Tegucigalpa

Well the stories people had told me about Honduras and Tegucigalpa had made me fear the place so much that I felt it was certain I'd get mugged or murdered as soon as I arrived. But it just wasn't like that. At all. I never felt threatened the whole time. I saw poverty but nothing more than I'd seen in any other Central American country. Nicaragua was as poor if not poorer and you only get more problems where you get poorer people. 

I also felt the city was quite pretty in  places you could see the influence left by the Spanish Conquistadors, with the pleasant squares with gardens and grand buildings. 

City view

Los Delores church, to the right is an amazing market with cheap food and selling all sorts of things

The old presidential palace 

It's not!

An old tree with its roots growing above ground 

Inner city living with a riverside view, as Foxtons might try and sell it to you. Just an example of some extreme poverty, but this is in no way unique to Tegucigalpa, in every other city I've seen in Central America. 

Chocolate River....

Some interesting graffiti art

A Collectivo (shared taxi). There's not really any public transport so the way people get about is by sharing a taxi, it costs about 15 limpira (50 cents)for each journey and the taxis go on a set route, so you need to know where you are going!

More graffiti art

There are a lot of guns everywhere. This was just a shoe shop protected by a guy with a huge shot gun. This isn't unique to Honduras tho, it's everywhere in Central America, it's more of a deterrent if anything

A lot of military police too in the centre. I never saw any issues though. If you think about it though you see a lot of police with guns in every country, even England.

On the hill in the background are some of the slums. I visited places like this in Matagalpa. It's shocking to see how people live and then close to it is so much wealth. People say the poverty from these slums is what has caused the issues with gangs. So then remove the poverty and make people happy?

Not quite sure what happened here but the car was basically left abandoned in the street. Until I realized there was someone inside when I looked in, tha gave me a jump! I guess the Aa takes a bit longer to reach Honduras.

A lovely sunrise over the city. We were walking down from one of the nicest oldest areas in the city

A lovely park overlooking the city. The Spanish built , in every town in central and south anerica (I expect) a beautiful park, cathedral and some buildings to show off their architectural style.

Example of nice Spanish architecture 

I'm not saying the city doesn't have its problems though. The hostel we were staying in told us we had to be back before 11pm because so many tourists around the neighborhood in central had been mugged and they didn't want to open the gates late at night and let bad people in. Well all I can say is on two occasions we came back and there were some men in the square by the church and it looked like we were being approached by them. But nothing happened. We always made sure we had a good taxi (talk to cab driver, make sure you like them), rang the hostel before we arrived so they would open the gate. We took precautions. However we also walked the streets fairly late at night, without problems. Also I only ever took out with me what was necessary. Never too much money and I often left my phone at home, just invase of anything happening! We also got Taxi's wherever we could late at night. Basically I was always on high alert, but only because people scared me into thinking like that. In reality everything was fine. It is better to avoid getting into issues there though as the police won't do much. I think you could say the same anywhere right? 

People told me stories of how the gangs sometimes rob whole buses, taxi's pay a tax to the gangs so they can operate. One guy told me some gangsters in a Collectivo taxi had taken him to a bank and made him withdraw money. I'm not saying these stories aren't true, but I didn't see it and I can't prove it. Tegucigalpa just seems like any other city , with problems but not too much to worry about if you are careful.

I would also say Tegucigalpa has a great creative and artist network. I saw a lot of art in the centre, music and culture. It's also got a very cool bar called Cien Anos, where I had a couple of good nights out.

The only reason I can think for it having such a bad reputation is is the media. They just run stories about gangs, death, violence and drugs, and also the inherent corruption in the government. Why? Because this sort of narrative perhaps plays to the international community to get money and help? I don't get what the purpose of scaring people is? I do however get why it's easier to keep the poor poor, uneducated and uninterested in politics because it's easier to control them and stay in power. So basically people told me during an election campaign the party trying to get elected will go to a village and build someone a house. This then makes all the people of that village a supporter but without really changing anything for them in general. 

Also a less well educated country will allow the politicians to get away with more. For example on Friday night I was in Tegucigalpa we ended up in a protest against the current president. Basically what he did was steal all the money from the social security by creating fake companies he tendered contracts to, who did nothing but passed the money to him. This can't actually be proved unless he investigates, which he won't. So people protested against him saying: "Cual es la ruta. Sacar al hijo de puta!"...basically what's the route we need to take now? Get the son of a bitch out of power!

Fortunately there is a burgeoning smart student population who stand up to corruption like this and march against it.

The rubbish dump

So I asked my amazing couch surfing host, Byrom, if I could see some really poor districts of the city.(Tegucigalpa) I wouldn't go there on my own because it could be a risk. But with Byrom, as long as he knew someone there, it would be fine. 

As it happened he had a friend, Pastor John, ran a school by a rubbish dump, an area run by the Mara's, the gangs (allegedly because no one would talk about it), who charged the local people money to work there. Recently the woman running the dump was killed, allegedly, so now it's a bit more free. God knows why the gangs bothered though I mean these people picked up rubbish and sold it on for 1 limpira per pound of plastics or cardboard. Most people might make average of $10 a week! It's literally the worse job you could ever have. Full-stop. I'll never complain about my work again. Pastor John said they called it work out of respect, but really it was nothing more than surving...

The smell of the place was literally over powering, it stank like a mixture of smelly feet, all encompassing, permeating your clothes so that if you left a trace of the rubbish dump on you, like mud on your shoes, the stink followed you around. It was full of packs of wild dogs drinking from filthy puddles eating the trash and hundreds of vultures circling overhead and feeding on anything, literally a cess-pit of humanity with the poorest, unluckiest in society sifting through the shit.

Some of the people there have worked there for 40 years, since they were young children. We met one women whose daughter had died at age 8 because she had been picking up rubbish and one of the dumps and a truck had run her over! And we met another women who told us when one of her husbands died, the police said they'd investigate, but nothing ever happened. 

I felt slightly at risk taking pictures of the rubbish dump because people could have stolen my phone but I think no one cared enough or were too busy to bother, it wasn't like there were gangs standing around with guns pointing them at people, not at all...

The same women had another daughter, who looked about 14. She would spend half the day at school (at Pastor John's Rubbish Dump school) and the other working on the dump picking up and sorting out rubbish. If it wasn't for the school the cycle of poverty would never be broken as all the children of the rubbish dump parents would never have the education to aspire to be anything else than just rubbish pickers.

The rubbish dump school was pretty amazing in itself. Pastor John had spent the last 15 years building it. Apparently he had turned up at the place and seen the dump and his daughter had told him what are you going to do about it? So him and his family lived on the dump and with the people and started teaching them. And then over the years with donations and things they'd built the school. It's a pretty amazing life achievement really:

The rubbish dump school, funded now by the American Embassy, literally started out in a field under a tree

The school was also expanding into growing their own fish, and plants to feed the people. They gave the local children who came to the school breakfast, lunch and dinner and school uniforms. But most importantly an education. It really is all about education. You take it for granted when you are a child, or an adult from the western world, but without that basic education to read and write and imagine a life better for yourself you really have nothing. I think you can solve almost all the issues of poverty if you educate people.

The only thing I felt uncomfortable with at the school, that made me happy they didn't need me to teach there, was this over emphasis on God. Like at the rubbish dump Pastor John made us all stand around, put our hands on this family, who'd just told us their sad life story, and pray. People were saying things like  how unfair it is if God suffered so much on the cross that they needed to suffer too.(proof enough there is no God) Pastor John even asked a woman what she would say to Christ if he was standing infront of her? She said a better job. 

Pastor John also talked about compassion and pity, and how we had to show compassion and not just pity for these people to make ourselves feel better. So why did he seem so uninterested in me helping and teaching? I just feel going there, handing out food (like Jesus in th bible) and praying for them was slightly too pious? Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, it was good we gave the people something to eat atleast.

I don't know why the whole God thing made me feel uncomfortable. Perhaps because it felt like it was a bit of a requirement to believe in God before they were interested in working with anyone and I felt left out. It wasn't like this in Matagalpa, the NGOs took your help if you offered it.

Ocotal

Not really the place I would choose first to visit, it's the closest nicest place to the order of Honduras, but I feel the Colonial Spanish Conqistidors did a nice job. It has a beautiful park, with wifi (not from colonial times) nice streets old buildings it's pretty. Occasionally I think perhaps colonialism wasn't that bad a thing.

Living in Lúana's house

The things I will remember the most about is Molly the Dog, who was the canine personification of the Grandad who lived their. The teenage daughter who basically ignored me most of the time, or atleast had learnt to disconnect with all the guests coming through the house. The little kittens. The beautiful garden (it was an amazing oasis in the middle of the city) and of course Luana. The rather brilliant Italian lady who ran the house and had lived their for 30 years trying to do good by the peoe of Matagalpa. Martin her son who slept most of the day amazing in the living room, he worked late, no one had their own room but he managed to sleep through everyone getting up and walking around! Also that fricking parrot who screamed every morning at 6am and didn't let me sleep.

What is it about the night in Central America

Not really got much to say on his, apart fr why is it everywhere after 9-10 pm is locked up and shut. Everyone nails down the hatches and hides from the night till morning. I don't really get it. Do criminals, thieves, drug addicts and murderes work on a time schedule? Like you can imagine their iPhone alarms ( taut they robbed) going off at 10pm, they wake up from whatever drug induced state they were in and shout to their rather skinny heroin addict wife, "right off to work love got some murdering and stealing to do"

Hospedaje Ocotal

So I think I just had the worst hotel experience ever! Although for $3 I didn't expect much else! Well it wasn't a hotel it was this place that was a shop, but they had some spare rooms or whatever you could rent. An entire family lives there, I think. No one greeted me as I arrived they just pointed to my room shoved me in and threw the key at me. The shower and toilet had no water, of course, but I'm used to that. When I had settled into my room and walked out for dinner they shouted something that I had better be back before 9. Basically at 9pm they (and it seems everyone else in central America) lock and bolt the doors, and everyone goes to sleep. Christ knows what would have happened if I had been there at 9.01pm. They also had this inner door system too that locked me in , I think to prevent me from thieving any of their shitty stuff from the shop or their 1970's TV! Anyway, better to be safe than sorry. It's a good thing there wasn't a fire! This inner door system prevented me from charging my phone in their living room in the night, and when I tried to ask the grandma if I could do this she told me this wasn't possible as she had to lock the door, giving me evils. What Nicaraguans do when they disapprove, or don't like something, is flair their nostrils, scrunch up their face briefly, staring in a stern manner! If looks could kill! Anyway, I left quickly and charged my phone in another room - actually in someone else's bedroom because I didn't have a plug in my room. Why is that? They don't want me to steal electricity off them in the night! Maybe they think I had a Large Hadron Collider in my backpack and wanted to start that up at 1am smashing high energy atoms together, it could have cost them billions!

My room was a rather damp, exposed to the elements(well it had a roof), cell. When I woke up in the morning, because grandma insisted on getting up and showering and whatever at 5am (why 5am? I mean it's not like she had anything to do all day, but I guess when you have nothing exciting in your life why stay in bed) I couldn't get back to sleep. Being right right next to the toilet didn't help much either. I just stared at the door for about an hour thinking, "So this is what it's like being in prison then!!" After that I quickly got up, grabbed my stuff waved at grandma, who scowled back, and ran out the door. 

Matagalpa

What's life like here in Matagalpa? What's it really like living in a third world country? Well let me tell you: most of the day there is no running water so we have to wash our plates and ourselves with water we have collected in buckets, from the time during the day that there is running water! It's amazing how much you just take running water from a tap for granted. Especially clean running water. I am sure there are worse places in the world than this where there is actually just dirty water to wash and, clean and drink from. I fact I definitely walk past a community of people who live by a river in Tim shacks who basically wash and clean from the dirty polluted river water so in a way in our house we are lucky. Still it's rubbish having to shower with a cold bucket of water, or wash the dishes with water collected in bottles, or not have running water from a tap to clean your teeth with. Also drinking this water , which I doubt is clean, is probably advised against. I think now I don't get sick but I definitely used to. I am not sure why. I mean what kind of things are in the water to make you sick? ? Is it just bacteria or is their some kind of pollution from the pipes? Lead or other poisons? You just don't know In a third world place like this because you expect the water authorities or the government to be keeping the population supplied with clean water but when you you see the amount of poverty and lack of education here, who is ever going to hold them accountable for things like this? They can do what they want.

Matagalpa on the other hand is a beautiful place. It's very chilled streets, cobbled with nice houses, surrounded by hills.it is also immensely cheap. I reckon I spend $10 a day here, food, rent everything. It is definitely much much cheaper than the corn islands.

Life here is easy, it's perfect place to just stay for a while and learn Spanish. 

Teaching in the school in La Chispa is also an experience. Basically I was at first given two lessons a week teaching computers. Unfortunately most of be class wer completely hopeless. None of them had a clue what they were doing, they could barely read the instructions and then copy the code I had written for them into the computer. However there were a few promising students, Larry and this woman called Daisy. She just seems to get stuff I teach her which makes me think it is worth the time!

I designed 6 lessons written in Spanish to teach people the concepts. People seem to like them which is great, however my main issue is the speed at which people want to learn. I would rTher teach the teachers in a short space of time, than stay here for months and months. That just isn't what I want to do. Larry has even organized meetings with the university as he thinks I will find some much more able students in programming because they are engineering students. I agree. I even had th idea of finding the best students and then creating a company here and getting them to program me android apps, for much much less money than in Europe or Ameroca. You could easily lazy a programmer here $400 a month and they would be happy. But that is a huge commitment of my time and some money. I just don't know if I would want to do that. It's an amazing idea though. I mean if I could get some business from Europe and organize the developers to make apps it would look very very good on my cv. It would also give the people here work, money and opportunity tha they would never otherwise have. I need to do some serious thinking.

I bought about it and decided I didn't want to commit myself to that long. I have my own life to get on with. I want to travel. I do t wanna waste my time there. I met some talented programmers who could be useful or atleast I could put them in touch with the right people/

Managua

En las calles de Managua hay mucho polvo, suciedad y contaminación. Mucho carros y en ninguna parte se puede caminar,  porqué no hay aceras! Toda ciudad no tiene bonitos edificios, Managua está hecha un desastre, está un hoyo de mierda! Pero es más complicado que eso, porqué en 1972 un terremoto grande alcanzó la ciudad destrozando todo. Ahora sólo los edificios de unos pisos existen. Todos las personas quiénes vivieron en el barrio central se mudaron a los suburbios donde creen que los terremotos no los alcanzaran! El barrio central estuvo abandonado. 

También Nicaragua ha tenido dos o tres guerras y revoluciones. La última revolución estuvo apoyada por los Estados Unidos en contra de los Sandinistas comunista revolucionarios. Es probable, que lo bueno es que Managua es la capital porque las capitales suelen ser destrozadas por las guerras!

Pero yo me divertí mucho, porque yo aloje con una persona llamada Bismark de CouchSurfing. CouchSurfing (sofá de surfing) es la única manera de viajar. Porque usted conoce personas locales que visitas,  y haces amigos verdaderos con todas las personas que usted conoce. Quedandose en los hospedajes turistas significa que usted conoce personas de su país. Mi experiencia de Managua estuve una clase de Yoga seguido para karaoke!

En la mañana de mañana yo regrese a la migración preguntar por extensión de la visa. El día anterior yo me había ido a la migración oficina quando yo llegué en la ciudad, pero estaba cerrado! Yo hube viajado rápido a Managua en la autobús por no razón! Entonces quando llege a la oficina de migración en la mañana él mujer, quien Trabajando allí, dígame, "Porqué necesitas una extensión en su VISA?", yo respondí, "por la vacaciones,y yo estoy un voluntario por Infancia Sin Fronteras en La Chispa". No se gusta mi repuesto. Dígame, "No extensión, tienes que cruzar la Frontera a Costa Rica". Entonces yo fui a San José por la final de semana, parando en el volcán Massaya  en por aqui!

Fue la gran aventuró. Sin embargo Costa Rica es mas caro que Nicaragua. Costa Rica es un muy diferente País también. Es difícil imaginar ellos son próximo cado uno!

Porque de Americanos investidura en Costa Rica, mucho Americanos mudarse allí en la 1980's, Costa Rica es más ricas que Nicaragua! Precios están casi lo mismo qué Europa, ej. España, y muchos personas hablan inglés. Costa Rica, sin embargo, es un Benito país, extraordinario jungla, océanos.

El punto de blanco tiburón en playa del coco

Yo he visitar la jungla en enero, esta vez me divertí en San José y fui a la playa porque yo quería concocer la escuela de buceo donde podría hacer mi instructor de buceo.

Entonces yo regrese a Nicaragua. (Me gustaría escribir mas pero es difícil y es muy cansando y se tarda mucho tiempo a escribir algo!) Entonces Yo tenía muchos ganas de volver a Nicaragua. Viajando ha enseñaba algún es yo quiero un lugar yo llemar a mi casa. Se extraño Amsterdam mucho...me gustaría poder ser un buceó en Amsterdam! Pero la canals están no clara y no mucho pescado!