What I did last weekend...all in Spanish!

La fin de semana pasada yo me quedé en Granada por las fiestas. El viernes yo fui el rodeo con mis amigas Gina, Diana, Diana y Darsee. Después el rodeo comimos pizza a Don Lucas. Mis amigas quisieron mi a ir a la Café Nuit con ellas pero fui cansada entonces fui a mi casa a dormirme. El sabado fui subir Volcan Mombocho con Diana y Alana. Aunque es posible a tocas un carro arriba subimos la Puma sendero con un guía. En todo subimos 10 km. Después subimos Volcan Mombocho fuimos a ver el carnival en la calle. El carnival estuvo interesante pero salimos temprano porque extuvimos hambre. Tuvimos cena a la Braba de Mono. La comida allí es muy buema y barato. Después de comer fuimos a bailar y tomar a la Café Nuit. Yo no regresé a mi casa hast 3 en la mañana. El Domingo yo me relajé en mi casa con la familia. En la tarde yo encontré mis amigos a ir a ver la hipica de caballos. Me gusta a ver la hipica pero no me gusta caminar en la calle con otras personas y los caballos. La noche de Domingo tuvo cena con my familia pero después de comer yo salé a bailar con mis amigas. El Domingo estuvo mi amiga, Gina, ultima noche en Granada entonces quisimos a ir a bailar una otra vez juntos. Yo tuvo mucho divercion en la fin de semana pasada.

Today is the day!

In a very short time I am going to be leaving the world of living hostels and moving in with my host family to begin my two weeks of language classes. I am a little nervous but more than anything I am extremely excited. I am ready to get away from the travelers world and settle into a place for several weeks. And about all else I am ready to learn Spanish. I even bought a silly notebook from the grocery store yesterday to keep notes in. So hopefully by the time I get home I will be able to hold an intelligent conversation in Spanish!

A little about yesterday... The morning began with torrential rain but it lightened up just in time for me to catch a ride out to Laguna de Apoyo. An incredible place! It is a lagoon at the bottom of a crater. It was so incredibly peaceful. I haven´t been in such silence in a very long time. So I took the day all to myself. Kayaked out on the lake for a few hours, swam in the water, read and wrote in my journal. A wonderful day to ponder my last few weeks of traveling.

Alright off to meet my family of the next two weeks...

Nicaragua!

It is official, I am on my own! Lauren flew back to the US yesterday and I took a bus to Nicaragua. Another leg of the trip has begun. I am really looking forward to hanging out in one place for longer than three days. Currently I am staying at a hostel in Granada with plans to move in with a host family on Saturday and start language classes on Monday.

Today I spent the afternoon wandering around the beautiful town of Granada. I can´t wait to get to know the city even better. There are horse drawn carriages and brightly painted houses, cafes with wonderful outdoor seating and a local market to get lost in. I also found the language school that I will be attending and had a chance to meet some people there. I am really looking forward to starting classes! The school is a non-profit organization that helps young boys get through school so I will have the chance to volunteer helping the boys with their homework. I am a bit nervous to try and take on the task of learning a foreign language but I have more motivation now than I ever have before. How could I not? Living in Central America would make anyone want to learn Spanish. I feel like there are so many friendships and connections that I have missed out on because I don´t speak Spanish. I especially don´t like not being able to communicate with the kids that I meet. But that is all going to change soon...

making up for lost time...

Sorry it has been so long since I have updated this travel blog! Although I don´t know exactly who I am apologizing too as I don´t who or if anyone is reading what I am writing it still makes me feel good to think that I am keeping in touch with at least a few people back home.

So this last week or so I have not been in much contact due to a lack of internet access so I will do my best to update. I think I am going to go for a day by day sort of list....

Monday 28th: Killing time in Panama City before our night bus to Boquete we (Lauren, myself and out traveling buddy Brian) find ourselves hiking to the top of a large hill with a great view of the city. On the way back to our hostel we had a very interesting experience. We thought that it would be just fine to walk about to Avenida Central which our hostel is located off of. It was only a few blocks from where we were but as we turned the corner to head towards the center of town we are stopped by a number of people including a chief of police to tell us that we were NOT allowed to go any further because it was far to dangerous of an area to walk through. We ended up telling the officer that we didn´t have much money (incase the cops were corrupt) so they called a police truck and we got a police escort back to Avenida Central.

Tuesday 29th: Made it to David, the city outside of Boquete. We were very tired from the night bus and ended up on the wrong bus. We went about 2 hours out of our way to a town called Volcan. So we had to hop back on a bus back to David and get the right bus to Boquete. Yeah for traveling blunders. We slept a lot of the afternoon away and made our plans to hike Volcan Baru that night at midnight.

Wednesday 30th: Arrived at the top of Volcan Baru for the most amazing sunrise that I have ever experienced. The hike itself was the most physically challenging experience I have had in a very long time. It took us around 6 hours to get to the top and about 5 to get back down. I can not explain in words the state of delirium that I experienced on the way up the volcano and the pure exhaustion and pain that I felt on the way down just added even more to the hike. But I will say that it was all worth it. Oh and I got to have my first encounter with an armadillo in the wild. That was quite exciting.

Thursday 31st: This day we lost our most friendly traveling buddy Brian. We had been traveling together for over a week and we all got along so fabulously that it was quite sad to see him go. But we know that he is enjoying the rest of his trip and we have plans to ski together in the winter. Lauren and I continued our trip on to Bocas del Toro. We arrived and ran into our friends from Salt Lake City that we had met in Panama City. We had a good time out that night at the Iguana bar (free drinks for the ladies).

Friday 1st: Can´t believe that it is already August! Today we headed to Bocas del Drago a beach on the other side of the island that we were staying on. It was a nice beach to relax on. The water was as calm as a bath tub and there were starfish everywhere. Dinner at a wonderful Indian restuarant and off to bed early from the lack of sleep from the last week or so.

Saturday 2nd (TODAY): Lauren and I awoke this morning from another night of not much sleep due to the lack of respect of our roommates. As we ate breakfast we decided that Bocas del Toro was really not the place for us. I would have to agree with Lauren´s comparison of Bocas to being in high school. All everyone does is wait to get dressed up at night and go out and get piss drunk. Every single night! And during the day you have to be able to spend a lot of money to be able to have anything to do. So we left. Yet again not quite in our plan but we are back in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. It actually feels really good to be back. We have 3 nights down here and then it is off to San Jose so that Lauren can fly home and I can head to Nicaragua for language school.

Ok I think that does it. You (who ever you are) are now updated to my travels. I hope that you are doing well and that you enjoyed reading this. And thanks for taking the time to read my blog. I really do appreciate it!