Ok, so we're a little behind. After climbing Telica and seeing lava, we made our way directly to the beach to cool off. Someone had told us that the shuttle offered by one of the hostels in Leon would be easiest, so we went to the hostel and signed up. After 2 hours of waiting (we expected 1) we learned that there weren't enough people signed up for them to run the shuttle, so they were going to call us a taxi. This discouraged the other two girls who wanted to come, at which point the shuttle driver decided he'd take us anyway. And that was how we ended up in the back of a huge truck all by ourselves barreling down the road to the beach. It was really quite exciting.
We went to a reserve called El Jaguar, where Casey had arranged to help band birds for a week. We tagged along for a day and a half, and despite a rather cantankerous woman running the show, we had a good time. We caught many beautiful birds, including several hummingbirds, many warblers (several of which Caseyand I recognized from bird banding in Vermont), wrens, euphonias, tanagers, and a dove. Matt and I mostly helped by untangling the birds from the mist nets and bringing them back for the others to take data about, but I did process a Crimson Collared Tanager. It was not very pleased to have me measuring each of its extremities and blowing up its feathers to look for fat and muscles and such, not to mentioned being stuffed in an undignified manner into a tube to be weighed, so it responded by keeping at least one of my fingers clenched in its beak at all times. Of course, once we had finished and I let go of it, it decided to hang out on my hand for a while.
At the beach we met back up with our friend Casey (can you find him in this picture?) and relaxed for a couple days.
Matt and I stayed in a cute hotel that had a delicious on site restaurant where we ate almost every meal. Sadly, a hungry family had eaten all of the lobsters our first night! But we got an insider tip, and asked early the next day. At 3:00, there were no lobsters, but by the time we sat down to dinner they had rousted up 6 delicious spiny lobsters for us to feast on. Thus it was that we had two lobsters a piece for a measly $10. We love Nicaragua.
After jumping around in the surf for a few days, we headed back to Leon for a big Halloween party. Casey went as a banana tree, and Matthew and I attempted Tron. We were in lots of pictures, but I think just because people wanted evidence of Casey's costume.
In the morning we bussed our way to the Nicaraguan highlands. We really liked the highlands - the part we were in had lots of rolling hills and agriculture, but no other tourists.
After our exhausting day of banding birds (5:30 am - 4:30 pm), we left Casey to it for the rest of the week and started our journey back towards Costa Rica. On the way we stayed in Matagalpa, a nice highlands town. Matt played kick the trash with a toddler, and I took pictures of the church. We also went to a coffee museum (it's a big export of the region), and learned that Brazil both produces and consumes the most coffee of any country in the world. But not per capita, the Finns take the prize for that.
Finally we traveled back to the beach, but this time in the southernmost part of Nicaragua. The town here is called San Juan del Sur, and it is by far the most touristed and developed part of Nicaragua. We were underwhelmed, but enjoyed a few days splashing around before heading back across the border to meet George. Matt will write about our adventures living the good life! But first, a few of the pictures I promised of the Nicaraguan buses.
Nice report Sama! Casey the banana plant is hilarious!!
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