Nicaragua part 2: Carpe Diem, continued from "Lots of borders and Somoto Canyon DIY"
Nicaragua part 2: Sorry Just realised we never uploaded this blog!
The next day we ate some breakfast, then headed off to the bus stop to get to our Workaway. We originally intended to take a taxi, but someone tried to charge us $2 each so we decided 2km wasn’t all that far after all. We jumped on the bus to Poneloya and were surprised to find many other tourists on the bus heading to popular beach of Las Penitas which is adjacent to Poneloya.
After getting off the bus, it was a quick walk to a bar where we had been told to get a boat across to the island. Isla Los Brasiles is a small peninsula, mostly made up of sand and mangroves that is separated from the mainland by a small river estuary. The boat ride took about 5 minutes with an approximately 40-minute walk through mangrove forest to reach Carpe Diem. Arriving as sweaty tired messes with unwieldy backpacks we were struck by the beautiful palapa made of wood and palm fronds, cob cabañas and the amazing beachscape less than 10 metres from the main building.
Carpe Diem (click here for their website!) is a community eco-project where volunteers are building several cob cabins to house tourists. Volunteers pay a small amount towards food and in return are expected to work four hours a day, five days a week. The project is made up of a variety of nationalities, though the majority seem to either be French of French Canadians. During our time at Carpe Diem more than 50 people came and went through the project, mostly European travellers sprinkled with people from the US. The issue we found was that the lingua franca was therefore English which we already speak quite well so our Spanish took a bit of a hit while there.
A normal day started at around 6am for an optional Yoga session or 7am for breakfast. At 8am people were assigned to work on the different projects. Most people work on the cob construction; mixing cob and building the walls of a cabin. However, when we arrived there were several projects on the go. One project that both Greg and I worked on was varnishing the new yoga platform. The varnish was finished a day before we left, and we were able to finally enjoy two yoga sessions!
Another project that I became involved in was a big cob bench with a snake carved on top. Putting my biological training into practice, I was able to shape the snake into a Boa constrictor, a species that is (probably) present on the island and grows to a similar size (minus a couple of feet!). We mixed natural paints out of spices to use for the patterns of the boa. I finally finished on the last day of my stay!
Throughout the day everyone would take multiple dips in the ocean. The temperature is regularly in the mid 30s and despite work only being in the morning, a swim in the ocean before lunch was essential. During the afternoon we relaxed, swam in the sea or participated in workshops run by other volunteers. These were very varied, ranging from a first aid training session, to kombucha making and a “twerkshop” (twerking workshop). One of the workshops was run by Greg on martial arts philosophy which culminated in a kickboxing class. Every evening we sat on the beach or swam in the ocean and watched the sunset with everyone from the project.
As we had ought our own tent in Leon, we were able to set it up wherever we liked. To begin with, we set up in the shady camping area. However, our lack of sleeping mats, hard floor and apparent lack of mosquito resistance led to several uncomfortable nights. Many people from the project sleep out on the beach on tarps. We decided to join the crew and committed to taking our tent out to the beach every night. This turned out to be one of our favourite parts of the project. Our tent is simple and has a mesh door. Every night we fell asleep to the sounds of the waves while watching shooting stars overhead.
The rainy season is supposed to start in May, a month from now. However, one night rain started, and I had to rush back to the main building to get the top part of our tent. Unfortunately, this resulted in the death of Greg’s phone.
An interesting side effect of the rain was a sudden migration of crabs the next day. The island is full of crabs; a small species that lives in the tidal area of the beach, a larger species that rushes in and out of the waves and another large species that lives in holes in the forest. After the rain, the forest species all moved to the beach, probably to breed. In the evening, the beach and all the surrounding undergrowth was crawling with crabs. Several made it into the kitchen and it was a fun few minutes of entertainment to watch people try to remove them!
Other wildlife we saw on the island during a couple of night walks that we led were an opossum, a skunk and a large scorpion, along with hundreds of tiny spiders whose eyes gleam in the torchlight.
We enjoyed our time so much at Carpe Diem, that we ended up staying for 3 weeks rather than the 2 that we had planned. But having finally finished the boa constrictor bench, we were ready to depart and head back to civilisation and to sleep in a real bed.
Hope you enjoyed this blog, it has been a long time coming. We would like to say a big thank you to Carpe Diem and recommend you check them out and maybe get involved. It is difficult in a blog to give justice to the time that we had while there and the great friends we made. It is one of those places you must see to understand.
As usual, Like, share and subscribe for more blog action from Central America. More on Nicaragua next time and our ventures into the Switzerland of Central America, Costa Rica.
Feliz Viaje,
Bryony & Greg
The next day we ate some breakfast, then headed off to the bus stop to get to our Workaway. We originally intended to take a taxi, but someone tried to charge us $2 each so we decided 2km wasn’t all that far after all. We jumped on the bus to Poneloya and were surprised to find many other tourists on the bus heading to popular beach of Las Penitas which is adjacent to Poneloya.
After getting off the bus, it was a quick walk to a bar where we had been told to get a boat across to the island. Isla Los Brasiles is a small peninsula, mostly made up of sand and mangroves that is separated from the mainland by a small river estuary. The boat ride took about 5 minutes with an approximately 40-minute walk through mangrove forest to reach Carpe Diem. Arriving as sweaty tired messes with unwieldy backpacks we were struck by the beautiful palapa made of wood and palm fronds, cob cabañas and the amazing beachscape less than 10 metres from the main building.
 |
| Carpe Diem |
A normal day started at around 6am for an optional Yoga session or 7am for breakfast. At 8am people were assigned to work on the different projects. Most people work on the cob construction; mixing cob and building the walls of a cabin. However, when we arrived there were several projects on the go. One project that both Greg and I worked on was varnishing the new yoga platform. The varnish was finished a day before we left, and we were able to finally enjoy two yoga sessions!
 |
| The finished yoga platform |
 |
| Boa constrictor cob bench |
Throughout the day everyone would take multiple dips in the ocean. The temperature is regularly in the mid 30s and despite work only being in the morning, a swim in the ocean before lunch was essential. During the afternoon we relaxed, swam in the sea or participated in workshops run by other volunteers. These were very varied, ranging from a first aid training session, to kombucha making and a “twerkshop” (twerking workshop). One of the workshops was run by Greg on martial arts philosophy which culminated in a kickboxing class. Every evening we sat on the beach or swam in the ocean and watched the sunset with everyone from the project.
 |
| Sunset at Carpe Diem |
The rainy season is supposed to start in May, a month from now. However, one night rain started, and I had to rush back to the main building to get the top part of our tent. Unfortunately, this resulted in the death of Greg’s phone.
An interesting side effect of the rain was a sudden migration of crabs the next day. The island is full of crabs; a small species that lives in the tidal area of the beach, a larger species that rushes in and out of the waves and another large species that lives in holes in the forest. After the rain, the forest species all moved to the beach, probably to breed. In the evening, the beach and all the surrounding undergrowth was crawling with crabs. Several made it into the kitchen and it was a fun few minutes of entertainment to watch people try to remove them!
Other wildlife we saw on the island during a couple of night walks that we led were an opossum, a skunk and a large scorpion, along with hundreds of tiny spiders whose eyes gleam in the torchlight.
We enjoyed our time so much at Carpe Diem, that we ended up staying for 3 weeks rather than the 2 that we had planned. But having finally finished the boa constrictor bench, we were ready to depart and head back to civilisation and to sleep in a real bed.
 |
| Big scorpion with small gecko for scale |
As usual, Like, share and subscribe for more blog action from Central America. More on Nicaragua next time and our ventures into the Switzerland of Central America, Costa Rica.
Feliz Viaje,
Bryony & Greg
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