The story of chocolate

We have been helping out on a chocolate farm lately, i personally would volunteer for a beer farm first but apparently they don't grow on trees around here. As such it is the elusive yellow or orange cacao pod that we have been hunting and wielding machetes at. Yes, they let us hve machetes. I think they actually give them out as first birthday presents around here. Although the farm we are at is very young and the first time they harvested the cacao pods this year they only gave the machetes to the boys and the girls had to follow behind picking up the pods and then carrying them in little sacks. ha ha ha brilliant!

The family we are staying with is great, very... rural and sweet. One of the brother, cousin dudes maybe/should be in Gero's blast program but you can always learn more about cows and good wood. We eat some brilliant meals of beans and rice, rice and beans and Gallo Pinto (a Costa Rican Meal of beans and rice) but it's kind of like Jane Franklin or camp, enough chile sauce (thai sweet chilli or Tapito) will fix anything. And, here in the land of meat lovers and fried food (I think KFC is a health food) they have this awesome veggie sauce everywhere. it is really good with rice and beans or rice and bean soup, or even gallo pinto.

No real plans for when we may leave yet or anything else but we'll be sure to let you know when and if we make our minds up. The farm is very relaxing and I need to practice my spanish and learn the making of chocolate if i am going to continue to eat so much of it.

well sorry it is short and sweet but best be off, take care

So we´re in Costa Rica!!!
Lot´s of stuff going on right now, especially as we head to the ends of our travels with just a month to go. We have two weeks planned volunteering on another farm, some diving, lots of hiking, some camping and probably some more bad chinese food. Last night they served the chop suey with wonder bread.

So the highlight since meagan last wrote was our week long stay at a little permaculture farm on Isla de Ometepe in Nicaragua. It was awesome. We ate really well. They had so many goodies it´s tough to talk about them, but fresh wholewheat bread, woodfired pizzas, honey, homemade salsas, nutella, tahini and a bunch of sweet treats. The chocolate cake was awesome. Needless to say, my slim toned diving physique (if you believe this your drunk) from Utila has wasted away and whenever we finish wherever we finish i´ll be needing a new pair of running shoes and a bit of time with them.

The farm is very very very tranqilo and the locals in the area son muy amable. The place was great, except for the fact that all this humidity is making most of our stuff get a a nice layer of mold on it... mmmmmm yummy! that definitely blows but what are you going to do about it hey?

We´re really looking forward to getting to our next farm and seeing what we can learn and offer and also looking forward to doing some good hiking in a few of the beautiful parks.

well, i best be off, take care all and stay in touch!

Many Thanks!

Thank you all for the kind birthday wishes! It was a fabulous one to say the least. We spent 5 days on Little Corn Island on the Carribean side of Nicaragua. We went diving, lazed on the beach, and enjoyed some peace and quiet. The ocean sent a gift which will most likely make an appearance in the slideshow. A gold lined sea goddess which is a tiny nudibranch we have been looking for the entire time we have been diving in the carribean. I was also treated to a lovely Thai meal and a glass of wine. It just doesn´t get much better than that for a birthday. Since the last blog we have been to the cities of Granada and Leon and stayed in the tranquil Reserva Miraflor. We stayed with a family that is a member of a organic farming cooperative supporting tourism. We arrived in the mountains and were astonished by the splendid quiet. All you could hear were birds, insects, and cows. After baking in the big cities the cool fresh air was a relief. We drank fresh roasted organic coffee and milk straight from the udder. Our mom prepared vegetarian dishes with eggs from the chickens, homemade cheese, and vegetables and herbs from their amazing gardens. The extended family that worked the small farm had ducks, chickens, cows, a deer, horses, organic coffee, fruits (white peaches, bananas), and vegetables (broccoli, carrots, herbs, the works). After asking what they fed each of the animals we discovered that everyone ate tortillas. I could have stayed forever but hopefully we will find more of those luxuries along the way. For now we are on Isla de Ometepe heading for a farm to lend a hand check out the area.

Hope all is well with everyone and thanks again for all the happy birthday´s it really made my day!

rainy rodeo = muddy meagan and courtney

So by a whim we came to San Juan del Sur and decided that tourists had taken over (this information was in the guidebook but I didn´t think it could be that bad). Luckily the rain broke and we decided to get the hell out of touristland and out to the rodeo. What a rodeo it was, Central American machismo at its best. Hoards of men, women and children crowding around a muddy arena. Literally people occupying every square inch of squishy space. Occasionally a man would try to ride a bull for a moment but otherwise it was all bout the cowboys lasso-ing (I have no idea how to spell that) the bulls and getting them back in their pen. The arena though was filled with drunken men in the middle and along the edges. I suppose this was safe enough considering the cowboys were there to protect them. Occasionally one would stumble across and dance amidst the cowboys which was an entertaining enough especially when for a lack of females they started dancing with each other. We were up close next to the bull pen and were splattered a few times and even saw the bull rider get a deep gash in his arm... lots of blood yikes! The best part of the evening is when 2 cowgirl clad men started hitting on Courtney. They weren´t messing around either these guys were serious beckoning me to get his attention. Of course Courtney was gracious and gave them some attention. Considering these guys were in a pretty unfriendly environment for cross dressing the attention was appreciated and we went on our muddy way.
Tomorrow Granada.... hopefully since we were meant to get there today
adios

Pupusaa 24/7

well i wrote this really cool blog with a bunch of funny things on it and then the power went out and it was lost. so now you all get this crummy blog instead.

Life has been very interesting to say the least, we{ve been rejected at a border, driven about by a crazy (funny) man, been bought treats on a bus by a lovely granny, ate pupusas at least once a day (i{d eat em more but meagan and fried food don{t work too well) and are now staying in a mansion for just $20 a night with a gorgeous view of a lake and amagnificent hammock that lie in a finish my book - shadow divers! It is the most expensive place we{ve stayed in so far though... ohhhhhh Costa Rica scares me.

So many of these stories need to be told in person so as not to scare our parents and to get the full effect. So i'll just write about one.. lets see Meagn farting... no, looks like it's the border fiascos instead.

So everything is hunky dory, we've only got a few days left on our 90 day visa for the CA 4 (Nica, Gaute, Hond, El Sal) and we're going to go to Immigration in San Salvador and buy another month. Good ol lonely planet says just $20, beauty.

We get to the borderof honduras and El Salvador and after a bunch of buses anbd taxi end up getting grilled. We try to laugh and joke and they say piss off. bugger, apparently something about our exit stamp from Guatemala, we're not meant to have one. Honduras don't give two hoots, no one is even on the border, but the El Salvadorians mean business, so we make a dash To Guatemala from El Salvador through Honduras to get another entry stamp and all will be cool. Besides meeting a bunch of cool people we end up in Guatemala, hitching in the back of a truck to find out after and hour of discussions with 3 different people (they all got mad at talking to stupid whiteys with no espanol) that the rules changed on the 5TH OF JUNE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and they don't use stamps anymore, it's just all one big computer system. Except honduras don't use computers and El Salvador are meant to but maybe they don't. I swore andthen while we were walking away a bunch of dogs, street dogs tried to bark and come at us. Usually meagan squeala a bit and then we throw rocks. Meagan yelled em down and then i chased them. Dogs can sense emotions it seems. I was so mad i wanted to really beat that german shepard thingy up.

That night we make it back into Honduras and sleep the night and the next day we try to pull a swifty and just sorted of rush over the border. We haven't done anything wrong! we get caught by the last border dudes and they (after more lengthy discussions and me citing the changing rules) finally let us in but strictly for 6 days only. Bugger, so huge change of plans, in just a few days we are catching an express bus to Costa Rica to get our passports stamped and then heading back up into Nicaragua for a few weeks before finishing off our time in Costa Rica.

But i can understand why the border patrol is so tight here in El Salvador. The place is AMAZING! and we won't even make it to the beautiful playas. The people are nothing short of wonderful, and the pupusas.... ohhh the pupusas.

We're both very well and having a great time, but i must get going and go drink some rum as the sun goes down. take care all

Special mention to owen for his achievements is attaining the highest comment blogger of anyone outside our families. Love you owen, not too much though.

We are still in Honduras but we are on the move. We are in the western highlands in the quaint town of Gracias enjoying the cool mountain air and friendly people... the type that walk you personally to what you´re looking for. We passed through El Naranjo and stayed at a brewery, I know a b-r-e-w-e-r-y. I didn´t believe it until i saw it. We had porter, pale ale, apricot ale, homemade rootbeer (just like rootbeer stand when i was a kid) and we were in heaven. Of course being gringos we headed for the local waterfall, to find we were the only gringos there. Basically we had 43m of unleashed fury to ourselves and our guide of course. He took us behind the curtain and you can imagine water falling 43 m has some bite to a cave and then to some nice cliff jumping. All in all it was a good time however typically tourista we were being. Today we took a walk to some hot springs and tomorrow I have no idea and I´m happy about that.


Before leaving Utila we had some fun nights out including Courtney´s birthday. We had a great time for his birthday starting on June 8th going well into the 9th . The next day everyone was so wiped that after a big dinner out food coma hit hard and we were home by 11:00. It was really wonderful to celebrate with people we had befriended over the last two months.

Speaking of friends hope everyone is doing well and let us know how you all are doing. Leave us some comments about whats going on if you have some time!

PILOT WHALES

We were blessed by the seas and snorkeled with a pod of pilot whales a day or two ago (they are starting to blur together). They move quick but these magnificent animals are even more beautiful underwater if you can keep up. I saw 3 pairs mothers with calves and one on its own. They are rarely spotted around Utila and it is especially unheard of to swim with them. After a bit of research I learned that short-finned pilot whales frequent warmer waters and they are a member of the dolphin family. They are believed to equal the intelligence of a bottlenose dolphin and are second in size within the dolphin family only to killer whales. Pilot whales are very social, and are most often found in groups of 20 to 90. Within these groups are at least some stable associations, usually between related females and their offspring. There are usually some males in these groups, but genetic evidence has shown that these males are not the fathers of the calves in the group. Several calves in one group may be fathered by the same male, indicating that a male can enter a group for a brief period and mate with more than one female. OK I hope that wasn't too much information but it explains why we saw so many mothers and calves.

We have been getting into fun diving again because... WE FINISHED OUR INSTRUCTORS! Whew we both passed without any problems and we're looking for students. I know Courtney's mum will be at the top of the list and I'll have to get my sister to do her advanced diver. Anyone else interested we would love to get some certifications under our belts. Next PADI step is the Master Scuba Diver Trainer and we will need 25 certifications. For the time being we are diving, diving, diving and enjoying not having obligations like reading PADI manuals. Thanks for the comments, its always good to hear from people keep 'em coming.


Kylee Williamson I hope I get to meet you very soon!
Owen back at CELP! I bet that was fabulous reunion:)
Mom I did get the fax and thank you again! you're the best