Frogtours

Stahlratte

72 Photos

 

Sail too, klick: Stahlratte

Nicaragua

150 Photos

 

New Year, new destination. We went to Nicaragua, although our main direction is south, we just had to go here. We heard so many good things about this country that we did not have any choice and eventually it is really beautiful. Our first stop is Playa Maderas near San Juan del Sur on a campsite that is called “Mathilda’s” and said to be a secret spot, though we get told that by everybody, that is how secret it is. Just the perfect spot for New Years Eve! We bought a 10 kg Mahi Mahi for just $25, imagine that! And there were a bunch of people we shared it with and spent a fabulous New Year’s, apart from that I had to grill the Mahi Mahi without shoes and get burned severely. Not very smart! The Mahi Mahi was still nice and the party even more.

From here we went to the island of Ometepe in the middle of Lake Nicaragua, with some really nice German guys, Okka and Momo, whom we met on Playa Maderas. The plan was to stay here for 3 nights, it became 6 and no regrets to that! The island is beautiful, very fertile due to the water from the lake and the volcanic soil. It has two volcanoes, one of which is still active. We did not climb any of them, though we spent a relaxed time around it, hiking and exploring a river by canoe. The people here seem to be very happy and down to earth. We are happy, too. We have nice food and are drinking “Cuba Libre”, rum is very affordable in Nicaragua, cheers. Mainly from a European point of view, Nicaragua is not pricy at all, because the income for unskilled labour is around $0.60 an hour! It is barely unthinkable to survive on an income like that, but many Nicaraguans do. The poverty is very present, sometimes difficult to bear with. On Omatepe the people seem to be better off than in the rest of the country, maybe because they can grow enough food. We stayed at several places, two we can recommend highly: very basic but beautiful is “Hospedaje Caballito’s Mar”, really Irish and warm hearted is “little Morgan’s”.

We are heading for Granada, not very far on the north-west side of Lake Nicaragua. A very inviting, colourful colonial style town with romantic streets, cafes, restaurants and a huge market in the centre. We stay with the fire fighters of Granada, our Frog is guarded 24 hours a day. We can sleep very relaxed here, right in the middle of town. For a change, we get really good coffee in bars and restaurants, what is unusual as the Nicaraguans do plant coffee, but are not drinking it. The result is often dramatically awful. Thanks to our little home on wheels, we can have nice coffee all the time. Very close to Granada we stop over by the “Laguna de Appoyo”, where we get invited by Gustavo to his little lodge. Gustavo owns a pretty hostel opposite the fire fighters station, it is called “Kalala”. We experience more and more the hospitality of the Nicaraguans, we do feel very welcomed in this country. The lagoon is very windy when we are there, but the water is warm and we have a swim in the moonlight! It is the crater of an old volcano, basically you can say that Nicaragua is just one big volcano, they accompany us on the whole journey. Here we meet Phil and Angie, a welsh couple, on the road for already 4 years, can you imagine?

In Masaya is a very big market place, we have to see it. It is like a very, very basic shopping mall, but huge. There are hundreds of little stands; you can buy everything that you can imagine. Very close is the volcano of Masaya. It is active and stinks of sulphate. We stay overnight at the bottom in the touristic centre of the National Park Reserve of volcano Masaya. We also want to see the lagoon, you can get there by bike on an abandoned gravel road as we heard from Phil and Angie. The park rangers want to sell us a guided tour for the very “dangerous” road to the lagoon; we might stumble over a rock and would be helpless. The night guard makes sure we do not leave on our own. This is a thing about national parks in Central America, they make any mountain to a national park, charge money for it and hassle you to take a guide for something a guide is not needed. We are already getting annoyed by it and decide to leave the park and head to Matagalpa. Only to eat some cheese! You must be Swiss, to be that desperate for cheese, that you travel six hours to get it. The cheese wasn’t good.

So, quickly back to the pacific, we are lucky and can stay with Carlos and his wonderful family directly on the beach! Playa Las Penitas, just 20 minutes west of Leon, the former capital of Nicaragua. It is birthday time and we have lots of rum. Well, I maybe had a little more. It so relaxed here, it was the perfect spot. Son we feel like moving again, we do so and run in Chinandega into Martin on our way to volcano Cosigüina. First of all, “THANK YOU, MAN!” We were a bit lost to find the way out of town to Cosigüina and he helped us, not only here, more about that later. We drive to El Rosario, a very little fisher village, west of the volcano.  We are looking for the Ranger Station of the park, almost nobody knows about it and when we finally arrive there in the descending sun light, we get an idea of why nobody knows it. The ranger station was built seven years ago, but there is not much left of it. In fact, there is a tree growing out of one of the toilets. The people here drink preferably “Caballito Suave”, a horrible hard liquor. That is somewhat the problem here, men are drunk and women do all the work, apart from fishing. We decide to ride up the volcano on horses, though I get a pony that is 30 or more years old and the saddle is fixed with some wood! The view is great! Overlooking the Golfo de Fonseca, to El Salvador and Honduras in the back. After a hurtful ride back down we made it to Potosi.

“Brisas del Golfo” is the one and only address to stay. Run by Rafael and Rosa, this is truly an oasis kept with a lot of love in between the misery of poverty that is spread around the whole peninsula of volcano Cosigüina. We drive to the west side of the peninsula and call Martin, as we are near his home. We are invited for lunch in El Viejo to meet a lot of his family and then get invited to stay on his beachfront property in Jiquillio. What else do you want? We wake up in the morning, with a direct view on the ocean; we just have to stay for four days. Martin makes our stay even more comfortable by looking after us now and then. The beach is almost empty, as the area is not much populated and tourism is almost not developed. If you are interested in a couple of days doing nothing at all, go to either “Rancho Tranquilo” (the name says it all!) or “Rancho Esperanza”. Here you will find relaxation, guaranteed! Rancho Esperanza is run by Nate who formally volunteered here to help the locals to develop an educational system for kids. The organisation, he worked for run out of money. But he decided to stay and is still training kids, raising funds with the hostel. A very dedicated man, indeed.

From here we went once again to Granada, to meet up with Sarah and Markus. Here I had the “Filet Minion” of my life! Thanks to Markus! In fact we had it two nights in a row, it was so extremely good. We made after this very exiting meaty experience back to Costa Rica. A very awful border crossing waited for us as we had to wait for only our immigration stamp 3 hours in the burning sun light. It is a much frequented boarder, but there are only two people working for each, immigration and emigration. Having said that, there are always two not working, getting the picture? At least they let us in.

As usual, we like to greet and thank all the wonderful people we met: Momo and Okka (Germany), Taj (Canada), Sarah (Canada), Andrew (US of A), Mark the chef (Canada), Gustavo (Costa Rica), Phil and Angie (Wales), Carlos and family friends (Nicaragua), Gavriel (Israel), MARTIN (Nicaragua).

Costa Rica 2

122 Photos

 

A great time! After several Weeks in Tamarindo, we begin to live in our car. To start with, we went one more time to Nosara, we were here before for just 2 days over the weekend and stayed at Monika Thiel’s fabulous “Rancho Congo” in “Boca de Nosara”, which is just 4 Km from the real village of Nosara away. The nearest beach is Playa Guiones and the whole area is a lot quieter than Tamarindo, though there is enough entertainment. It is just less; all is hidden between trees as buildings are not allowed to be higher than 2 stories. There is room for quiet places, this is where we stayed. Monika’s Rancho consists just of two so called “cabinas” which are built into a Rancho, a building built of wood and reed with an extremely high roof. The effect is that the cabinas are cooled, so no need for an air condition. But the greatest thing is her breakfast, oh man!

Playa Guiones is a well known surfing spot, like Tamarindo. The long beach is free of any visual pollution, as the whole shore is a natural preserve area, there are no buildings close to the beach. In the area before the beach you can observe snakes, coatis and crabs, just to name a few. All for free;-) We like to hang out here, while we reorganise the frog. There is way too much stuff in it, we get rid of things like clothes, shoes, spare tanks and a whole bunch of crap! Monika gives us room to do it, we are very thankful for that, the gardener, his family and even neighbours of Monika are wearing our surplus clothes and shoes now, we feel honoured because they like our stuff.

Speaking of neighbours, we met Tuanis and Hermann, they live directly on the edge to Monika’s place. Tuanis is from Holland and originally called Gerit, but for some reason that is not anymore so. He is an artist in wood crafts, like furniture but also building houses. This leads to Hermann who owns the lot and gives Tuanis space for his workshop. Together they have this fancy project of a hostel that is built of wood between the trees. All very basic, but beautiful and we wish them to make it work from what we have seen so far. “Guys, get on fast! It’ll be a goldmine!” As soon as we can link them here, we will.

Tuanis tells us about a nice waterfall in the woods, which was very romantic and then he let us know where the beach is, on which Mel Gibson’s finca lies behind. A very inaccessible road leads to the beach and there are no signs, in other words the beach is empty. Just a few locals are being found here and there and oh my, what a wonderful break to surf! As we have the gear, we start to follow other unsigned roads just by compass and what we find is breathtaking. At this point many thanks to Christoph Gut and his team, especially Jörg Böesinger who made our car voyage ready. We drive anywhere we want!

We needed to move on, stopped for three nights again in Tamarindo, visited our friends from the “Pura Vida Hostel” once again, went to a freaking rodeo and had finally our “FROGTOURS” stickers done.

For Christmas we stayed near the volcano “Rincon de la Vieja” in the “Rinconcito Lodge”, a wonderful place to relax with an even more wonderful and very gentle staff, who made our stay unforgettable. For sure, we probably had the most relaxed Christmas ever! Apart from only enjoying ourselves, we climbed the volcano in an exhausting 8 hours hike. For New Years, we are going to Nicaragua, about our experience there you will read in the next blog entry;-) As soon as the author is getting his act together;-)

Of course, we made a lot of friends again, all of whom we like to greet here and send out our best wishes and thank for making our journey unforgettable:

Monika (Germany), Herman (Germany), Tuanis (Netherlands), Nick (USA), Christian (Switzerland), Gabriel (Switzerland), Giovanni (Costa Rica), Gilbert (Costa Rica), Kerstin and Julian (Germany)

Costa Rica

13 Photos

 

Costa Rica!

Here we are, Cost Rica, the first destination of our real journey by car. We arrived in the evening of 27. October 2009 at the airport of Alajuela near San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. Two more days and the “Frog” will arrive in Moin, a small harbour near Puerto Limon. We stayed for one night at the “Casa del Suizo” in Alajuela. It is a small pension owned by George, a wonderful and heart warming host who basically lets you be a part of his life in his house, all is very personal. We couldn’t think of a better place to start with.

Already on the next morning we ride by bus to Puerto Limon, it is almost comfortable, air conditioned and clean, the ride takes us about 3 hours from San Jose. Puerto Limon is a harbour town, many people from all over the country and neighbouring countries try to find work here, either in the harbours or on the fruit fields, which are the main source for work in the province of Limon. There is a lot of poverty and we feel a bit displaced here as we get stared at a lot. We are not from here and we do feel it very strongly. After the first fears have passed, we meet nice and very chatty people. Before we came here, we were warned how dangerous it would be. But it is far away from that. We reckon that it is senseless to link poverty directly to crime, although it encourages it. The town is very lively, everywhere are stands where you can buy refreshments or sunglasses. A big market place marks the centre of town.

We have to stay here two nights, then finally and irreversibly we can get hold of the “Frog”. We stay at the towns best location the “Park Hotel”. Don’t get us wrong, it has nothing to do with a park hotel in Europe, still it is clean, well furnished and has a friendly staff. Still, we have to get used to the begging at the window next to our dinner table, while we stuff delicious food into us. We cannot do much about it. Most of the beggars are fine with saying no to them or just giving them a cigarette, nobody is unfriendly. We do not have money to give away, but of course, they cannot sense that. Europeans are just endlessly wealthy to them and they are obviously right about it. If we had money to give away, we would not know where to start and where to end.

After spending two nights here we went for the customs office and what looked efficient and well organised, took us in the end seven hours to finish. Amazing how much time can get passed, just to receive a document and a clearance notification. The people here are so chatty; they sometimes forget their main goal. It was tiring and exciting at the same time. In the harbour, Claudia got a proposal directly in front of me, which of course wasn’t honoured by me. But I am the man, so what?

We leave the province of Limon in the late afternoon and drive towards Alajuela, back to Georges place. As we left late, we had to drive in the dark and this is somewhat special. There are no road lights and many cars miss them two, which makes detecting them very interesting and a bit suicidal, too. I never expected that somebody would drive his truck through the night with no light nor any visibility what so ever. We made it back safely to Alajuela. George expected us with a traditional Swiss dish: “Hörnli und Ghackets – pasta with a meat sauce”. It is outmost welcome alongside a lot of beer.

Two days later, we made our way to Tamarindo, during the day of course. Here we booked a Spanish course and we stay at our friends’ hostel, the “Pura Vida Hostel” managed by Sarah and Markus. It is a little bit further out of town, but we recon the best place to stay here. Only a three minutes walk from the town centre and away from the moderately noisy nightlife. Most of the time, we are either studying or relaxing. We need the quietness and we enjoy it a lot. Recharging the batteries is our essential goal for the first couple of weeks. The activities are reduced to sleeping, chilling, swimming and sometimes taking the “Frog” off road. How else should it be as the rain season was not entirely over yet, I got stuck in the mud. Fortunately, there was Jamieson with me and we made it out of the mud. Jamieson is on a long term surfing stay in Tamarindo and also an outdoor enthusiast apart from being a fish, as he is mostly surfing twice a day. Staying in a hostel is absolutely the best way to connect to other people. The atmosphere you get here is just adorable. We are by far not the only people on a long term journey. Most people travel with a backpack, rarely we also see others travelling by car.

So, what to do with the surplus energy we retrieved in the last weeks? Claudia went for a diving course and I started surfing. I was never confident with the element of water, until now. After seven weeks in Tamarindo, it is time to say good bye to our friends and our journey to take off.

At this point we like to greet all our friends we made here: Chris and Melanie from Canada, JAMIESON (Canada), Charles (Netherlands), Tyler (Salt Lake), Matt (Wisconsin), Andreas, Martin and Christian (all from Sweden), Anna (Canada), Sandra and Isabel (Switzerland), Guy (Netherlands), Angelo (Switzerland), Sean and Ashley (Canada), Nadja and her family travelling in a Defender 110 (Netherlands), of course Sarah and Markus and many more! Thank you all for a wonderful time! See you sometime, somewhere and somehow. Cheers you all!

New York - The Big Apple

42 Photos

 

Finally, after many weeks here it is, our first blog entry!

A lot of time has passed by since we started to prepare this long and adventurous journey through Central and South America. Now we are on the airport in Zürich and wait to take our plane to New York, one week New York is amazing. Claudia has never been there, I was there in 1993 so we are both very exited how it is going to be. After all what can be named as airport security nuisance in both Zürich and New York, we are at our first destination, the big apple, a town that hosts more people than Switzerland. Everything is just amazingly big and oversized. Our taxi ride to Manhattan is wild and bumpy, the car is maybe at the end of its life, but we feel so alive though very tired, too. It is a slow feeling of realizing that our dream of a long journey is becoming reality.

We spent eight days in New York, and what can we say? It was amazing; this city works 24 hours 7 days a week. Something is always on, we are stunned. And it feels safe here. We did what probably every tourist does here, we went on Fifth Avenue and of course, we went shopping.  Again, everything is so huge and it takes time to just get through a store. Museums here have the size of a small European town; you could spend just days in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We went for modern art only and we were very impressed, also of the roof cafe, where you have a nice view on the skyline and the Central Park below it. Speaking of it, the Central Park is fountain of relaxation, which is a welcome change to the all so fast life here. There are romantic spots to hide in and music paves our way from many corners. We were lucky to just being there when the trees changed their colours from green to brown in so many variations and we saw the difference every day.

We walk to most of our destinations, this is exhausting but at the same time we see so much, the way New York is build is just so unbelievable, some skyscrapers give space to thousands of people. Then we suddenly leave the sky scrapers and find ourselves in another part of the town and it feels like another city. We often stop at little street cafes or just at a Starbucks, they have a cafe at almost every corner. We had to get used to the size of the meals you get in a restaurant, it seems to be normal here to only eat half of your plate, if at all you can eat that much. Supposing, it would be possible to feed a small family with just one plate. It pays to have a look first at other tables to get an idea of the meal sizes and then maybe order one plate for two. As such it is economical to dine out. We of course, have it mostly the American way and go large, taking a “doggy bag” at home;-)

We have to get used to the safety precaution which is present all over the city, unfortunately that did not end at the airport. It seems that there is a sheer hunger for security in all aspects. Of all beauty we find here, being told of all the time strikes us strange. Just any kind of attraction is secured or on public attractions a guard hangs around pointing out how to behave, like do not stop, do not go there, do not this and that. At one sign we stop, because it says: “burn calories, not electricity” to encourage people to move on their own feet a bit more, rather than using an elevator. We try to take a picture, but how else should it be, a guard strongly advises us to move on as it is prohibited to stop walking in this certain area. Telling him we would like to take a picture of that sign, he replies: “Well, you can memorize it”, we figure by the sheer size of the man, he would be well advised to do so himself. All together, with all sarcasm we find, there is always fun and we laugh a lot.

If you want to have a movie like New York experience, take the south ferry for a skyline view in the morning. Very beautiful on a sunny day and the ferry is free of charge!  Then walk Fifth Avenue in the afternoon. Have in between shop spotting a Hot Dog at one of the famous stands, at dawn, spent a dinner at “The View” restaurant and then watch any show you like on Broadway. We did and it was great and the most expensive evening ever! You need a lot of cash here. Don’t forget to take the underground wherever you go, and it is cheap for a change!

So far so good, we had a great time here and are just very happy. We are looking forward to our next destination, Costa Rica. There we finally get our “Frog” back. Read more in our next post, how we cleared the Frog out of customs, the first drive, stuck in mud and many more adventures… this is where the real journey begins.

Keep on rolling

The Frog Team