On and off bicycles, a trip to Costa Rica plus the circus comes to town

Well it's been a week or so and I've saved it all up for one big post so I hope you have a few minutes ....

So here it is, my lovely bicycle, cleverly made by our lovely friend Jesus, I would show you a picture of Porl's one too but it's not here, he's out and about and I'm stuck at home, more on that next.

His is great too, possible slightly faster than mine, given that it's red and all but I would like to contest that on the downward straights.  Or maybe I shouldn't, given the next section of my update?

Well it was just a matter of time I guess, I unfortunately wasn't born with the best balance in the world so last week when a taxi decided to overtake me on the main road, on the busiest part of the road, with bikes, cars, bicycles, horses, carts, etc etc all over the place, and then slam his brakes on once he had positioned himself right in front of me I had no recourse but to fall up the rather enormous kerbs that the road have over here and topple from my lovely new bicycle.

I of course tried to do it as elegantly as possible but I fear that I didn't really accomplish that at all as I just landed in a heap on the pavement with my bicycle somehow on me and under me ayayay!  Paul, unoblivious, rode on, while 4 kind Nicaraguan men appeared from nowhere and picked me and my bicycle up off the pavement where we had landed.  And after checking that I was ok and telling me how crazy the taxi drivers were and how I should be careful they sent me on my way.

I rode on and caught up with Porl, the adrenalin giving lie to the idea that I had sustained no damage and was as right as rain.  When I stopped for a bit further up the road to assess the damage I noticed that I had sustained a few bumps and bruises and my right foot was decidedly tender.

When we got home Porl kindly bandaged the offending foot and I carried on as usual, thinking that if I just ignored it it'd be fine in a day or two.  Well unfortunately that was a week ago and it's still very sore and now a strange lump has come up on the bones on the side of my right foot.  Very inconvenient I must say, I have things to do, people to see, and I'm still hobbling around.  I'm not sure what the chances are of finding somewhere to get an xray done or even if it's worth the bother or if I should just try to rest it a bit but that seems easier said than done.

Anyway, enough about me ...  jeje  what else do I have to report?

Well we went on our visa renewal trip the other day.  When you arrive in Nicaragua you are given a 90 day visa so if you want to say longer you have to leave the country and then come back in for another 90 days.  Thankfully that's not too hard from where we are as the border with Costa Rica is only about 1.5 to 2 hours away.  So we got up at 4.30 and caught the 5.30 bus and off we went ....

The sun wasn't yet up and the streets of San Juan were deserted ..

as you can imagine we were rather blurry eyed, some more than others ;)

Soon it was light and the bus arrived to take us to Costa Rica. 

We had to take two buses, just like we did to get to Cardenas.  One to La Virgen and then the other to Peñas Blancas (White Rocks) - the frontier town where Nicaragua runs into Costa Rica.

The first bus was a nice comfy tourist bus ....

but the second was back to the usual chicken buses  ...  

much to Chase's disappointment

The world was coming to life by the time we got to the second stop ...

and before long we were at the Nicaraguan Customs leaving the country.

and then we could walk into Costa Rica

finally after filling out forms to leave Nicaragua, enter Costa Rica and leave Costa Rica we were back entering Nicaragua.  The queues had grown a little but apparently no where near as bad as they can get.

This was the last set of forms.

Some say you have to stay out of Nicaragua for three days in order to return but others had told us that they will let you off with 6 hours.  Apart from having breakfast in the restaurant on the Costa Rican border we just turned around and walked back into Nicaragua.  The official that took our last set of forms looked at the dates and times etc stamped into our passport and on our papers and said "but you've just gone and come straight back" so I told him yes, we loved Nica so much that we wanted to come straight back, he just smiled, shook his head and kindly stamped our passports letting us straight back in which was great!

What was even better was that when we came out of that customs line we discovered a duty free shop and I discovered chocolate and Bacardi!!

Chase found Whiskey so all in all the trip was well worth it!

Replete with Maltesers, Dairy Milk, Bacardi and Whiskey off we set for the trip home.

Ah so many choices!!

That night Porl & I shared a delicious curry with Pete & Hayley Theslow and a game or two of cards ...

Unfortunately the boys found themselves on a bit of a losing streak - go the girls!  :)

The next day, Thursday, it was up bright and early and one or two of us (lol)  headed out to the territory!  Talk about an army :)

In the arvo' Damo came with me on Franchesca's study ....

Unfortunately, her reaction to his reading her a Bible story in Spanish wasn't exactly confidence building.  But don't take it too hard Damion she is a very exacting Spanish teacher and your reading

really was fine.

Then Friday we were out doing some local territory, as you can see it's not ideal for someone with a bung foot!

The week finished off with the circus coming to town so although a few of us were worried if animals were going to be involved we decided to go.   After all, how bad could it be for NZ$3?

As did pretty much the rest of the town ....

Actually we decided to splurge and got VIP ringside seats for NZ$4.

Porl wasn't sure what to expect.

For an extra .50 cents each I got a yummy candy floss

... that was nearly as big as me!  ok well not that big but still pretty durn big!

big enough to make Kieran a beard and mo'!

 Then the lights went down and the circus began.

I'm afraid the lighting was very low apart from one massive beaming light directed right towards us so the quality of the pics leaves a little to be desired but I'll post a few anyway to share the bizarreness of a Nicaraguan circus :)

The show began with a group of dancing girls and let's just say, "they had some moves!"

Next a poor young lady was swung round and round from a rope attached to the ceiling.

thankfully she kept her dinner down.

There were some clowns ...

A talented young balancing boy.

More clowns ...

But the highlight of the evening for Chase & Kieran had to be when they saw their favourite

childrens show characters, the telly tubbies come out on stage ....

When they saw that they were giving out hugs they just couldn't hold themselves back ...

First Chase ....

then Kieran ....

Well ok, maybe they were dared to do it but they really did look excited :)

The telly tubbies were a hard act to beat but the juggler on the massive unicycle did his best.

And then it was back to the dancing girls.

And the grand finale was an emu who did a once around the ring ... the end!

As I said, all in all rather bizarre but then again I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to a circus, it was definitely entertaining, slightly disturbing at times lol but definitely entertaining.

And so continue the adventures of Chase & The Hunters in Nicaragua :)

Back in the blogging business, camera in hand.

Sorry about everything being all quiet as far as the blogging has gone lately, without a camera it just hasn't been the same.  Today I had decided to blow the budget and go shopping for a camera, but this morning as we were getting on the bus with Damo & Paul (two lovely new bro's from Australia) Paul  (who's full name by the way is Paul Danger Henry - love that middle name!) offered to let me use his while they're here, as he always forgets to use it, and that way I'd get to use a camera and he'd end up with some shots on his card.

Sounded like a deal to me so he kindly whipped home before the bus left and we were back in business.

Here's Porl and Damo saving our seats before we left.

Being Tuesday we were off to Rivas, this was to be Paul Danger Henry's first adventure on the chicken bus (we had initiated Damo the week before) so we were a little disappointed that it wasn't quite up to its usually 'up close and personal' standard.  It was actually veritably lonely when the trip started.

But thankfully we weren't to be alone for long, we really wanted Paul to have the 'real' chicken bus experience ....   looking quite relaxed and comfortable here ....

and little by little ....  looking a little tenser .....

....  then it happened, jeje :)   

Complete with bottoms in faces and any number of other body parts rested in any available space, including that between any passenger and the space above them or the chair in front of or even behind them.  Welcome to Nicaragua!

Definitely looking a little less comfortable at this stage, about 5 mins out of town :)

Once we arrived in Rivas the boys were impressed to learn that it has a skatepark of its very own and they checked it out as we passed ....

And then the adventure continued, first up we met a man who had recently had an accident so he was wearing a motorbike helmet to protect himself.  Reasonable I guess?  He was asking us to buy him a refresco (fizzy drink) so Porl gave him his bottle of water.  After taking it and trying it he said that no he didn't really like water that much and he still wanted a fizzy drink.  In the end Porl took pity on him and gave him a few cords to go and buy a drink.

Before he left he spoke to us a little in English and took an English magazine to read later.

I was working with Kieran today and he was in for a treat.

We came across this interesting little group, it was about 10 in the morning and two of them were already unconscious in the corner (you can just make out a red shirted man in the right hand corner).

They were will into a big bottle of rum between them which they put behind the door so that they could concentrate on listening to us.  Unfortunately their concentration didn't last and before too long the 'lady' in the middle soon told me that I was lovely and that Kieran really took after me and in fact she wanted to take him and make love to him and marry him and I could be her mother in law.  Not often you get a mother in law around the same age!

I asked Kieran what he fancied - staying here for all the delights on offer or continuing on to visit the other houses in the neighbourhood.  It was a toss up but he decided to stick with me and we continued on our way.  Not every day you get offers like that and I think she was quite genuine as she even offered to share her alcohol with him :)

Although it wasn't as hot as it had been, by mid morning we were happy to find a corner store that sold ice cold batidas (smoothies) in a bag.  Porl went for banana and it was really good so I followed his lead and had one too.  Packed with banana it was great and really icy cold.

Paul Danger Henry, went all out and had cookies and milk, it looked fairly interesting, all those

bits bobbing around in a bag but Paul declared it the best

drink he'd had since arriving in Nicaragua.

The, after just a few more swigs he said, no!  actually I think this is the best drink I've ever had!

Wow, either it was really, really good or he doesn't get out much ;)

We met up with some brothers and sisters from the local congregation and had an awkward social moment where one of the sisters approached Vanita and as she played with her hair told her she had terribly dry hair and that she needed a cut and a treatment.

What we would considered sooo rude is considered quite fine here.

Anyway not much further up the road we saw a hairdressers and suggested that Vanita get herself fixed up, I don't know, being out in public with such dry hair, really!  What was she thinking?  Lol.

As we carried on, we passed a local guy transporting goods using his head, quite a common site in these parts.

Then it was time for lunch so we headed off to the pupusa restaurant and here's Pete & Damo enjoying their pupusas.  It was Damo's first pupusa experience and he seemed pretty taken with the whole deal.  Pete reckoned they were awesome!

How good were they Pete?

Eye poppingly awesome, M-C!  

Soon Paul's arrived and he looked pretty happy with his too.

After finishing up our afternoon with our studies in Rivas, Porl and I headed home on the bus.

Today it was a flash bus complete with tv and everything.  Not sure why, but every now and then one of these comes through and does the route home,  we certainly weren't complaining they are lovely and comfortable.

Actually, if you couldn't actually live on these buses, (I'm talking about all Nica buses, chicken buses included) you could at least have a four course meal with snacks to follow and do your fruit and vege shopping.

In the last five minutes before we left the station vendors came on the bus selling, full chicken meals, pop-corn and pastry snacks, all sorts of drinks, coconut sweets & all sorts of fruit and veges (all of which we declined) and then they came with icecreams and presliced mangos which we had both of.

Once again armed with a camera, I took advantage of the moment and took a few transportation themed shots as we left Rivas, just to get my hand back in again.

Not far out of Rivas Porl got his dictionary out and started to do some Spanish study.

But as the bus, with its comfy padded seats, bumped along and volcanoes whizzed by ...

Despite his best intentions, clutching his newly purchased machete and bike stand ....

Porl nodded off to sleep.

Now this isn't that unordinary.  You know, nodding off to the gently sway of the bus then coming-to with a start ...

But by the time we passed the lakeside town of La Virgen ...

Despite a multitude of small school children having hopped on the bus ....

Porl had fallen into a deep, deep sleep ....

Complete with the open mouth ... but, I am happy to say, not quite to the 

dribbling out of one side of the mouth stage ...  

Sorry darl, I just couldn't help myself you looked so cute!

In fact you nearly ended up asleep on my lap!

He finally came too, slightly disoriented just as we arrived home to San Juan again.  Another day in Rivas was over and the best thing ever was that we had the pics to prove it!  -  Thanks Paul Danger Henry!  I dedicate this post to you and your camera :)