Nicaragua

Finally made a plan to go to Nicaragua, its been a goal since I first got here to go to Nicaragua and Panama and im soo glad I was able to do both. However we got off to a rocky start, got up at 4:30 and headed to San Jose we hadn’t bought our tickets in advance due to time so we got to the first bus station and they were sold out quickly got a cab to another station and they were sold out till 12pm! Waiting for 10 hours in a bus station didn’t sound like fun so we were really worried we might not be able to go but we were told we could wait for the 7am bus and if there were people who didn’t arrive we could get tickets so after 2 hours waiting in suspense we were lucky enough to get tickets! The bus ride is a bout 10 hours because you have to wait at the border for at least 3 hours…at the border we also were lucky we didn’t have to wait out in the extreme heat for 2 hours instead we sat in the bus and watched a really old film about an African safari but than we had to go to the next check point and wait about an hour out in the trash and heat and tons of people selling everything from food to movies to shoes…but we made it into Nicaragua and immediately could see differences between the countries. Passed a few towns on our way to Granada and all were poverty stricken at least 2 times more than CR which is bad enough. Even in Granda which is touristy the extreme poverty is still completely visible we got in at dusk and had to find a place to stay before it got really dark, was a little scary cuz it was just two of us and just felt more dangerouse of a place than ive ever been…but we found a cool hostel that was 7.50 each a night and as were we checking in ran into a tica friend from heredia, central America apparently is small enough you can run into friends in different countries! Anyway we decided to all go to laguna apoyo the next morning, we stayeda round the hostel for dinner and I tried to go to sleep early but the extreme heat doesn’t really permite good sleeping I just go tas close to the fan as possible but still just sweated the whole night. The next morning took a little adventour to try and find food to bring to the laguna and I bought a donut for 5 cordobas which is like 10 cents. Got back to the hotel and met Gustavo our guide and owner of the hostel. Stopped at a like strip mall thing to find I don’t even remember but we went into the grocery store and it was like being back in the usa we were both soo confusted by the flourseent lighting and just everything was clean and shiny and big it was soo strange and we found peanut butter! Anway got to the laguna which is gorgouse and jumped straight in to escape the heat I of course stayed put basically the rest of the day my friends are starting to learn if there is water somewhere I will be in it until some one drags me out. But the water was fresh and a grea temperature and had just little ripples so you could float on your back and look at all the mountains surrounding you. Later we rented kayakes and you could hear the monkeys howling through the trees ahh I was in heaven. Couldn’t stay out o fthe water long cuz of the heat but stayed all afternoon and than the guide convinced us to go on to the volcan masaya for the night tour. Definatly the best volcan ive seen so far got to see it from a few diff view points and got in the back of a pick up truck which always had looked so fun to me and was until the driver slammed on the breaks and we all went slamming forward luckily no one got really hurt...went to see two caves one full of bats that would fly right out at you there were hundreds! Than the next cave we actually go to walk into a good amount with a few random bats a s well…lastly went to another part of the volcan to see lava!!! Unfortuantly the gaseos which are “un pocito toxico but don’t worry” says our guide, were covering most of it the gases would sometimes blow right into it and smelled awful…after long day Gustavo took us to dinner at a papa johns/chicken place were I had a drink called cocoa which was like rice milk, cinnamon and something else , very yummy. Back to the hostel were I again attempted to sleep a few inches from the fan. Next day took an adventour to Masaya to see a artisan market I head was really cool, we took a public bus which are very different from CR buses a guy yells out and the driver honks the whole time yelling wehre we are going and people basically have to jump on the moving bus...the market was cool bought a hammock for about 10 dollars and some other things…got a taxi back to a diff bus station where I was faced with the most extreme level of poverty I have ever seen which isn’t even comparable to other parts of the world but still shocking. There was trash, dogs, bugs and really old broken down buses everywhere, there was some kind of market with fruits, drinks comida, got on the bus and kids and handicapped people would walk up and down the aisles selling/begging…anway back to our hostel where I spent the night talking to the girls that worked there from England and we tried to turn the usually loud bar that is right next to our room into a movie theater and also talked a couple who had been traveling for I don’t even know how long they had been to India and all of cental America…every European I met seems to have traveled so much im sure that’s b/c im going to backpacker hostels but its so fun to hear about peoples travels and stories Is really going to miss meeting such cool interesting people like every weekend, not that people in the usa aren’t interesting its just so awesome to get a little taste of different cultures and lets face it the accents are just so cool!...After another hot night bus back had no air conditioning which the one other American on the bus made quite a fuss about, the driver asked me if I spoke Spanish and I was like si..and he said go talk to the annoying American guy in the back haha…anyway got another stamp in the passport and I will defiantly not forget the things I saw.

Miss Sponteanity

Have to just give highlights of this trip cuz im super behind on blogging…but the girl from germany who is in my dance class invited me to go to a beach with her when my Nicaragua plans fell through so I after class she asked if I wanted to go and said yeah maybe thinking she meant like the next day Friday but she was like no im going ya (now)..so for prob first time in my life I spontanoise enough to go along with it and quickly go to my house pack a bag and go! She actually baught a car here so we had a nice roadtrip completely talking in Spanish bc she doesn’t like speaking English here (con razon)…so I learned a lot about germany and we made it to nicoya which is a little town an hour away from the beach we were going to the next day, we got a little lost and got some locals to jump in the car and direct us to a cheap hostel…next morning went to another branch of my university bc she wanted to switch schoold the next semester…it was preety and a lot smaller than on the road again to the beach…went to playa grunion after a little confusion and really bad dirt roads, first goal find cheap hostel first one we went to had just sprayed for bugs and but next place had a pool and we were lucky and got a private little room with a kitchen for 12 dollars each a nite…both jumped in the pool right away and went to the beach later that day however she is a really good surfer and the beach had huge waves so I wasn’t able to enjoy it as much…met a very nice girl at the hostel who was a yoga instructer and found out the town we were in was actuall fll of yogis, hippies, surfers and lots and lots of gringos…defiantly met some interesting people and tried to keep up with all the surfer language…unfortuantly missed my chance to try a yoga class in the treetops cuz I decided to go this 2 american girls I met to another beach hoping maybe the waves wouldn’t be so big…it was so strange cuz one was from dc other from Baltimore and there were really fun but very turisty ive always travled with gringas but I found out there is a huge difference between gringa student and gringa tourist…there Spanish was not good at all and they just were there to be on vacation not really learn anything about the place or people but that is not necesarliy bad just diff than why I am here..anyway drove through beautiful country side and cute little cr towns saw lots of kids riding horses and bikes on the sides of the road and found the only gas station that was completely un marked and they used like a soda can with a hose to fill with gas and when the marker on the car wasn’t moving the just shook the car with all of us in it…very amusing drive oh plus fording at least 4 overflooded rivers, thank god for four whell drive..so the beach was small and cute but big waves again…but one of the girls was a philosophy major so we got into some good discussions ahh I love philospofizing she was acutlly reading one of my fav books from a class I had last semester the denial of death…anywagot back early so they could surf of course I hanged in the pool where a little 5 yr old girl befriended me who was so cute than went to the beach and got some time in the ocean and stayed for the sunset that night went out to dinner for one of the girls bdays to a really nice place and listened to reggae night at the hostel well didn’t have a choice on that one but oh well. So that was my spontanuse attempt and I think it went well was nice being with less people cuz gave me more of an opputunity to be independent and met new people..also was proud of myself for traveling outside of the program people and speaking Spanish almost the whole time.

Volcan Barva

Well I have been hanging out in Heredia for the past two weekends due to ridiculose amounts of homework but had some cool day trips that I can share! I went to parque de diversions (amusement park) with a friend and we got very lucky that it did not start to pour until the bus ride back although it looked very iffy the whole time we were there. We are both complete wimps with rides and this park doesn’t even have big rollercoasters but we found ourselves with the like 3-5 year olds on the kiddie rides..the first ride we had to separate cuz adults aren’t allowed to sit together but we had a blast! We went on mini rollercoaster, drove like there pretend antique cars that neither of us could control very well, mini drop machine and a water ride that was our favorite also went into a part called ciudad Antigua and saw chickens parrots, buetiful horse, goats, rosters and I think an iguana? Anyway very different from parks in the us defiantly not as many safety precautions but much simpler…it was a really fun day trip and we made it saftley from san jose to heredia and ate aat pizaa hut!
Next weekend we went to volcan Barva with yanori and teresita and her friend…it was def the longest most uphill…hill that ive ever done it took like 2 hours of hiking straight uphill to get there…I started out first going up the hill and ended last but it was really fun playing games on the way down like telling stories and alphabet game than we got a ride from some random guys and fitted the ten of us in his minivan, thankg god though cuz none of us realized how long we had to go to the bus stop