As expected, this trip is flying by. Today marks one week since we arrived with just one more week to go until our departure. It feels like we have been here for just a few days. Since I last posted we have done a lot, so while I´ll try to be brief I also apologize in advance for what may be a lengthy post! I have been uploading all the pictures from my phone as we I have gotten wireless access at various restaurants or hotels, so hopefully those have shown a bit of what we are doing ...although without lengthy captions it may be hard to know exactly what we have been doing!
Friday...
Luca and I woke up at 5 am to go to high school with the older kids. Their school is about a 10-15 minute drive further up the mountain in a town called El Crucero. The town is where I took pictures of the landscape last week and is a big lookout point in all directions. I have been to El Crucero before and have picked the kids up from school in the past but have never gone in. We waited for a bus and got to school around 7 ... the day started with an assembly that is held every Monday and Friday where the principal talks and afterwards everyone sings songs. After that I went to class with Leyla ... the first one being spanish literature ... where I was chosen to go in front of the class and sing a song in spanish ... without guidance or anything ... so I basically had to do it while creating my own rhythm ... it was pretty funny and Allyson took a video that Im sure she will hold over my head and put on facebook at some point. Next was English class ... it was only 30 minutes and the teacher had them do a listening exercise where they listened to a fake news report about 5 or 6 times in english and had to write down as many words as possible ... it brought me back to my highschool spanish days where we had to fill in the blank when listening to songs in spanish.
After that Luca, Allyson and I went to an infant orphanage next door and hungout with some little toddlers for the rest of the day. Allyson and I then caught the bus back to El Canon to go with Maria Jose and Carlos to drop off Angel at his house. He spent a week at the orphanage visiting while one of the teams from Maryland was there. It was soo good to hangout with him and he is such a great little dude ... but he had to go back. His home is about an hour away and sits on what looks to be a swamp by Lake Managua ... everything was muddy ... granted it IS rainy season ... but those were no conditions to live in. I uploaded the pictures to facebook ... needless to say his house is not one that 6 kids need to be living in. Maria Jose wants Angel and his older sister to come back and live at the orphanage because the living conditions are significantly better ... but his mom wont let them because she needs them to stay home and watch their younger siblings while shes at work all day ... when we got there she wasnt home and the 5 and 9 year olds were home alone ... it really is sad. We said our goodbyes and headed back to the orphanage where we got a good nights sleep.
Saturday...
Luca and I woke up at 5 am AGAIN to meet Tony at the Huembes market to catch a bus to Rivas. We took an express bus to a University in Managua and caught a 5 minute cab from there to the market. Tony was late ... so we walked around for about an hour before he arrived and we caught the 7 am bus to Rivas. After a 2 hour ride we grabbed the next ferry across to the island of Ometepe. THe island itself is about 20 miles long and 10 miles wide ... and is home to two volcanos. There is so much to do that Tony was hesitant to take us for just 1 night ... he said he has gone for 7 days before and left not having done all he wanted to ... but im glad we went because we still did some awesome stuff. We grabbed a hotel right near the port for $25 ... $8 each ... for our own room ... the hotels there are hotels-hostels-restaurants so it was a nice setup. After we had lunch we rented motorbikes and headed for Ojo de Agua ... a natural spring about 45 minutes away. First, the bike experience was awesome ... as soon as I learned how to do the shifting I had a blast. It really gives you freedom and riding around like Che Guavera through the Jungles of an island volcano was pretty liberating. So, as Tony claims ... Ojo de Agua was mistakingly man-made. Construction workers back in the 80s were digging and hit a spring ... the water created a pool, that fed down to another pool before creating a big stream. The government turned it into a national park. If you stand in the upper pool you can feel the water coming up beneath your feet ... and the water is crystal clear. There are some fish and turtles ... and as you can see from the pictures I uploaded ... really a beautiful place. Afterwards we returned to the port city and had some pizza for dinner before playing a dice game, drinking some tonas and going to bed.
The island itself is beautiful ... someday Id like to go back and hike the smaller of the two volcanos ... which takes about 12 hours to get up .... so it would be a 2 day event. The larger of the two volcanos is for expert hikers only so I may avoid that one. We didnt do anything directly related to the volcanos but there was only so much time ... that being said they are beautiful ... as you can see from the picture I put up on facebook. The island itself is really nice and the tourism there is starting to rapidly grow. Tony said in the last 2 years since hes been there so much as changed and there are a lot of nice places to go ... its nice to know that tourism is starting to take off ... Nicaragua is very similar to neighboring Costa Rica in its wildlife and eco.tourism offerings ... but its past political instability has stunted its growth ... its finally started to catch up though and hotel and tourism management is one of the top programs of study for a lot of college students here ... and while many people dislike Daniel Ortega and his very socialist policies ... me included ... it IS hard to deny the changes that are occuring around the country ... especially the infrastructure and the stuff he is trying to do for the poor ... its a catch-22 though ... since he has already bribed his way into being allowed to run for a 2nd term ... something that was constitutionally illegal prior to his presidency. But in the 5 years I have been coming to NIcaragua ... Ortega was elected in 2006 ... the changes in infrastructure are amazing ... yes there is still rampant poverty ... and education is still lacking ... but the building blocks are starting to form that I think can pull this country out of the depths of poverty in the future ... hopefully without Ortega turning into the next Hugo Chavez ... which looks to be the case.
Sunday...
We woke up early so we could go to a nature preserve about 20 minutes away. There we embarked on an hour hike through a rainforest ... we didnt see too many animals but the sights were amazing as we climbed higher over Lake Nicaragua. At the end we ran into about 30 monkeys who were lounging high up in the trees ... and as you can see from the pictures I put on facebook they were pretty darn cute ... there were a couple really small baby monkeys playing in the trees but it was hard to get a good shot of them but they were really tiny. After we finished our hike we took a dip in the Lake and rushed back to the city to catch the 130 ferry ... or so we thought! Apparently people around Ometepe do not know the ferry schedule on Sundays ... when seemingly every mode of transportation shuts down... the ferry was actually at 1 ... and in the rush to return our bikes we missed it ... and had to wait for the 4 o clocker. Well the ferry ride is about an hour and a half and the last bus from Rivas to Managua left on the other side at 5 ... we had a problem! We hungout and watched the Barcelona v. Real Madrid soccer game and relaxed. When we reached the other side we discovered that there was in fact one more bus going ... but we didnt know who to trust! We waited at the gas station and a mini bus rolled up going to Managua ... or so they told us. We trusted them and hopped on ... despite the fact that a real bus rolled up right behind us ... but the guys wanted to stay ahead of that bus so they could get all the customers at the next stops ... so they sped off with us inside before we could really makea decision. Well, turns out the guys were going to Jinotepe ... a town about 20 miles outside Managua ... and planned to have us catch a bus there to take us further to Managua ... well turns out that second connecting bus didnt exist ... and we were stranded in Jinotepe ... so we grabbed some dinner and some drinks and thought about our decision. At 8 ... when no buses had come ... we made the decision to call a cab. It was a quick 20 minute drive ... but cost us about $23 total ... and considering the bus would have cost us just $8 ... we were kinda annoyed with the guys in the minibus who lied to us to probably get our fare and not lose us to the real bus behind them. Either way, it was definitely an adventure and we are pretty confident in our abilities to use Nicaragua transit in the future ... of course having Tony there helped!
Monday ...
So yesterday we met the team that arrived from Dulles ... a church that comes down a few times a year from South Riding area ... but this trip is with their youth group and the goal is to connect with the older kids who are their age. We asked them what schools they went to and turns out a couple just graduated from the middle school where my friend Ryan teachers. They had him as a teacher and also had his mom ... and his sister who occassionally subbed ... talk about a small world! One of their youth group leaders who is down here also went to Oakton ... though she claims well before me lol .... Luca and I also did a ton of push ups and went for a run up the mountain ... originally supposed to be about a 20 minute run ... but apparently I missed the turn to the old coffee farm and we just kept going and going and going ... expecting to hit the coffee farm ... and we never did ... finally we stopped and turned around and ran back down ... but when we got back we realized we had been gone for about 35-40 minutes ... with the first 20 minutes or so being essentially a trail run up a mountain ... it felt great afterwards but today Im feeling it a bit.
That´s a brief overview
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Post #1 Luca Peluca and Alex Derulo
Hello everyone! I finally got a chance to sit down after all the kids went to sleep and put together a quick recap on the orphanage laptop. Internet is shoddy but it seems like there is enough of a connection right now to make a post! Today was our second full day in Nicaragua and time is already flying by way too fast. A team from a church in Maryland just left so we were able to cling to their coattails and enjoy some of the activities they have been doing the past two days! First let me preface this post by saying I cant figure out how to use parenthesis so I am using ... in place of them haha.
Day 1
Luca and I flew from Dulles at 5 am on Tuesday... arriving in San Salvador at 7am local time ... we are two hours behind Eastern Standard Time. We had an hour to catch our connecting flight to Managua, but Luca noticed he was at a different gate than I was. We then realized that I was flying into Managua 5 hours before him. Poor Luca had to sit in San Salvador while I got to get to Nica early and hang with the kids. Its okay though ... he arrived around 4 pm and we still had a great day. When I got to El Canyon I had a surprise! Angel, the little boy who left the orphanage two years ago had been brought back for a week to hang out with the team at the orphanage. He ran up to me and knew my name ... it was crazy that he remembered me after 2 years ... and he´s gotten so big as you can probably tell from the picture I posted on facebook! We then went out to dinner with the team that was here ... they like to take the orphanage staff out to dinner so we went to a local Nicaraguan restaurant and had a feast. There were about 30 of us and they brought out 5 massive platters of assorted meats ... sausages, steaks, ribs, etc .. plus gallo pinto of course. We returned to El Canyon for a much needed nights sleep.
Day 2
Yesterday was a pretty slow day. Luca and I woke up late ... 8 am is late here ... and joined everyone for some homework. The team was here all day and we just hung back and tried not to be in their way. I did manage to kick some butt in 500 rummy with Daysis and one of the team members from Maryland. Luca and I went for a 1.5 mile run ... including the massive hill out of the canyon which was brutal before doing some pushups with the kids. Today Carlos came up to me and complained about how sore he was after doing 50 pushups ... hes 10 so that is a lot haha. I worked on a lot of math problems with the girls ... turns out they are really good at complex multiplication and addition ... they were multiplying problems with over 20 numbers ... I tried to challenge them! Last night Luca, Tony and I went out to a bar-restaurant with Paul ... one of the team leaders from Maryland who told us more about their church and the trips they take ... through orphan network but specifically focused on el canyon. He said he would like to start working with JMU NOF on joint fundraising efforts for specific projects at el canyon ... which would be nice to see the money raised go directly to the orphanage. Paul has been coming to El Canyon for 7 years and was able to tell me a lot of cool history about the orphanage. It was a really nice, relaxing experience to get out and have a few drinks and talk about our experiences ... plus it was nice catching up with Tony!
Day 3
Luca and I got up at 7 today so we were able to catch breakfast! Afterwards we played with the kids for a couple hours before heading to the store with Maria Jose to grab what seemed like TONS of meat and bread for the party today ... the team just left after a week and had a big bash to celebrate their time here. Margarita ... the orphanage cook is the best in the world and she and Maria Jose made some of the best steak and chicken I have every had. Probably not the most healthy but certainly the most tasty. After the market Luca and I went with Carlos ... a close friend of the orphanage ... his mom runs the finances ... to take a couple of the sick kids to the emergency room in el Crucero ... about 10 minutes away. They just had slight coughs but there is a free government clinic there and they were given cough and throat medicine. Luca waited with them and Anna, one of the team members, while I left with Carlos to pick up the older kids from their high school, which is located in el crucero. Then Carlos took me to two lookout spots where he went when he was in high school ... kind of lovers corner type of places but a little more innocent in conservative nicaragua i suppose haha. Anyway, El Crucero is on top of a mountain ... the same mountain that el canyon is about halfway up ... and it overlooks Managua. You can literally see for dozens of miles in every direction ... I took a bunch of pictures on my phone that I should be uploading to facebook as soon as I get a wireless connection somewhere!
After Crucero we came back to the orphanage. Luca and I ran 2 miles today ... to the top of the hill at the entrance and back ... 2 times. It is exactly half a mile to the top of the canyon ... so going there and back is a mile ... twice is 2 miles. For those that have been here ... you know how steep and extruciatingly long that hill is ... and we managed to not walk at all ... we are going to try and get up to 3 miles ... aka 3 round trips by the time we leave in 11 days. We tried to hang back a bit today because it was the team´s last day and we didnt want to get in the way ... knowing we will be here for another 11 days. That being said all the kids still came up to us so it was hard to hang back. All the kids are mad at Ryan for not coming ... they literally wont stop telling me how angry they are ... jokingly of course ... except for Tonia who I THINK would punch Ryan as hard as she could in his arm right now if she could! Right before dinner, on my way to the new house where we are staying ... that was built for the older boys ... I almost stepped on a tarantula. It is my first tarantula encounter in my 7 trips here and of course I ran for my camera. I will post those pictures as well. One of the older boys, Moises, captured him in a tuperware jar and released him outside the orphanage. One of the workers said if you get bit by it ... and dont get immediate help ... you likely have to get amputated in that area. The sucker was huge, so while i dont know how true that was, it certainly isnt a stretch to believe. Anyways, thats a ¨quick´ overview of our first few days. There are plenty more stories to tell and pictures to eventually share but I only have so much time right now.
Tomorrow night we are planning on going SOMEWHERE ... where exactly we dont know yet, but will likely be gone for the entire weekend traveling with Tony. First ... Luca and I are waking up at 6 am to go to school with the older kids in Crucero .. something we have never done ... so that should be a lot of fun. Leyla, Nicole, Jordan, Lujan and Jolisa are really excited for us to come. We cant wait but could probably do without the early wakeup call. After we get back, the plan is to wait for Tony to get off work and either go to his friends coffee farm in the north ... or south to Granada for the night before going on to Ometepe for Saturday and Sunday. Ometepe is one of the top eco tourist spots and is an island in Lake Nicaragua with two large volcanoes ... it takes 6 hours to hike the volcano and get to a waterfall ... and that is on the top of our list of things to do! Anyways, hopefully we will have some internet access at hotels along the way so we can post another blog and upload our pictures. Hope everyone is doing well back home! Adios!
Day 1
Luca and I flew from Dulles at 5 am on Tuesday... arriving in San Salvador at 7am local time ... we are two hours behind Eastern Standard Time. We had an hour to catch our connecting flight to Managua, but Luca noticed he was at a different gate than I was. We then realized that I was flying into Managua 5 hours before him. Poor Luca had to sit in San Salvador while I got to get to Nica early and hang with the kids. Its okay though ... he arrived around 4 pm and we still had a great day. When I got to El Canyon I had a surprise! Angel, the little boy who left the orphanage two years ago had been brought back for a week to hang out with the team at the orphanage. He ran up to me and knew my name ... it was crazy that he remembered me after 2 years ... and he´s gotten so big as you can probably tell from the picture I posted on facebook! We then went out to dinner with the team that was here ... they like to take the orphanage staff out to dinner so we went to a local Nicaraguan restaurant and had a feast. There were about 30 of us and they brought out 5 massive platters of assorted meats ... sausages, steaks, ribs, etc .. plus gallo pinto of course. We returned to El Canyon for a much needed nights sleep.
Day 2
Yesterday was a pretty slow day. Luca and I woke up late ... 8 am is late here ... and joined everyone for some homework. The team was here all day and we just hung back and tried not to be in their way. I did manage to kick some butt in 500 rummy with Daysis and one of the team members from Maryland. Luca and I went for a 1.5 mile run ... including the massive hill out of the canyon which was brutal before doing some pushups with the kids. Today Carlos came up to me and complained about how sore he was after doing 50 pushups ... hes 10 so that is a lot haha. I worked on a lot of math problems with the girls ... turns out they are really good at complex multiplication and addition ... they were multiplying problems with over 20 numbers ... I tried to challenge them! Last night Luca, Tony and I went out to a bar-restaurant with Paul ... one of the team leaders from Maryland who told us more about their church and the trips they take ... through orphan network but specifically focused on el canyon. He said he would like to start working with JMU NOF on joint fundraising efforts for specific projects at el canyon ... which would be nice to see the money raised go directly to the orphanage. Paul has been coming to El Canyon for 7 years and was able to tell me a lot of cool history about the orphanage. It was a really nice, relaxing experience to get out and have a few drinks and talk about our experiences ... plus it was nice catching up with Tony!
Day 3
Luca and I got up at 7 today so we were able to catch breakfast! Afterwards we played with the kids for a couple hours before heading to the store with Maria Jose to grab what seemed like TONS of meat and bread for the party today ... the team just left after a week and had a big bash to celebrate their time here. Margarita ... the orphanage cook is the best in the world and she and Maria Jose made some of the best steak and chicken I have every had. Probably not the most healthy but certainly the most tasty. After the market Luca and I went with Carlos ... a close friend of the orphanage ... his mom runs the finances ... to take a couple of the sick kids to the emergency room in el Crucero ... about 10 minutes away. They just had slight coughs but there is a free government clinic there and they were given cough and throat medicine. Luca waited with them and Anna, one of the team members, while I left with Carlos to pick up the older kids from their high school, which is located in el crucero. Then Carlos took me to two lookout spots where he went when he was in high school ... kind of lovers corner type of places but a little more innocent in conservative nicaragua i suppose haha. Anyway, El Crucero is on top of a mountain ... the same mountain that el canyon is about halfway up ... and it overlooks Managua. You can literally see for dozens of miles in every direction ... I took a bunch of pictures on my phone that I should be uploading to facebook as soon as I get a wireless connection somewhere!
After Crucero we came back to the orphanage. Luca and I ran 2 miles today ... to the top of the hill at the entrance and back ... 2 times. It is exactly half a mile to the top of the canyon ... so going there and back is a mile ... twice is 2 miles. For those that have been here ... you know how steep and extruciatingly long that hill is ... and we managed to not walk at all ... we are going to try and get up to 3 miles ... aka 3 round trips by the time we leave in 11 days. We tried to hang back a bit today because it was the team´s last day and we didnt want to get in the way ... knowing we will be here for another 11 days. That being said all the kids still came up to us so it was hard to hang back. All the kids are mad at Ryan for not coming ... they literally wont stop telling me how angry they are ... jokingly of course ... except for Tonia who I THINK would punch Ryan as hard as she could in his arm right now if she could! Right before dinner, on my way to the new house where we are staying ... that was built for the older boys ... I almost stepped on a tarantula. It is my first tarantula encounter in my 7 trips here and of course I ran for my camera. I will post those pictures as well. One of the older boys, Moises, captured him in a tuperware jar and released him outside the orphanage. One of the workers said if you get bit by it ... and dont get immediate help ... you likely have to get amputated in that area. The sucker was huge, so while i dont know how true that was, it certainly isnt a stretch to believe. Anyways, thats a ¨quick´ overview of our first few days. There are plenty more stories to tell and pictures to eventually share but I only have so much time right now.
Tomorrow night we are planning on going SOMEWHERE ... where exactly we dont know yet, but will likely be gone for the entire weekend traveling with Tony. First ... Luca and I are waking up at 6 am to go to school with the older kids in Crucero .. something we have never done ... so that should be a lot of fun. Leyla, Nicole, Jordan, Lujan and Jolisa are really excited for us to come. We cant wait but could probably do without the early wakeup call. After we get back, the plan is to wait for Tony to get off work and either go to his friends coffee farm in the north ... or south to Granada for the night before going on to Ometepe for Saturday and Sunday. Ometepe is one of the top eco tourist spots and is an island in Lake Nicaragua with two large volcanoes ... it takes 6 hours to hike the volcano and get to a waterfall ... and that is on the top of our list of things to do! Anyways, hopefully we will have some internet access at hotels along the way so we can post another blog and upload our pictures. Hope everyone is doing well back home! Adios!
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