Nicaragua! (In English)

Oh me oh my. I was, at one point, doing so well at keeping up on my blog. I must apologize for the lack of updates recently. Here is a full synopsis of my experiences in Nicaragua. It will be long but worth your time to read it. Nicaragua is incredible!

Upon arriving in Nicaragua I made my way to the Bearded Monkey Hostel with several other people that I had met on the bus ride from San Jose, Costa Rica to Granada, Nicaragua. I arrived in Granada late Wednesday evening so I had a couple days to explore the city before starting language class. The hostel I stayed at was excellent. Great food, relaxing atmosphere, free internet and friendly people. Thursday I wandered around Granada to get my bearings. I wandered down to Lago de Nicaragua (the 10th largest lake in the world). It has fresh water sharks in it! I was also able to find Casa Xaltava, the language school. I talked to a Jose Luis and Juan Carlos to set up a time and date to meet my host family. I was to come to the school on Saturday to meet my family! Friday I went with a group from the hostel to Laguna de Apoyo, which quickly became my favorite place to relax in Nicaragua. The lagoon is located in a large crater and it is protected so there is minimal building in the surrounding area. I spent most of the day there swimming, kayaking, reading, writing and relaxing. Saturday I packed up my belongings and headed to the school to be placed with my new family for the next two weeks. Upon arriving I walked into a group from the school who were going to Laguna de Apoyo. They asked if I wanted to join them and of course I couldn't refuse. The lagoon is that incredible! Plus when I walked in I was recognized by someone! Gina, a girl that I met in Panama, happened to be studying at Casa Xaltava. She had no idea that she was going to be studying there and either did I, it was a complete coincidence that we ran into each other but we ended up becoming fast and close friends.

After a relaxing afternoon at the lagoon, interacting with other students at the school, I went to meet my family. Living with a host family can make or break your experience studying a language. I was very lucky and got an incredible family. I wont lie and say that it wasn't awkward at times but they were so incredibly nice that I couldn't of asked for a better family. My host mom was so cute and fed me far too much! I had a host brother who was about my age, Luis. He would sit with me at lunch and/or dinner and help me with my Spanish. He was learning English as well so we went over some English stuff as well. He also came out dancing with me and my friends on the weekends. He was a sweetheart.

My classes ran Monday-Friday from 8am to 12pm. I was one-on-one both weeks that I was studying there. For my first week my professor, Fernando, did a tiny bit of review and then jumped into teaching me all the irregular verb conjugations and then went straight into preterit. Learning a language can be so overwhelming but it felt so good to be speaking only in Spanish during class! My teacher for the second week, Bismarck, took a lot of time making sure that my sentence structure and grammar was correct. This was great because it gave me a little more confidence in speaking since I had some understanding of what I should be saying so that I didn't sound like a child. :) Although I did find that as soon as I got out of class my communication skills were not quite as good as I thought they were. Believe it or not but people in the street don't talk as slowly as my teachers do. I wonder why?

Besides classes, Casa Xaltava offered a look of other opportunities for students. They offered excursions almost every afternoon. I went on several excursions with other students from the school. We went to San Juan de Oriente, where they make incredible ceramics. We were able to see how it was all made, try making a pot on their wheel and then purchase pottery from the locals shop that had shown us everything. Catalina offers an incredible view of Laguna de Apoyo. Another evening I went to Volcan Masaya where we were went to a museum, got a history of the area, saw lava and had a tour of the bat caves near the volcano. Both weeks I went out to the markets in Masaya to check out what I could buy for souvenirs. I didn't go with the school because it was far to expensive to rent a private van when you could take the bus for 30 Cordoba or $.75.

Another excellent part of Casa Xaltava are the children. The school didn't actually start out as a language school. It started out as a house for young boys to live and get supplemental help with their schooling. Today the kids don't live there but they come every morning to get help with their homework. Most of the students who have classes in the afternoon worked with the kids in the mornings. I wasn't able to take classes in the afternoon because of space issues but I was able to play with the kids a lot. The kids were great to practice Spanish with. They were patient to an extent and weren't afraid to correct you. The last week I was there I was able to take the kids out to a baseball game with some other students from the school. Although the game was not all that exciting it was a lot of fun to go with the kids. (Baseball is bigger than soccer in Nicaragua.) The boys were definitely ladies men and I had one, Luis, decide that I was his new girlfriend. It was so hard to leave the kids. They made the experience that much better!

So the first weekend that I was in Granada they had a running of the bulls. It was Sunday and I went out with my host brother and some of his friends to watch. It was interesting but I didn't find it all that scary whereas others thought it was terrifying. The bulls were "let loose" in the streets and "chased" those "brave" enough to run in front of them. In reality the bulls were completely emaciated and did not want to be running anywhere. One of the bulls laid down in the middle of the street. Plus for the most part the bulls were under the control of the horseman who had them wrangled with ropes. Every once in a while a bull would get away and I did hear stories about a bull getting into the lobby of a hotel. So there was some excitement. What I found to be the scariest part where the other people. I was actually standing on the sidewalk right at the level of the bulls running by. I found absolutely no reason to run except for when the people around you pushed and shoved you. It was all very interesting in a sociological sort of way. I think that I was one of a small minority that felt bad for the bulls. The men and boys would rip off branches to slap the bulls with to try and egg them on. It was actually horrible to watch and I don't really feel bad for the people who were injured by the bulls. They kind of deserve it right?

The next weekend that I was in Granada happened to be the biggest weekend of the year. Good timing on my part! Usually the city it fairly quiet, as cities go. It is a beautiful colonial city, perfect for walking around without worrying about getting too lost. Anyways, for this particular weekend people from all over Nicaragua come to Granada for the festivities. On Friday I went to the rodeo, which is much different than rodeos at home; it isn't uncommon for people to die in the rodeo. Saturday I hiked Volcan Mombacho with two other girls from the school. That made me realize just how out of shape I've become from traveling but it was an incredible hike. We had spectacular views. In the afternoon the carnival started which was a massive parade with lots of bands and floats. There was a lot of advertising for the national beers as well, Tona and Victoria. (Each country in Central America has it's own national brewery.) Sunday was the Hipica. As very traditional horse parade. Unfortunately no one warned us that it would be nearly impossible to get back from downtown after the parade. There were so many drunk people and horses (yep they give beer to the horses) in the street that you could hardly move. Oh and at night we spent a lot of time at Cafe Nuit. A local dance spot. They would play your regular reggatone but they also had a live band who played meringue and mariachi and salsa. We had a lot of fun times at Cafe Nuit. :)

For my final weekend in Nicaragua I decided to spend time relaxing on Isla de Ometepe. An island with two volcanoes out in Lago de Nicaragua. I was planning on going by myself after my last day of class and then traveling on to Costa Rica from there. Well it just so happened that there were a lot of other girls interested in coming with me. (Did I mention that the whole time I was studying at Casa Xaltava there was only one boy studying there and he happened to be the youngest of all of us and had come with his mom.) So I went to Isla de Ometepe with 6 other girls from the school. We had a blast on the island. We rented bikes and rode all around the island, hiked on some trails and swam in the lake. There was hardly anyone else there so it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. It was an excellent way to end my trip to Nicaragua!