Greetings from Nicaragua!

Well, I´m one step closer to my 100 countries before I die goal. Megan, Chris and I decided to go to Granada, Nicaragua over Semana Santa. We needed to renew our visas for Costa Rica. You can only be in CR for 90 days in a row, then you have to leave for 72 hours so that´s what we did. It ended up being a little longer than we thought it was going to be because we couldn´t get a bus back yesterday. So today I´m missing 2 of my classes, which could actually cause me to fail both of them. Hopefully the teachers will be understanding. I´m sure they will, ¨tranquilo¨is th motto of Costa Rica. One that I hate very very much, as I am not a tranquilo kind of person. Saying ¨tranquilo¨to someone is pretty much the equivilant of saying ¨calm down¨. Nobody likes to be told to calm down. Okay, that´s my rant for today.

Tomorrow starts the 2 week countdown until I go home. Scary. I kinda don´t want to go back as much as I did before, it´s strange. I´m really really excited to see everyone but I´ve FINALLY adjusted to living in Latin America so it´s a little disconcerting to be yanked out of my now comfortable home to go back to somewhere I´m not sure I remember how to live in. The first time I have to pay $10 for a hamburger the reverse culture shock thing is going to kick me in the ass. Oh well, I´m pretty sure I´ll adjust to going home a little more quickly than I adjusted to coming here. And I´ll get to DRIVE. YAY!!! Just a little note, you might not want to be on the roads anywhere around Marenisco or Marquette the week I get back. I wasn´t that great of a driver before and I´m pretty sure 3 1-2 months off didn´t improve my skills all that much.

Anyway, about Nicaragua. This place is SOOO different than Costa Rica. The poverty here is rampant, I guess there´s an 80% unemployment rate. It shows. The first day we were here we got lunch at a kiosk in the park. Chichorones. Didn´t know what they were. Turns out they´re pork rinds. Interesante. I wasn´t much feeling pork rinds after my recent illness (which I realize I didn´t write about but let´s just say it SUCKED) so I didn´t eat them. Megan and Chris didn´t eat theirs either. This homeless lady walked up and asked if she could have them so we said sure. She proceeds to grab all of our plates and sit down at the table with us. It was cozy, just the 4 of us. We talked to a little, she even knew some English. I think everyone down here knows some English. Granada is supposed to be the richest city in Nicaragua. That´s downright scary.
It´s HOT here. Like, really really hot. Luckily we managed to find a room with air conditioning for $20 a night. Yeah, that´s like $7 each. I love Central America. Our hostel is on this road that´s a big market so it´s interesting to try to get around. You get attacked from all sides by venders trying to sell you cashews and cigarettes. I´m not particularly partial to either. The best thing about the city is Lake Nicaragua, the 10th largest freshwater lake in the world. I know I live by a couple that are bigger, but they don´t have archipelagos in them. There are 365 little islands all clustered together. We tooked a few tours through them, including a kayaking tour yesterday to see birds. I´d never kayaked before, it´s so fun. We got to see tons of birds too, a lot of the same ones we have at home because this is where they come for the winter. We say ospreys and egrets and all sorts of kinds of herons and some other Nicaraguan birds with Nicaraguan names. One other tour we did was up to a big volcano, that was pretty cool. I actually got to see a volcano!!! Third time is the charm, I guess. Hopefully we´ll be able to see Arenal when my mom and Cherie are here.
Well, it´s time to get going. I´ll write more when I get back to Costa Rica after my lovely 8 hour bus ride. Hope everyone had a great Easter!!!!
- posted by Jaime @ 8:21 AM