Quest to See the World

I love Nicaragua!! So far it´s my favorite country. The people here are much more friendly than in other countries, even friendlier than in Guate. I think one of the reasons that I like it here so much is that in the few days that i´ve been here in Leon, i´ve gotten to know some local people and have real conversations other than what i want to eat and where i need to go to get the bus.

On Friday I started a spanish class - 5 days, 4 hours a day for $135 including ¨after school activities¨ like a city tour, trip to the beach, and i heard we´re having a cooking class this week! the first class was a bit of a dud, but i´m much more satisfied now. my teacher is 24 and a native of leon. the first class was boring. i took a test and we reviewed really basic stuff that i already know, oh, and i read a local folklore too. i told the girl that i want to learn about nicaraguan culture and politics too, which is what we discussed today. yesterday i was disappointed because we talked for the first 2 hours of class and she didn´t correct me one time. i was like, what kind of a class is this. today i brought that up and she said that she didn´t correct me because i didn´t make any mistakes, cool!! i guess my spanish isn´t as rusty as i thought afterall. [read on]

Well the soccer game was a disappointment. When i got to Tegucigalpa I met some other girls who were staying at the hostel and asked them if they wanted to join me for the game, and they did. This other guy came too, but he didn´t talk very much. Anyway, the stadium was quite empty and the crowd was very calm, except one small section. The game ended in a tie score of 0-0. oh well, at least i tried.

Tegucigalpa isn´t bad for a capital city, but it´s quite expensive to mail stuff from there. In the morning before heading out, i wondered around for a bit and bought 2 new tank tops. It´s been so difficult to not buy anything up until now, but I found a nice store with a nice tank, so I bought two. It´s really great to have 2 new shirts to wear since i wear the same stuff over and over again. I only had 4 tanks, so it´s not really a splurge, i needed them since it´s hot where i am now, very hot. Besides, they don´t take up much space at all.

It happened that one of the girls staying at the hostel (Tobacco Road Inn-$5 for a dorm bed and a very cute small kitten to play with-good place to stay in the capital city) was headed the same direction as me the next day (Monday 4/23-Lindsey´s b-day). Ingrid (24/ Netherlands) and I boarded the chicken bus at 11:45am and rode 3 hours to the border with Nicaragua. Easy ride. As soon as we got through immigration, which required no stamp from Honduras and a $7 fee for Nicaragua, we were on our way again. The busses here are still just yellow and black, but this one was fancy, it had a t.v. for our viewing pleasure. They were playing 80s music videos of songs like ´Sara, Sara…no time is a good time for goodbyes…´ and other really bad songs. Everyone on the bus, including me, was watching, although i was the only one laughing i think. We arrived to the town of Ocotal and boarded another bus to Esteli, Nicaragua. There`s not much there really, but there´s a nature reserve nearby which is where we went the next day and did a homestay with a family.

Listen, I have to go meet Ingrid for dinner now, but i will continue tomorrow. sTay tuned to hear about the great experience i had galloping for the first time on a horse…

On Wednesday I was planning on getting up at the crack of dawn to get the 6:30am boat out of Livingston over to Puerto Barrios, but the hostel ran out of water the evening before and i was all sticky ... [Continue reading this entry]

I didn´t end up going to Finca Ixobel afterall. I took the bus to Poptun where i went to a restaurant named La Fonda Ixobel, owned by the same person. On the outside of the building it says ¨Information Finca ... [Continue reading this entry]

Well, I made it out of Mexico on Thursday afterall with the help of some wonderful Brits, Milli and Alan. Later that night after i thought i was stuck in mexico for another day, my cabin mate, Kathy, invited me ... [Continue reading this entry]

i had it all planned. today i went to agua azul waterfalls and it was amazing, absolutely amazing. i think they^re the nicest falls i´ve ever been able to swim in. it was soooooo refreshing. i´m finally hot again and ... [Continue reading this entry]

Thank goodness I´m getting out of here tomorrow because all of these delicious pastries are going to make me fat if I don´t. I got a round loaf of freshly baked bread and 2 pastries for $1.10. That was my ... [Continue reading this entry]

After a van ride, two super packed chicken buses, a walk across the border, a shared front seat of a car, another van ride and another car ride, i made it to San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico ... [Continue reading this entry]

Well, i was kinda forced out of Antigua yesterday. What happened was that i inquired to the guy working at the hotel where i was staying about the possibility of leaving a day early, on saturday (yesterday) instead of today, ... [Continue reading this entry]

Well the bus ride back to Antigua was a bit longer than I expected due to a ton of traffic entering Guate City. The severe poverty that I hadn´t seen up until that point appeared on the hillsides of the ... [Continue reading this entry]