We're in Managua airport, Nicaragua, waiting for a flight to Florida. There we can get a connecting flight to Cartagena, Colombia. We got here at 11am (2 hours ago). We now only have another 12 hours to wait. Journeys can be unpredictable, you see? And not wanting to shell out crazy money for emergency taxis, we took the 5:30am bus, ferry, bus option from the island of Ometepe that we knew would get us here. So we'll continue sit on the ground by the ATM's and suck it up. It's a good opportunity to update the blog at least, and the aircon is a dream come true. Speaking of which, we just heard of Hibs' 'epic' come back against Falkirk to take them into a second consecutive Scottish Cup final. This further sharpens my dreams (nightmares) that Hibs will win the flipping cup (when I'm not there to see it).
Anyway, when last I wrote we were on the island of Utila in northern Honduras learning to dive. After some more classroom work we got into the water to try out some safety techniques, such as clearing water from our masks, sharing air with each other and so on. First in very shallow water, then slightly deeper. The following day we had our first open water dive. Once in the open water Lyndsey had a bit of a panic attack and decided it wasn't for her.  She is now classed as a 'panic diver' much to her amusement. I went on to complete the course and do a couple of 'fun dives', while blasting into decongestants because of a cold. We'd previously been taught not to dive with a cold, medicated or not, as congestion issues can cause problems with equallising the pressure in your ears, but whale sharks had been spotted on the north of the island, and I didn't want to miss my chance to swim with them. As it turned out, I didn't see them. I did see surprisingly beautiful squid though, as well as a big ray, puffer fish, barracuda, and lots of other stuff. Very cool, despite the nose bleeds when resurfacing.
We headed back to the mainland and spent another night with the American lot in La Ceiba. I'm not sure why as their hotel was pretty horrible. Ants in the bed. Early the next morning we got a bus via San Pedro Sula to the capital, Tegucigalpa. There we splashed out on a fansy hotel for one night. It was great to have room service, air con, hot shower, a cracking view of the city and all the rest.
 This was the beginning of Semana Santa (the biggest holiday in the Latin calendar) and our onward journey hit the rocks when we found all the international buses to Nicuragua were booked for next few days. Not wanting to hang about in Tegucigalpa, and after much deliberation, we decided to try to wriggle our way there on a series of awkward local buses. These are extremely overcrowded and hot. Not to mention, prone to attacks from banditos. We managed to jump into passing minibus heading to a town on our route. It was overcrowded and very sweaty, as expected, however rather than fearing banditos, we were soon in fear of death by explosive, Hollywood style, traffic accident fireball. It was plane to see that there were a lot of these as we circled the city looking for more and more passengers. I didn't mention to Lynz the dead motorcyclist I saw as we eventually left the city. Our young driver in particular had it coming though. Imagine the most dangerous driver you've ever encountered, and then make them a lot more dangerous. We clenched our buttocks and endured, as this maniac raced his other minibus pals along windy mountain roads for a few hours, before deciding that we would just bite the bullet and get a taxi the rest of the way. There was still a long way to go and it was very expensive day.
Leon in Nicaragua is a nice old city, although is was a bit like a ghost town as this was Semana Santa and every Latin American who could, was cramming onto their nearest beach. Luckily our hostel had a swimming pool, pool table and some cool people. So there we waited for Easter to pass, eating rice and beans, drinking rum, shooting the breeze and generally having a wonderful time of it. Next was Granada. A Picturesque town/city which we explored by horse and carriage, which was fantastic, except that we couldn't understand much of what driver was telling us.
There's an enormous fresh water lake in Nicaragua. The biggest in the world, we're told. The lake has a two large volcanoes that form an island on the southwest side. It's beautiful, and life here moves at a slow, rural pace. Our hostal there was on the outskirts of the main town, where the ferry lands. A relaxed place, with a dog who'd recently had a litter of five pups. They were dirty we buggers, but we had fun playing with them all the same. The fate of the runt still plays on our minds.
We hired a scooter and explored the part of the island with paved roads. It was a fantastic day. We found an incredible beach with amazingly warm water. It was hard to remember that we weren't at the seaside. The lake stretches as far as you can see, and it's not until horses, vultures or other animals come to drink at the shore that you are reminded that the water is not salty. We moved to a hotel on this beach a few days later. After a couple of days of messing about in the water, we were surprised to find a crocodilian in the shallows. At not more than a couple of meters long it would have been unlikely to attack us, but without a doubt it could have inflicted some gorey damage had we'd stood on it. Swimming wasn't quite as relaxing after that. A great wildlife experience though.
Time and money were now conspiring against us and we decided to fly to Colombia from Managua and skip expensive Costa Rica and Panama. So to Managua for our long wait at the airport.