I arrived this past weekend in San Juan Del Sur, my home for the next 9 months. It is unbelievably beautiful here! My language school is literally on the beach and as I write this I am listening to the sound of crashing waves and waiting for the sun to set...I know, hard life right?
But leaving Granada was with bittersweet feelings. It was hard to leave because I finally felt like I knew the city and had made good friends there. My friend Olivia from Switzerland will be there an additional 2 months before heading heading here for a month. She will be visiting soon which will be nice. I also became good friends with one of my teachers so that sucked to leave as well. Oh well, I guess such is life.
Olivia and I spent the last weekend going out to local bars and going to Volcan Mombacho (Volcano Mombacho). The volcano was a short busride out of town, followed by a taxi ride up a hill and a miltary style truck up the volcano. It was so beautiful! So green and you could see so far up on the top. the truck that brought us up is literally those kind that you see in a war with a canvas top, I was a little worried about getting sick but had taken ginger pills so I was ok! Some of those turns though made me a little nervous....There were many times where I though, "If we tip or have to stop suddenly, I am so going to die. Well, I better not think of that now..." All was well and we got up safely. We went on this little 2 hour or so hike. We ended up getting inadvertanely lost on an illegal trail. I guess I should have warned Olivia that when you are with me, crazy shit happens! We made it out ok, following 4 Nicarguans who had also gotten lost. The park rangers were not very happy with us, haha. Oh well, we made it out alive with out getting eaten by the jaguars that are apparently on the illegal trail. And we saw a family of monkeys! No matter how many times I see monkeys here they never get old.
We finally made it back down the hill and got in our "taxi" to take us to the bus stop. This was no ordinary taxi though. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. Imagine a 3-wheeled golf cart/go-kart/tuk-tuk with a canvas cover. That is the only way I can describe it. Well as were heading down the hill the bus drove past us. That bus only came about every 2 hours, or 5, depending on who you are talking to. So our taxi/tuk-tuk driver decided he was going to chase the chicken bus in our go-kart. At first we were really confused and thought he was just trying to drive us back to Granada and make lots of money, I looked at Olivia to see if she knew what was going on and said no and we should ask, I then realized, oh ya, I am the one who speaks spanish! Should probably speak up right about now. He said he was trying to get the bus for us. As you probably can imagine, buses are faster then tuk-tuk go-karts. I swear that thing was going to blow up! As he kept revving it into a higher gear to go faster all you heard was reeeeearr REAAAAR REAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR (that is my best attempt at the crazy noise it was making) and honking his wimpy little horn to get the driver/bus boys attention. Eventually we did and the bus pulled over on the highway for us and we hopped on the bus. Sometimes I think of the shit I do here that I would NEVER do at home. IE: Getting out of a go-kart on a highway and getting on a bus, walking through streets filled with traffic inbetween stopped cars. I am slowly adapting to Nica ways!
I left the next morning for SJDS with my 200 pounds of luggage. Each time I have to move it I get more angry at myself for bringing too much shit. Oh well. There was a US college group on the shuttle with me heading to SJDS for the day. When we pulled up to the beach everyone was oohing and awing and a couple people yelled at me, "I can't believe you get to LIVE here for 9 months!" It really is pretty unbelievable here. I don't know how I will leave it, which I know some of you don't want to hear!! The sand, the waves, the beaches...ahhh!
My house here (I am doing one more week of language school and living with a family before moving to my apartment/starting work) is much more "westernized" then my last house. I have my OWN bathroom with a REAL shower! Still no hot water though. But thats ok. I have a REAL bed that makes no noise, is big and comftorable! It is awesome. The family is very nice. It is comprised of the Abuela (grandma), mom, dad, their 4 year old son and a niece. The "family unit" in Nicargua is very different then in the US. I have yet to meet ANYONE who did not have some extended family member (niece, granddaughter, cousin etc...) living with them. It is very common. Also, people don't move out of their parents houses until they are married. Even if that is at age 35.
Funny/embarrassing incident of the week: Walking back from the beach today people kept looking at me and pointing. Now, at this point I am fairly used to it, so I just ignored it. Well, I guess I should have clued in to the vigorous pointing. I got home and realized my shirt was COVERED, I mean COVERED with white stuff. I looked down and wIas like WTF is this?!?! Well, little did I realize I had been holding my bottle of sunscreen towards my shirt and the lid wasn't snapped all the way. That led to me managing to squeeze out around 1/2 of the bottle and smear it all around. Awesome! Oh and btw, if you have ever tried to get sunscreen out of clothes, you will know that it is pretty impossible. Woops.
School is going well, I like the format here better then my school in Granada. It turns out it is a lot more expensive then I thought to call the US, so I will not be calling for any length of time anytime soon! I blew through $45 worth of minuts (I paid for $15 but got $30 extra through a special) in about a weeks time (or less). So, that leaves Skype or calling cards!
I will upload some pictures tomorrow. My school has 4 activities a week so I will have more pictures from that and from the sunset after tomorrow.
Talk to you all soon, hopefully I can catch you on Facebook chat or skype!!
Hasta Luego!
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