Santa Cruz you're not that far...

...so sang The Thrills some years back.

Lies.

Contrary to my last blog, here is a new blog before 22 March. Things have been mad. Get the kettle on.

Day One.
Got up at 4.15am and set off from Turrialba to San José at 5am. The bus to Managua was at 9am, and we got to the border at about 3.30pm.

After we crossed the border, they started showing the film, Escape Plan, on the bus. It starred Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, with 50 Cent, Holly Flax from The Office and Dr. Alan Grant. It was dubbed in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. What's not to love? I was able to get the gist of  what was going on, but when the lead roles are Sly and Arnie, it's not going to be much.

We got to the hostel, dropped our bags off, and went to the supermarket to get a few bits. As we were eating dinner back at the hostel, there was some crusty old American dude really wasted and talking gibberish. It was pretty funny. In a weird way, you kind of have to admire somebody getting old, having a few quid, and just buggering off to Nicaragua to get wasted in a hostel.

Chilling by the pool after dinner, I could hear somebody playing the original Cum On Feel The Noize by Slade. It was very surprising, very random, and very lovely to hear a good Black Country band so far away!

By far the most exciting thing about the night in the hostel was the mattress. It was an actual mattress! With springs in it! Not a battered piece of foam. And there was a pillow!

I'm a borderline case

Day Two
We had a lovely sleep in until about 8.30am. And then some...

Eating porridge for breakfast is better by a swimming pool in a Nicaraguan hostel. We got a minibus to León and arrived there at about 1.30pm, got a taxi to the hostel, had lunch there, and went for a wander. Most things were closed because it was Sunday.

We stopped for a smoothie. One listed its ingredients as raptor, pineapple and ginger. Obviously I got excited because "raptor", but I didn't think they'd put dinosaur in a smoothie. I checked what it might mean on the Google Translate app on my phone and it said "abductor" or "kidnapper". I was pretty sure - and kind of hoped - that it didn't have that as an ingredient either. I decided that I'd spent enough time worrying about what it might be, and just ordered it. It was delicious, whatever its raptor was.

After more wandering, we went back to the hostel. I got an awful lot of reading done, which I was delighted with. The hostel was odd, because we weren't allowed to cook there, so we went to Raleigh's León office and took over their kitchen. After a run through of the road trip plan, I found myself watching one of The Matrix sequels in Spanish. Not sure which one because obviously we should all be trying to forget they were ever made.

While I was there, I wrote some notes to the ICS programme Team Leaders who I'd met at the development weekend in London before we came out. I received an email with a blog from one of the groups on project. It was flukey timing, because it was planned that I'd have no internet access after that until the end of phase. I forwarded it to Fieldbase.

I headed back to the hostel and bought Biffy Clyro's Puzzle for £1.99 from Google Play's classic albums deals, before they updated the selection. I'd had Machines in my head for days.

Went to bed with another mattress and another pillow!




Day Three
Myself and Lucy, left the Raleigh office in León an hour later than planned, with Olivia and Lisa from the Nica team, and went to Achuapa to meet Brigido, from the project partner, Cooperativa de Juan Francisco Paz Silva. We left Olivia and Lisa at one of their projects, where I got to meet Roxy, one of the Team Leaders from the development weekend. Lovely to see her again. Myself and Lucy went back to the Cooperativa to collect a lady called Tina up from her work there - we were leaving the car with her whilst we visited our X-Ray 7 group up the mountain. Waiting for Tina, Brigido gave us a quick tour. Their main product is sesame seed oil, which they sell to L'Oreal and The Body Shop.

After leaving Tina home, we set off on our trek up to Santa Cruz. I'd been told it was 7km, so I reckoned that going a steady pace of about 3km per hour, with a good break every hour and a couple of breathers, it should take about three hours. Tina sent a couple of young fellas with us to get us started, because the sun was high because we were setting off so late, she suggested we should take a more shaded route, but that had no roads. We got there just after 5.30pm, which was just as well, because it starts getting dark after that, and we would have had to find somewhere to stay without a tent.

We had a nice catch up with Project Managers Shaun and Marc, and Photographer Tess. We ate dinner and showered. The shower was a tap high up, outside, surrounded by a curtain to maintain some modesty. Marc advised that it was best to shower at night. If I needed to shower earlier, I'd need to keep my clothes on, because the cowboys pass on their horses and can gawk in. And apparently kids can gawp in too, and that's well creepy.

I slept that night in a hammock in the community leader, Don Antonio's, house. It was grand. First time I'd ever had to do that.

Downtown Achuapa.

Day Four
Woke up early, had breakfast - tortillas, beans, homemade cheese and homemade honey - and set off to meet the venturers at the local well for starting work. We threw rocks at each other. Not really, like, we were throwing them to each other, along a chain to get them to a water filtration system. After lunch from 11.30am until 1.30pm, I did some digging for a trench for pipes for a water system.

I was subjected to some accusations of being a Project Manager, which I vehemently denied. It led to a further conversation about why I was there, how I wasn't convinced about what I was getting out of it, how it compromised what I came to get out of Raleigh, and how I didn't see what benefit I was to the group. Basically all the stuff I whined about in an earlier blog. I said that I'd caught myself making the odd snarky remark, which in a day can be passed off as a joke, but in two weeks would be really negative for the group - I know what I'm like. After talking it out, I decided I'd ask to leave with Lucy and Tess the next day, when they were leaving for their road trip with the Nica team to visit some ICS projects - the group had their check in with Fieldbase coming up, so then was the time to ask.

I asked to leave and was asked why. I explained. I was told that was fine, but they'd need confirmation from the Country Programme Manager, and that they couldn't work the blog anyway. Essentially, having me do anything other than work with my strengths wasn't going well for anybody. I got my confirmation later. Happy days. We went back to our house, had dinner and another moonlight shower, and stayed up chatting for a bit.

Our crib in Santa Cruz.

Day Five - Escape from Nicaragua: Part I
Got up to leave at 5.30am, but it was after 6am when we eventually left. I know it sounds bad, but I was not sad to leave. The community were so lovely and warm and welcoming, and I didn't feel I had anything to offer in return. We got to Tina's house, got the car, picked up Olivia and Lisa, and headed to another ICS project where we were to stay the night. Petra, who I'd met at the development weekend was the Team Leader there. Again, lovely to see her.

And then, things got what myself and my band mates would describe as "a bit Nerve Centre".

Myself and Tess were told that we were getting kicked off the road trip. Two of the ICS projects had volunteers that needed to go to hospital, so they needed the car, and they needed myself and Tess out so they'd have room to bring them to hospitals. We were getting sent straight back to Fieldbase. I burst out laughing.

After much discussion about how we could do this, a plan was made. We'd stay in a building in Achuapa owned by the Cooperativa, then go from there to León, and from León to Managua the next day, then from Managua to San José to the following day, and then from San José to Turrialba and Fieldbase the following day.

All of this was made even funnier by the fact that myself and Tess don't have much in the line of Spanish. I explained that I was confident that with my Spanish dictionary, Google Translate apps on my phone and tablet, and some pointing, we'd manage. People were all like "Er... don't you need WiFi for Google Translate", and I was all "Er... no, I downloaded the Spanish package". What to people take me for? Jeez. As if I'd suggest using something that needs WiFi where there's mostly no WiFi. I did get told that I was a very organised Comms Officer. I was in Scouts yo. Be prepared. Suggestions that I'm organised would confuse some people though.

We got back to Achuapa and got a couple of bits. We were staying in a classroom in the Cooperativa's building, so we set our bed spaces up there. We showered and found somewhere to eat - two massive meals for about $2 each. We got back to our classroom, and the people who work there had kindly left a couple of foam mattresses outside for us! The people in Central America are so warm and generous it's heartbreaking. If you ever feel you need your faith in humanity restored, get your ass over here.

Our crib in Achuapa.

Day Six - Escape from Nicaragua: Part II
Got woken up earlier than planned after a terrible night's sleep - with dogs constantly barking and a truck outside starting up and setting off. We left just before 7am, but nowhere was open for breakfast. A place by the bus stop opened where we got biscuits and instant coffee for breakfast. We got an old American school bus to León. There was a market place next to the bus station in León, where we got a sweet cheese pastie thing, and a lovely refreshing Coke.

We hopped in a minibus to Managua. The taxi drivers when we arrived were insanely aggressive. The minibus hadn't even stopped and they were shouting in the window at us. We went with the least aggressive guy to get to the hostel. We chilled for a bit, and Tess found out that there were TransNica buses to San José at 5am and 9am. As we were expecting to stay in San José the following night anyway, we decided that the 9am would be fine. But then we got a call from Fieldbase telling us they'd booked us on the 5am bus, with the intention of getting us back the following night. Not impressed.

We went for a wander to the shops to get breakfast and lunch for the next day, and decided to vent our frustration at having to spend the next day on buses by eating a slab of cow for dinner that night. We went back to the hostel, splashed about the pool, showered and went to the steakhouse down the street. It looked so unassuming from the outside, and then went inside, and it was one of the swishest restaurants I've ever been to! Myself and Tess were there in our t-shirts, shorts and sandals, feeling suddenly very under-dressed, but they didn't turn us away. We were seated and given menus. The New York steak appealed to me. It came out. It was bigger than my hand, half my index finger in thickness, and its medium-rare was still pretty bloody inside. We got back to the hostel, pottered about a bit, and promptly descended into a steak coma.

Comms Team steak night!

Day Seven - Escape from Nicaragua: Part III
There's really not much to say about today. We went and got the bus at 5am, arrived in San José, just after 3pm, got the bus to Turrialba at 4pm, and landed back at Fieldbase at 6.30pm. There's not much excitement from 13.5 hours on buses.

However, when I got back to Fieldbase, there was a parcel waiting for me. I was surprised and confused. Then I saw it was sent from Castlebar and that it contained crisps and Emerald chocolates, and suspected that it might be from Ma Fitzgerald for Paddy's Day. Then I opened it and saw a card stuck on top of the box and I was more certain of my suspicions. And I was right. Nice to come back to, and reaffirmed that getting back early was for the best - she'd sent it before I'd been told I'd be in Nica, and if I'd stayed there, I wouldn't have had it for Paddy's Day, and that would have been tragic.

I know a Fieldbase that's getting a Paddy's Day party!

It's been a very long day. I should probably go to bed.

There's more photos here if you're interested. I've decided against the slideshow thing. It's far too much of a faff and looks rubbish.