An adventure into the mountains

So after Tegucigalpa we had another epic journey over the border and into Esteli in Nicaragua, where I am now. Our lovely taxi driver arrived at the time we had agreed the night before (proudly annoucing that he was using tiempo ingles, or english time to you and me) and then we even managed to get him to drive us through the BK drive through to get brekkie. Slight translation difficulties through those horrid speaker things meant we both ended up with 2 brekfasts each but am happy to announce a new addiction to crossaintwiches!

Rest of the journey was quite uneventful with the exception of this lovely man at the Honduran border who was practicing his english on us and thought we were the funniest people he had come across! We were also amusing the people in the line behind and when i said that my friend was loco, an old lady behind burst out laughing. We like to think we bring happiness to central america!

Anyway, the last 3 days have been spent, on my insistance, in a big national park called miraflor. It proved quite difficult to get there as the Nicaraguans dont seem to believe in making it easy for tourists to get to their eco-tourist developments. But the guidebook said it was lovely and one of the top 5 places to see wildlife so we persevered and after 3 days there are happy to report that we saw a load of butterflies.....and thats about it!!! Even the orchids for which it is famous weren´t flowering. It was nice and all and an experience, but not somewhere I would desperately recommend! Am letting Rebecca chose all our forthcoming destinations! Did get lots of sleep in though as no electricity means not a whole lot of fun after 6pm and I have never been so glad to get to a shower in my life (no running water either)

Back in Esteli now and as a treat for our recent brush with roughing it, went to a cute cafe/park for first bread and cheese in a month! Unfortunately, Nicaragua seems to have more rules as I was told off for lying on the bench in the cafe and R was told off for swinging on the swings......chaos wherever we go. Leon next for a bit of nightlife (hopefully)...