling day horseplay a lot more seriously than Europeans; there was to be no alcohol sold or consumed anywhere in Nicaragua for Saturday through to today, in an effort to prevent disruption.

There were some reports of voting irregularites and violence, but there was a polling station right next door to the hostel I was in in Granada, but apart from a few fireworks when the incumbent Sandinistas were re-elected, and I didn’t see anything sketchy. Apparently there was a little bit of rock throwing going on in the capital, Managua, apparently.

I did get a great photo of a stray dog shitting in the gutter, in front of a fat dude sleeping in a chair with a ‘policía elección’ t-shirt. Which I then deleted by accidental.

I’m in San Juan del Sur at the moment, which is a small surfer town on the Pacific coast. Internet situation is not so great, so I won’t be here too long unless I can find a hostel with wifi.