CRATER LAKES OF FIRE

THIS IS THE WAY THE JOURNEY ENDS, NOT WITH A BANG BUT…

WITH A MAGICAL CRATER LAKE AND ROILING LAKE OF LAVA FIRE

From Leon we all piled in the trusty VW, and headed south. Princess Fluffy, Adventure Dog, literally sat on top of us in the back. Or over us. Or behind us. She basically took over the van. lol.

 



We cruised past volcanos and rivers and the Wal Mart. (Yep. In the capital, they indeed have a Wal Mart.  Not going to lie… I kinda wanted to stop just to see how it was the same or different). There were Black Friday ads everywhere. After all… today is

THANKSGIVING!

And I am tremendously thankful to be on a trip like this, with great friends, seeing all the amazing things the world has to offer. I’m grateful. I’m humbled. I’m happy. Thank you life and the world for all of this.

We head up and over the rim of Laguna De Apoyo… a magical crater lake. We went to the camping area on the shores, as rain came in. We got our suits on and ran down to the water to swim with beer in hand. (I am with German’s remember! lol)  It was really incredible to be there. It was maybe 3-5 kilometers across. You could see the mountains all around, and a volcano in the distance. We swam, cooked lunch, played with the local dogs that all came to say hi.

 

 
And we played NINJA.  Which is this hilarious game were everyone is a Ninja trying to chop of the arms of everyone else. But you can only make single moves, and they can make single moves in defense. It’s easier to show, but it’s really really funny.

Then head to Hostel Paridiso
And for $9/night had a dorm bed on the shores of the lake at a place with kayaks, a floating dock, beach chairs, amazing food. Sweet.

As we were walking over to the hostel I said “I give it about a 65% chance we’ll see some travelers we’ve met before on this trip.”  We walk to check in, and literally EVERYONE from the shuttle and the party last night was there. Like 10 of them or more. lol.  Ahhh traveling! Awesome! And everyone of them is a solo traveler and they’ve all just teamed up fora little while on their journeys.

So our crew (Officially called the International Ninjas, by the way).
We met 2 more Germans (lol) and played Cards against Humanity. (As you do in Nicaragua).
And since it was Thanksgiving I naturally ordered… Chicken Cordon Bleu.
(They don’t have any turkey). It was hand made and really really good.

Trivia night fun! We teamed up with everyone there and had some trivia fun. My team won! A bottle of RUM! As you do down here.
The trivia also was to help raise money for students at the school. An extra $20 can help them with supplies or uniforms. It’s crazy, but a lot of them can’t even afford the pennies a day to get to school. I thought I might be able to help some, so I donated enough for a full years tuition for a student. I’d love for all this travel to have a positive impact on the places I go, and not just be about having a great adventure in a great place with great people. Hopefully that helps. I like to think it will. :)

THE GRAND FINALE

Originally we were going to push on to other places and other cities and I just suggested that we don’t. Let’s stay here. Let’s enjoy this lake and the swimming and everything, and the Ninja’s whole heartedly agreed. See, they are on a MUCH longer trip (2-3 months for Franzi and Stefi, and who the hell knows how long for Hannah and Fabian), so the pace they move is significantly slower normally than what they have been doing because I’ve been here. It is true, on the trips where I’ve had 6 weeks instead of 2, it is easier to dive into a place a little deeper. Spend an extra day or three. It’s nice.

So that’s what we did here.

A day of morning swims, kayak out into the lake, picking up floating rocks (?). Yep.
Why not? lol.
We floated on inter tubes.
Had great food.
Kayak races.
Great conversation.
Slack lining.
We tried to do volleyball, but the ball was so flat it was hard.
Still, we hit it around in the water and random folks joined us.
The temp was perfect.
The water was perfect.
The place was perfect.

(A reminder, this was $9 a night. Or $25 for a double…. and it’s as bad ass and wonderful a place as you can find. The food was $4-$8 a meal… and wonderfully tasty. And the drinks were $1.50. So the next time the thought “man, travel is expensive” crosses your mind… it doesn’t have to be. There are ways to go places, amazing places, that don’t cost much at all :)




A LAKE OF FIRE

Franzi, Stuff and I took a shuttle with some other folks to Volcan Masaya… an active Volcano about 10km away. It’s a national park. You go in at sunset. You go through the museum in a whirlwind with the guide who explains all the volcanos in the area (almost 30). All in a straight line from Mexico through Nicaragua. The newest started erupting 150 years ago. You can volcano board down it.
This particular volcano is one of 6 in the entire world where you can see a BOILING, ROILING LAKE OF FIRE!

HELL YEAH! (Irony noted! lol)

So we go up to the crater rim and you have 20 minutes to look down 200 meters (600 feet) to the boiling heart of the earth. And with my zoom camera, I could really zoom in close and see the lave and magma just roaring and churrning. It was 200 meters down… but still amazing. If you were really quiet you could hear it too. Roaring. Rumbling.

That's 200 meters (600 feet) down down down

 

It still blows my mind that this is happening under our feet (sometimes WAY under our feet) everywhere. It’s the planet we live on. It’s alive. Not just on the surface, but deep inside. Churning. Building up. Sometimes blowing up. I’ve seen lava before, and am so happy I have. It’s amazing! And to think a lake of lava like this can only be seen in 6 places on the planet… wow. And it just started here 3 years ago. Seriously. The lake wasn’t visible until 3 years ago! The planet is changing and building and breaking down. Fascinating.

The planet is alive.
Inside and out.
All we have to do is look around, breathe it in, and remember what a blessing and gift this wonderful, amazing, magical planet is. Let’s take care of it. It’s everything we have. If it goes away… so do we.

You don’t have to travel to the ends of the earth. Just step outside. Look at the trees. Check out that amazing sunrise or sunset. Hear the ocean waves. Climb a mountain. Get close to the sky. See those birds flying… there is magic all around us.

And I’m thankful everyday for all of it.


This is Craig Ouellette,
last surviving member of the Nostromo
Signing off. (until the next one!)

****Unfortunately I couldn't get the video to upload here. So for now, no video. But maybe in the future.

Here's a video of the lake of fire! Hopefully it looks cool on the blog. Keep in mind it was handheld at 200 meters zoomed in 72x. Enjoy!

I’M IN FRICKIN HONDURAS!!!

Hi Team!

So I’m in Honduras… okay. I’m really back in LA.

But Craig… why don’t you write these emails on the the trips anymore?
The answer:  there’s no internet cafes. Or at least, I didn’t see any on my 15 day journey through Honduras, Nicaragua (and for a day in El Salvador!)
Since Wi-fi has taken over the backpacker experience, they just don’t exist.
And I miss them.
I miss going out a couple times during the trip, checking in, and sharing adventures while there.
So next time I’m going to bring a blue tooth keyboard and type it up on my phone and share it that way…

At this point you might say:
“Craig, you went to Honduras? Nicaragua? WTF?!?!”
And honestly, that was a bit of my thought too when this trip first showed up. I checked out the US State Department travel advisories. There are 4 levels of advisors.
1:  Generally safe. Common caution.
2:  Upgraded caution. Be more aware.
3:  Rethink travel due to safety concerns
4:  DO NOT GO.   (Think Iraq or Afghanistan).

Well, Nicaragua, was surprisingly a 2. That’s cool. Just like Cuba, or India.
Honduras was a 3.  “Rethink Travel”.
Warnings consisted of DO NOT TRAVEL AT NIGHT. And lots of warnings about the capital city and other major cities and the entire eastern part of the country.

I’m not going to lie. It was a bit intimidating. I love adventure, but going to war zones or places of high human conflict or danger — no thanks.

So again, you ask: “Why did you go?”

Well, faithful readers, you might recall a certain adventure involving millions of crabs from the Cuba emails earlier this year. And you might recall Hannah and Fabian, the two totally awesome German’s I shared that with, whom I also rock climbed and scuba dived with. Some of my favorite people I’ve ever met traveling. Well those two have been traveling since I met them back in March. They went from Cuba to Mexico, bought a VW Camper van and have been driving south ever since. Months in Mexico. Climbing volcanoes and sailing and exploring caves with huge underground waterfalls in Guatemala. And they were headed into Honduras for diving and beyond. So I thought: Let’s have some more adventures together and joined them for a couple of weeks.  In addition, they had two friends from Germany with them, Stefi and Franzi (Twin sisters), who joined a a couple weeks before me and were doing 2-3 months.

Me, Hannah, Franzi, Fabian, Steffi

So the stage is set, I’ve got pickpocket proof travel wallets, belts with hidden money compartments, and a plane ticket to Roatan, Honduras. I land on a short runway in the rain of this lovely island. Then hop the ferry for the 1 hour ride to Utila. A smaller island nearby. Well, the ferry crossing was one of the wildest boat rides I’ve ever been on. The waves were BIG. Like 10 foot at times big, and rolling into the boat side to side. The horizon was grey. Sheets of rain came down. I loved it! I was on the top deck, enjoying the fresh air and the wind. At one point the crew told everyone to sit down and looked genuinely concerned… hmmm….

In the end we landed in Utila and Hannah and Fabian were there to greet me on the dock with giant hugs and smiles and frankly it felt like we’d seen each other a week ago. And it’s been 6 months. It’s one of the amazing thing about travel. I spent a total of 5 days with them in Cuba, but it’s like 5 weeks of normal time. And as a result, we just clicked back in to stories and jokes and good times. It was awesome.

DIVING DEEP:

So the main thing to do in Utila is Scuba dive. It’s one of the cheapest places in the world to learn. So I did my Advanced open water with Fabian and Franzi. (Hannah and Steffi had already done it). Doing the class meant 7 dives in 3 days, and some book and class work. We did our book work on a pier overlooking the Caribbean sea. Now that’s a classroom!

Our first day was actually snorkeling and hanging out on piers and enjoying the island. Because, for whatever reason they decided to do the classes the next day. We’re on island time now!

Well, at 3 am I woke… and did NOT feel good. Nausea. Headache. Really?!?!? I just got here. That’s gotta be a record. My best guess was the Poke I ate at the beach wasn’t so good. So my first morning was sleeping while they started diving. It was the right call as I felt better 12 hours later, but still. Whew.

The diving here is AWESOME. We were at Parrot’s dive shop. This rag tag, lovable place with great instructors and a real family fun feel to it. Arjen, our teacher, who’s from Holland, was great, and we dove down to 100 feet multiple times. We did an awesome wreck dive, on the USS Haliburton (yep, that company). It was purposely sunk a number of years ago, and was a really cool cargo ship to float around. It took me all of 2 minutes to get used to diving again, and after the 7 dives I really felt like I had improved a lot.

Highlights included the wreck, a night dive with some bioluminescence and tons of fish (more came out at night!). I loved the deep dive egg trick, where Arjen cracked an egg at 30 meters (100 feet) and it stays together. We could push on it and toss it around like mercury on the surface. And on the birthday dive, there was a free swimming eel that followed us for 12 minutes or more. It came up next to me, like 5 feet away, then swam up the sea mount… then came back. The dive master had skewered a lion fish and fed it to the eel, and then the eel spit it out and got really sassy. It swam up underneath some of us, and even went right up to the dive master, who shooed it away with a harpoon. I’ve never seen a free swimming eel before. Arjen’s passion for the undersea life makes me want to learn more about what I’m seeing down there. It’s another world I recommend to anyone.

BIRTHDAY FUN!

So November 21st was my birthday…. and Stefi and Franzi’s bday too!
Yep! Triple birthday fun!
It started with cake and candles and sweet gifts that Hannah and Fabian had made or got for all of us. Cool stickers with nice notes on them. Then we did our two great dives. And after we came up from the 2nd one: Champagne on the boat! The dive shop got us a bottle and we all celebrated on the ride back.
Then back at the shop:  More cake! The DIVE SHOP had a cake made for us! What?!?! How nice! Then later on the bar gave us one bottle of champagne each! It was pretty great! A fun special day indeed.

3 LIES OF UTILA:
So there is a really funny video about Utila. This island where people come for a week and stay forever. It’s apparently pretty common. I loved the island, but I don’t think I’d get stuck there. (Supposedly it’s Robinson Crusoe’s island. There are signs and maps up all over by someone claiming this was the spot. So they sure got stuck! lol).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX-H-zF9PJ4

So the video has 3 lies:
1.  “I think I love you.”  and the response “No, you don’t.”
2. “I’m leaving tomorrow” — “No you’re not.”
3. “I’m not drinking tonight.”  — “Yes you will.”  “Cause the truth, not the lies, you’re in Utila still”.

It’s a great place. With great people, and a great vibe. And it’s super safe, and super friendly, and really… it is amazing. And if you love diving: buy that ticket to Utila and enjoy!