The 12 hour bus ride to Managua was actually pretty relaxing. At $30, King Quality is the most expensive bus but well worth it. There’s plenty of space and the seats recline way back. They even feed you. Our only real complaint is the too cold aircon. They gave us blankets and pillows though! Also, the DVD player was on the fritz and we got to see the first half of several movies.

Arriving at midnight in Managua is stressful. It was impossible to get away from people trying to “help” you find a hotel/cab/whatever or pitching a sob story to ask for money. This is very different than El Salvador where people are very friendly and will talk to you without any other motive.

The hotel across the street from the bus station was $35 (very expensive by central american standards) so we decided to take a cab to the neighborhood with all the budget hotels. We forgot that it was midnight and when we got there the area was pretty deserted. On the way our cab driver stopped to ask directions from a man standing in the middle of an intersection with a billy club. The guy started to get in our cab and I protested, but he said “Don’t worry, I’m security. Look at my club!” The hotel we picked from the guidebook was full, of course. A man came out of the nearby bar to “help” and led us to another place across the street. It was horrid and they wanted $30. We laughed and walked out. Finally, we found a half way decent place down the street for $12. Not a great place, but at this point we didn’t care and were half tempted to take a cab back to first hotel.

In the morning, everything was fine. We walked around and had breakfast without getting mobbed. Then walked to the bus station to get on to Granada.

Granada is Beautiful. We had lunch and fresh juice on the main plaza. Vigoron (Yucca topped with fired pork skin, and pickled cabbage salad) and pithaya juice (like a dragon fruit, but pinkish purple inside). I’m pretty much immune to begging for money and can say no without a twinge in my conscience. However, when we were nearly finished one of the kids approached to try and sell us gum. I said no, of course, but then he asked if he could have a glass of water (we had a 1.5 liter bottle on the table). We poured him a glass and he chugged it down without breathing. A few other kids gathered around and wanted some too. I felt bad and this pretty much endeared me to those kids. How can you say no to someone who can’t afford or find drinking water? Now we have to carry extra water at all times.

Sorry we don’t have any photos of Nicaragua to put up yet, but here are some Scarlet Macaws from Honduras to add some color.

It’s probably evident already by the sudden influx of blog posts with numerous photos that we have arrived back to the estuary after a four-week trip to the Yucatan for Sage and Elise’s wedding. We left the boat on its own anchor and had a local guy looking after it but we didn’t exactly know what to expect when we returned; insane mildew takeover, one or more hulls gored by one of the rogue tree trunks that roam about the estuary, a bat infestation in the mainsail, a gaping hole lacking any boat whatsoever where we thought we had left it, etc. However, we returned to no more than a couple of cups of water in the bilge curtsey of a small but sprightly leak in our babystay. And a bat infestation in the mainsail. Well, one small bat. One small bat who, in violation of all rational physics, produced about three metric tons of batshit.

Babystay leak promptly sealed, we went about our business for two or three days noticing all this batshit but not actually able to wrap our minds around the reality because there was Just. So. Much. Of. It. There was a minor storm the day after we returned that kicked up some major wind and waves and let loose a torrent of wee pellets from our sail cover, which are startlingly similar in appearance to mouse, or godforbid rat, poops. “Huh,” we said.

We decided, after our previous boat-abandonment success (no mold, missing boat, etc.), to button up Time Machine once more and head off to Nicaragua to be land-based tourists for a couple more weeks. With the advent of electrical storm season, we were concerned that not only does the boat sport one giant aluminum middle finger sticking right up into the clouds, in the event of a strike, the charge would surely ignite the tons of guano and send our boat sky high in a fiery ball. Something had to be done; the inevitable eviction would be an event, to be sure, as I was certain we had at least a caveful of the things nestled amongst the folds of the sail.

Utterly preoccupied with bats and how an attack might be launched, we barely noticed the pair of ‘golondrinas’ (a type of swallow?) that had clearly used our absence to set up house in the one bat-free fold of our main. The sneaky little bastards would wait until we weren’t looking, then ferry in a feather or two to line the pad, lay an egg or four, etc. All the time I was thinking, “Hmm, those birds must really like us or something…”

‘Operation Eliminate Temporary Ecosystem, um, Eagle’ commenced yesterday afternoon during a not-terribly-windy spell. We released the catch on the bottom of the mainsail and prepared to remove the sail entirely for safekeeping in more bat-proof quarters. And this is the first thing we saw:

Whoa. Not a bat lair but a nest of great cuteness populated by four wee little eggies. So thaaaats what they’ve been up to; the parent birds were by this point flying all around the boat, basically freaking out I suppose. Not that the behavior of a freaking-out golondrina is any different than its non-freaking-out state, since they are particularly hyperactive little guys normally. We decided to remove the nest intact without touching it if possible so we used the bailer from the dinghy and just scooped up the nest. It fit rather perfectly and the container was similar in shape to the fold of the sail. We put the bailer in the cockpit cubby, which can be seen from the original nest position in hopes that the birds could wrap their little minds around the concept of Relocated Nest.

We commenced the careful extraction of the sail while diverting the rivers of batshit over the side of the cockpit. Finally we saw the bat. There was only one and he was very small. And cute.

Gah! The discovery! Rudely awakened, he tried to retreat back into the tighter folds of the sail. (Note cache of batshit.)

As we continued to remove the sail from the track, he abandoned his nook and made a bold attempt to scale the mast in hopes that there might be a quiet dark spot up higher. (There’s not.)

Alas! No place to hide up above; mast-scaling attempt aborted. The bat made again for the sail while, as a last-ditch effort, trying to scare us away with some scary bat antics. After this failed to remove us from the scene and/or produce a quiet dark spot to nest in, he jumped down into the cockpit and climbed up the curtain, dangerously close to the cabin entrance. Not interested in any new crew members at this time, Joshua shooed him around until he escaped into the cubby at the side of the cockpit (where the nest had been temporarily relocated). Satisfied that there was nowhere to go from here unless he burrowed through the speakers, we let him stay. Hopefully he’ll just fly away once it gets dark and find a less-rambunctious place to sleep. No other bats were discovered as the remainder of the mainsail was removed. We cleaned it up and folded it away.

Meanwhile, the golondrinas were still flying all around and chittering at us or each other. Joshua had grave concerns about the birds’ powers of reason and was not optimistic that they would able to relocate to a nesting spot not four feet from the original one. I figured that they might happen to look down if they went to the former location and recognize their nest and eggs; plus, we had been careful to not touch the nest and get our smelly people germs all over it. (Not that the boat contains any of these smelly people germs, or the mainsail, for that matter.) Joshua thought maybe we could affix the bailer to the maststep (which was approximately where the nest used to be located) and that would solve the problem. He wedged the bailer into the maststep and when he went to get a rope to secure it, it somehow popped out and nest and eggs went splattering all over the top of our deck.

It was very sad and traumatic and I practically started crying. The eggs were perhaps halfway matured so that you could see red developing-bird bits inside while the cracked eggshells bled white amniotic goo. The parent birds continued their erratic flight patterns about the boat and we felt very, very guilty; I don’t know if they grasped what exactly had happened. Joshua felt particularly terrible and gathered up what remained of the nest back into the bailer and put it back into the cockpit cubby, where it’s still sitting because we don’t know what to do with it. We gave the broken egg babies a sea burial.

Curiously, the parent golondrinas did not flee the boat after the terrible destruction of their nest and potential offspring; in fact, it appears they are preparing to build a new one. We’re fairly certain that they can’t build it anywhere that will be in the way or require removal anytime soon, and so we look forward to seeing a new little nest with four new eggies when we get back from Nicaragua.

From Dangriga we headed up to Orange Walk Town which is near the ruins of Lamanai. It´s a small but important site with some interesting temples. The only problem is that it´s only accessable by boat, so you´re pretty much required to take a guided tour. The boat ride is nice though and we got to see a lot of wildlife.

The launching point.

Some guys in a dugout with a bicycle.

Fresh water crocodile.

A small toucan. I think it´s a Collared Aracari, but you birders out there can correct me if I´m wrong. We also saw a Keel-billed Toucan but couldn´t get a good picture.

The Mask Temple.

We planned on anchoring in Bahia Sacrificios, the northernmost bay of the Bahias de Hualtulco, and headed in under sail. Wind was out of the west and there was a fair bit of wind chop and swell built up from a sprightly week of strong steady wind; we used the binoculars to try to see if the anchorage was going to be protected. Unfortunately, our view of the water condition inside was obstructed by the startling profusion of pangas zipping around for no apparent reason, banana boats being pulled around loaded with shrieking vacationers, party boats tied up at all the mooring balls, swimmers, snorkelers, pumping disco music, etc. Whoa. In an attempt to give the place the fair side of doubt, we navigated the supposed underwater rocks and the many out-of-water rocky reefy areas and went in to see it in person. Our engine decided that now would be a prime opportunity to not start but there was really so much chop it probably would have driven us crazy with the cavitation anyway (sour grapes). Velella were also on their way into the bays but had wisely chosen a less popular location to set anchor; they reported being amused and not particularly surprised to see us sail right back out the opening not five minutes after entering. We followed them into the next anchorage, thinking that whichever anchorage Velella chose, we would take the other fork of the inlet since according to the chart/drawing/blobby excuse for a map/“not for navigational purposes” and watch out for the underwater reefs, there were twin bays separated by a “knife edge rock structure.” As we approached the second anchorage, we couldn’t see any twin bay inlets, nor did we see any rocky landscaping that could be described as “knife edge.” Perhaps it was high tide? We could see Velella anchored in a bay that had a long lovely and deserted beach and since they were way over on the left, we figured we’d just head in there and anchor on the right. To make a boring episode at the very least one fantastic run-on sentence, half the anchorage or more was coral reef and the wind died on us, making it difficult to maneuver, not to mention the sun was going down, and we just basically dropped anchor on Velella’s stern and still our ass was dangling over a crackling coral bed and so Joshua snorkeled around in the dwindling light scouting the bottom situation while I swam over to chat with Cameron and Jenny, who informed me of their recent sea snake sighting just off Sacrificios (deadly poisonous and, my god, a SNAKE! that swims in the water with you! there are few things more terrifying) with a prelude of “should we tell her?” but of course they then had to tell me because who leads up to something like that and doesn’t tell you, but Joshua was back at the boat and ready to re-anchor so I bravely swam the treacherous 50 meters back to help but remember that the motor was on a not-starting-jag so we decided that Joshua would swim out with the other anchor (I neglected to mention the snake thing until later), drop it, hoist it in and repeat with the second anchor thereby clawing our way over to a more desirable location, which seemed to work fine and the sun went down and it was calm calm calm. And quiet.

We never really figured out which bay we were in after all; possibly Jicaral. We even kayaked a couple of bays over and still couldn’t reconcile what we were seeing with any of the maps we possessed. And neither could Velella; the moment we entered the bay and were in shouting distance, they called over, “Where the hell are we?” Oh well, wherever we were, it was amazingly quiet and the first calm deserted anchorage we’d seen since the Sea of Cortez. We stayed there three nights hanging out in the quiet and working on various boat projects. During the day, pangas loaded with lifejacket-wearing passengers would buzz the place, we’d get videotaped by no less than half the tourists aboard, videos that would surely be enjoyed for years to come by the entire family, and they would take off for the next exotic local (Sacrificios! Banana boats and pumping music!!). Saturday, however, saw the arrival of two double-decker party boats who anchored startlingly near us and ferried hundreds of passengers to shore. When they busted out “Pump Up the Jam” (I kid you not) and blasted it at top volume, we decided we’d overstayed our welcome and headed down the coast to the next little bay, Chachacual or La India (or both?), another very lovely deserted beach that saw only daytime tourist activity in the form of snorkeling party boaters. This anchorage was bumpier but the visibility was good in some areas; we spent quite a bit of time snorkeling. No sea snakes sighted, although one striped eel had me close to leaping straight out of the water and doing some kind of fantastic dry flipper sprint to the nearest rocky outcropping until it was calmly identified by Jenny, who after all is a biologist and should know. After another couple of days, the scouter bees pegged our boat as a free water source and we had to leave before the masses were alerted and a full-scale invasion of our galley and takeover of the dish sponge was attempted. We took no less than five hours to go the five miles to Huatulco/Santa Cruz anchorage (where we are now). At one point while changing the jib, we started going backwards in the current. A highlight of the trip, surely, far outweighing even the turtle sex.

Yes folks, that is turtle sex. We almost hit them.

We arrived with crabby dispositions and dripping in sweat to anchor in dead coral/sandy weirdness while being circled by the navy in their gray power panga.

I think they entertained the idea that they could maybe come alongside before we actually had the hook down but one look at the madness in our eyes was enough to convince them to idle around until we were stopped. If that wasn’t fun enough, I managed to snap the throttle control off the remote control box for the motor, making the motor race loudly and my nerves singe. The moment we got the anchor set, or mostly set, the navy boat full of heavily armed navy boys and one panting black lab tied alongside and boarded. Despite their alarming appearances, they were very polite and the three or four left in the boat spent the majority of their time fending off the panga from the side of our boat. One talkative one was less formally attired (the rest of them wore black navy outfits) and he wandered around in bare feet asking all sorts of questions about where we were from and how long we’d been married and when we planned to have kids. They spent some time filling out detailed paperwork and then asked if we minded if they brought the dog aboard to search for drugs. (As if we had a choice) We said no problem and they called the dog to hop onto our boat. Dog was not having a bit of it and had to be lifted onto deck where he tottered unstably with his toenails clicking and sort of stood quaking until the operator told him to go below and sniff out the drugs. Clearly fearing the companionway entry, the dog had to be carried below where he presumably spent his time searching for scraps of cheese under the floorboards. Dog declared our boat a hopeless void of interesting smells and the navy handler carried him back to the panga where he promptly crawled into a dark corner to lie down. “Bon Voyage!” they shouted and charged back to their dock at top throttle.

Anyway, so now we’re anchored in Hualtulco, just off the canned city of perfect weirdness. Cruise ship number four is on its way in as we speak. We talked to a guy from one of the ships the other day and he said the trip was fourteen days; they started in Florida, went through the canal, and they usually had around six hours per stop. The next stop would be Puerto Vallarta, then onto Cabo San Lucas, finally to San Diego. What a strange impression one would have of Mexico if these were the only stops. After the cruise ships dock, there is a period of announcements, then the fearless explorer types emerge in twos or threes and take off down the dock. A period of relative inactivity follows, perhaps a few more stragglers wandering about, and we start to wonder if there really could be so few people aboard.Then it all happens at once. Crowds of hundreds move off in thick pastel packs fronted by prudently attired women holding neon orange or yellow flags aloft. The mescal factory tour, the Crucecita tour, the party boat/esnorkling expedition; after about seven of these groups leave, the rest trickle out in threes or fives, presumably to spend their precious time under a palapa drinking mescal concoctions before heading off to do a little souvenir shopping.

Evidently there used to be an actual fishing village where Hualtulco/Santa Cruz (never did get it straight which name was correct) is now. They razed the village to make space for “Paradise Found!”—a conglomeration of hotels and restaurants and shopping malls–and moved all inhabitants over to Crucecita, a small town built from scratch to provide housing for the workers who supported the resort industry. Crucecita is pretty posh for a small Mexican village really; the sort of place where the central Mercado has perhaps two or three fruit stands and the rest is full of huipils and shot glasses with “Huatalco!” on them. There is, however, a really excellent church here that was only built in 2000 and which has a ginormous Virgin of Guadalupe painted on the ceiling. (I’ll post images later.) We did figure out where the vegetables could be purchased and did our veggie/dry goods/coconugs restocking. Then we did the paperwork to check out of the country and here we are, officially exited from Mexico yet still anchored in Huatulco with a week yet before we’ll get to El Salvador.

Irritatingly, Don the Weather Guy has abandoned the gulf of Tehuantepec and stopped forecasting windows altogether. I don’t know why but we’ve heard nothing for months except lengthy descriptions of how nasty the gulf weather is and how tricky it is to forecast a window (it takes a couple of days to get across) and now here we are wanting to know what the weather will be like and he’s no help. So we’ll just have to listen to the weather in Spanish on the VHF and hope for the best. We’re going to town now to try to make sense of the NOAA charts. The weather is typically mild this time of the year so at least we have that in favor.

This is a café/juice bar we found in Crucecita that had very good ‘horchata de coco,’ a drink that appears to be coconut milk, cow milk, maybe some sugar and I’m not sure what else if anything.

There was a large iguana running around getting into things.

One thing I forgot to mention about Manzanillo was the resident army of little birds that populated the power lines at nightfall. They swarmed en masse into the downtown area, squabbled over preferred real estate, and within fifteen minutes, were more or less settled in for the night. I have no idea where they went during the day. The streets underneath the power lines were whitewashed with tweetybird poop. We trod carefully beneath.