New adventures and challenges in Nicaragua

We last left off when I was in León, in the North of Nicaragua. I was volunteering with Quetzaltrekkers, a hiking organisation that donates all schools and scholarships. While it was a great project, I didn't feel completely welcome, and the director was not helping with that at all. However, my visa was about to come to an end, so I was planning a trip to Costa Rica to do a visa run. It turned out that Alexander, my cousin, was also in Costa Rica at the moment, so I planned to meet up with him. He was staying with his girlfriend's family who live in Costa Rica. I would leave just before New year's, and then come back a few days after.
A little while before I was to leave for Costa Rica my foot had healed sufficiently, so I wanted to start hiking, but the director didn't let me, which was quite annoying, since hiking was the main reason I was there. Now I just worked office, and I didn't even do that much the last few weeks of the year. At least it gave me some more time to explore Leon and the surrounding area. Paulie, the only other foreign volunteer there was about to leave, and her family came to visit her before her time was up. They did some hikes as well, and spend some time with Quetzaltrekkers. We also had a goodbye party when she was about to leave.
A day before I was about to leave for Costa Rica I had a chat with the director, where we decided it was probably best for me just to move on. I didn't really fit in with the volunteers, and she definitely didn't make me feel any more welcome, so I just packed all my stuff, and headed to Costa Rica the next day. The trip was pretty straightforward, although I had to take a few different busses to get to the border. From the border I couldn't get a bus to where Alexander was staying anymore, so I'd just spend the night in a city there, and take the bus the next day. Unfortunately I fell asleep in the bus, and woke up after we passed my stop. So I spent the night in a different city than planned, but that just meant I had a bit more travel the next day. So the following morning I got on the bus again, and eventually found my way to Upala, CR. From there I found my way on the right bus, until I found Alexander waiting for me at the side of the road. There I met the family of Josselin, who as a typical latina family, were incredibly warm and friendly, and I could immediately join lunch. The afternoon we got in the car to go to some other family of theirs, to spend new year's eve here. It was close to la fortuna, a more touristic place in CR.
The next day Alexander, Josselin and me went to do some shopping, as we needed some gifts, and some ingredients to make "appelflappen" a Dutch dish that we usually eat with new year's eve. Getting to make it was fun, I hadn't eaten that for almost two years, since my last new year's eve in the Netherlands was 2017/2018. We just chopped a massive amount of apples, and made plenty of batter, and asked my mum for some advice by sending videos of the batter. Then we got to deep frying it, as is typical with Dutch food. More fat = more better. We even found very fine icing sugar, which we usually serve with the appelflappen back home.
Then when it got to the new years celebrations, we played bingo, where we could win some prizes, and we had a piñata that we smashed to pieces. Then when the clock was about to strike twelve we walked outside and witnessed a small amount of fireworks.
The next day I didn't go back to Nicaragua yet, first we spend a day at the hot springs, which was more just a typical pool, but it had a cool sight of a nearby volcano, and some pools were naturally heated using geothermal activity. After heading back we had dinner with the family, and I packed my stuff, ready to leave early the next morning, to take the bus at 6 in the morning.
The bus was more or less on time, and it was a direct bus to the border, which was nice, as it saved a bit of money and was a lot quicker. This time it was very busy at the border though, as there were probably quite a lot of people heading back after New year's. After making it through customs and paying all the fees, I made my way to Rivas, after which I took a bus towards popoyo, which would stop at hacienda Iguana, a brewery where I would go and brew some beers the next few days. The past month I had been looking for some paying work, and figured I should just message all the breweries in Nicaragua making craft beer. Most of them didn't respond, but Iguana Brewery did, and told me I could come over for a few days, brew some beers, and they offered me food and board. It wasn't a proper wage, but brewing beer is fun, and I have plenty of time anyways.
So when I got to Iguana, Michael, the owner of the brewery, picked me up, since it's still a few kilometers from the main road to the town. It's an American colony more or less, you need to pass two gates to get into the main area. Most people living here are from the states, and some Canadians as well. All fancy houses, but with low season, it was much quieter than later in the year, when it gets very crowded with surfers. I stayed in a small house next to a bigger house that Michael was staying in with Megan, his wife. The place was absolutely gorgeous, right on the beach, with beautiful waves, and plenty of surf boards. The house itself was very nice as well, with much more luxury than I was used to, it even had a hot shower! They also lent me a pushbike so I could get around. We had a look at the brewery, and talked a bit about the plans while we tried a beer. Mike just started the brewery about half a year ago, and doesn't know too much about brewing, but he has picked up some in the past few months, and definitely has an opinion on the flavour. He put his son Gaven in charge, he's just 20 years old, but has spent the past months learning about brewing, and has been running the brewing operation. Right now Gaven was in California, so Wilfredo, a guy from Nicaragua, was doing the brewing here. Michael was more running the business side of things, but does have a vision of where he wants the brewery to go, and he really wants to make something out of it, grow it much bigger, and start selling everywhere in the country. Right now it's very small scale, with a normal batch of around 25L, and a big batch being double that. The beers were unspectacular, but the ingredients were looking good, and I was already thinking of some recipes I had laying around.
The next day we brewed a beer, sticking mostly to a recipe that Gaven had sent over, but making some small changes. I worked together with Wilfredo, who used to run the restaurant upstairs, but they jacked up the rent, and then he ended up working with Mike, who offered him a job in the brewery, but he figured it'd be more about the restaurant. He doesn't know too much about the brewing, but has been following along with Gaven a bit, and has been brewing by himself for the past while in the time Gaven wasn't here. He's a cool dude, and since it's just the two of us, we can just do everything in Spanish, which makes communication a bit easier, and I learn the vocab related to the equipment. I was mostly just seeing how their setup worked for today, and explaining a bit of the science behind the brewing to Wilfredo. He has just been randomly experimenting so far, with one beer which turned out quite decent.
The following day we brewed an IPA according to my recipe, that Wilfredo and I adjusted to the available ingredients the day before. Everything was pretty straightforward, and all the knowledge came back to me quite quickly, it's like riding a bike. I also went surfing that afternoon, I'd only done this a few times before, in Sri Lanka, so I still needed quite some practice. Mike gave me a surfboard I could borrow, and the good beach for surfing was only a few minutes walking from where I was staying. It's not too busy there right now, since it's low season, and the waves aren't as big as they get in summer.
The next days we brewed some more beers, and I explained the brewing process in a bit more detail to Will, with the why and how of some of the things that we do. I also discussed some of this with Gaven, and that was enough for Mike to offer me a longer position here at Iguana, and then I would actually get paid, so I could make a bit of money. I had already been thinking for a little bit that I wouldn't mind staying here for a little while longer, so it wasn't a hard decision to make. It's a beautiful tropical paradise, brewing beer is fun, and I could learn to surf a bit over the coming months. My visa would run out the first of April, so that would still leave me almost three months here at the brewery.
Since I now had a nice bike, I was also hoping to use that to discover a bit more of the country. Mike was fine with me taking it out for a proper spin, so I decided to head to Granada, a beautiful colonial city, some 100km away from Iguana. Alexander was also in Granada with his girlfriend and family, spending a few days in Nicaragua and traveling around a bit. I decided to leave nice and early, since around noon it is already very hot, and the sun burns fiercely. Around 6 in the morning I was on my way, headed for Rivas, a city to the east of Iguana, that's on the main road, the panamerican highway. The road there was pretty good, although very hilly, which made me very grateful for all the gears I had on my bike. It took me some two hours to cover the 33 kilometres to Rivas, and I took a quick pitstop to get some nice cold drinks, and get some energy for the rest of the journey.
Now it was just highway for the rest of the trip, which meant nice and smooth tarmac, and tons of big trucks and busses driving by while I was driving on the shoulder. Generally they gave me plenty of space, but sometimes when it was a bit busy I had to give way, since they had nowhere else to go. It all went pretty smooth, until I had done about 75km, and my knees started to hurt quite a bit. I had not ridden a bike for so long, that I forgot to put the seat up to the right height. Since I'm a lot taller than most people here, the seat was waay too far down, and that's not exactly great for the knees. Having adjusted the seat it went a lot better, but some damage was already done, so I did the last 25km a bit slower and more careful. A few km before I got to Granada I stopped at the tree house hostel, it's a beautiful place, in the middle of the jungle, where they've built a hostel between the trees. I had sent a message to them before about volunteering at the hostel, as they also teach at a school nearby, which seemed like a great project to me. However, now I already had a job, so it wasn't really an option for me now, but still fun to have a look. After a nice refreshing and well deserved beer I went on my way to do the final stretch to Granada.
When I got to Granada I went and looked for a hostel where I could store my bike, and then I went on to meet up with Alexander and company. We grabbed a bit to eat, and watched some international art group perform a show with dance, acrobatics and fire. It was quite the spectacle. But since I got up early, and had spent over 5 hours on my bike, I was quite tired, and hit the hay early. We said our goodbyes, since they would be heading back to Costa Rica the next morning.
The following day I went to explore a bit of the beautiful city centre. Granada is a very colonial city, with an enormous amount of churches. The view from the top of the Bell tower was amazing, and you could see the entire city. I also walked over to Lake Nicaragua, which is the lake who's shores Granada is located on. However, as the day progressed, my muscles began to complain about the punishment I put them through the day before. I was cramping up a lot, and around lunchtime, it even hurt to walk. Guess not riding a bike for well over a year had had it's consequences. I decided to get a nice massage to smooth out my muscles, and relax a little bit. I also decided to stay another day, since with the state that my knees and muscles were in, I wasn't looking forward to doing another 100km on the bike. The next day I did some more sightseeing, exploring some other highlights besides the churches. Granada is not that big, so it's easily done by foot. I also stocked up on some provisions for the way back. I put some nice photos on my Instagram story.
The next morning I left bright and early, while it was still dark, so I could do most of the trip while it wasn't burning hot yet. I got to the highway a bit earlier than expected, and it was still quite dark, so it was a bit scary sometimes, since I only had a small headlight, which wasn't a lot of help in the dark, and sometimes the cars got a bit close. It was all fine in the end, and after a while I was well on my way back. However, I had gotten a slow puncture in my tyre, so I had to pump it up every now and then. After a while I got passed by some guys on racing bikes, which were quite a lot quicker than me on my mountainbike with its fat tyres. However, a little bit later they came back, and I stopped them and asked if they had a tyre repair kit. I had bought one, but it was lacking tyre lifters, so it wasn't much use by itself. Luckily they were absolute heroes, and didn't hesitate to help. They were local guys from near Granada who were practicing for a bike racing competition. We pulled out several massive spines from the local flora and a staple, god knows how that got in there. After a little bit my bike was all fixed up, and I was ready to continue my journey. I thanked them profusely, and I was on my way. I decided to take a different route back, since the highway was quite boring, and going past Rivas was a bit longer than another route that was available. It was all dirt roads from that point on, and at some points it was very steep. It was the most fun I'd had the entire trip. Thundering down the hill, kicking in top gear, just to get enough speed to get up the other side of the hill. Sometimes I'd go so fast I was hanging on to my handlebars for dear life, bracing for all the bumps and holes in the road. It was an absolute blast. The road wasn't indicated very well, but luckily the people here are very helpful, and I'd just ask for directions every now and then. When I finally got back to Iguana I was exhausted, overheated, and ready for a shower.
Since this is already quite long at this point, I'll leave it here for now, the next part will be up pretty soon!