Into Honduras, Nicaragua photos

After nearly a month in Nicargua, we finally departed for Honduras. We spent about 11 hours yesterday on old US school busses, designed for small children and still got stuck in the capital, Tegucigalpa as we just ran out of time. So we figured we should upload some photos during the heat of the day and recap a bit since it has been a little while.

We last posted photos after leaving Granada. From there we visited Masaya. We hiked a volcano and walked the town, known for its artisans. The museum at the base of the volcano had a familiar painting. (Can you figure out why it is familiar?)


Historically this crater was believed to lead to the physical gate of hell.


From Masaya we headed to Leon. Another colonial city, as evidenced by the photo. It is more populated, has more traffic and is further from water. This all adds up to it being almost so hot that you cannot move.


We found out about a baseball game in a smaller town north of Leon and decided to check it out. It was really good baseball, decent weather and quite a cultural experience. Man to woman ratio was 20:1 and everyone was allowed to bring their own liquor into the game, so by the 7th inning things were really getting interesting. We ducked out around the middle of the 8th to try to beat what may have been a slightly unsteady crowd.


Finally unable to take any more heat, we headed to Matagalpa. Matagalpa is a beautiful little city in the mountains with pleasant weather a surrounded by very nice mountains. We did some hiking amongst birds that made beautiful noises (we could never find any of them) and howler monkeys along with various other wildlife.


We then went to a chocolate factory. El Castillo is the copmpany name and we found their chocolates all over Nicaragua. They are wonderful chocolates. The tour they gave was really nice and it is a small operation that seems to be more concerned about quality than growth and the employees took time away from their activities to explain the processes to us. If only cacoa grew in the mountains of NC!

The workers still crush the cacao with this stone (name??) giving it more texture.



It was nothing short of miraculous self restraint that kept our heads out of this machine.

We finished our time with a hike to a waterfall (trying to recover from a chocolate induced bellyache).


At every stop bus salesmen come on to try to sell whatever baked goods or fruits they might have. These kids help out their parents, but they are easily distracted and much more interested in playing with the gringos than calling out their product. A digital camera is a big hit since they get to see themselves right after the picture.


A follow up from our last blog. Helms asked us about McDonalds and you can go there to see our response. However, we are only human. We just arrived to a colonial city in Honduras and there is a... Bojangles! There is only so much temptation that two North Carolinians who have been gone from home for so long can take. We will eat extra local in the future to make up for the Southern fried deliciousness we plan to consume tonight.