Post #2 ... Catching up

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