Granada, but ometepe first

okay! now for writing. so. i guess ill start at el castillo. it was a very nice little river town and the fort was rockin. even better were those things that i had for dinner that they call shrimp but all in all are over a foot long which i think disqualifies them from being shrimp any more. but that was delish. i was only there a day though because i had to get back to san carlos in time to catch the ferry for ometepe, a quick ten hours away. the boat was more tub than boat-looking, and its speed was didn´t defy my expèctations. but on the plus side we got to watch 3 horror films, one of which, abominable, was funny it was so bad, and basically featured a very rediculous looking bigfoot steadily eating each character one by one in varying ways but always perfectly gory. one guy got his face bit off. one girl got pulled through a window so that she snapped in half backwards at the waist. it was quality entertainment. the main place i stayed at on ometepe i think wins the award for most absurd experience so far. I was with a slovenian guy named Rok, and hungarian guy named Yanush, and his canadian girlfriend cathy. quite the group huh? anyways they´d been recommended to this place, called zopilote. all we knew about it was that it was some sort of eco-farm. the first sign we were in for a trip came at dinner when we ordered typical plates and it took them an hour to prepare them (rice beans cabbage and chicken). the restaurant was more like the yard of a house of a poor family, and while waiting for the food we peaked into the kitchen and there were pigs and chickens and baby chickens running around everywhere. hooray for sanitary conditions! anyways by the time we finished and got to the turn-off from the road for zopilopte it was already dusk, and it was stormy outside. it was about a ten minute hike up a hill to reception, and as we´re walking we start seeing little huts and shacks and tents here and there, but its hard to exactly make out what the people look like in the bad light. at reception, a nice normal,-looking brit says they are out of beds so we rent a tent. he also informs us tonight is pizza night (the owners are italian), so if we want brick-oven baked italian-style pizza, just report to the kitchen later on. so far so good. we set up the tent and me and Rok go down to pizza night, and as we approach we notice things. 1, the delicious smell of baking pizza. 2, dread locked hippies as far as the eye can see. 3, very thick weed smoke. well we just about lost it. we had completely unintentionally landed ourselves in the direct middle of hippie central, nicaragua! anyways we sat down. they were all nice enough, there were a few normal travelers mixed in. the pizza was heavenly. but then, after wrongly thinking it couldn´t get any more rediculous, about 7 people came out from the sitting area with drums and flutes and started playing and everyone was clapping along and people started dancing and then someone start firedancing and at that point rok and i were just shaking our heads and he kept saying over and over, ¨my friends could never imagine where i am right now.¨anyways we ended up staying there for 3 nights, it was a fun place. the last day we hiked the smaller of the two volcanoes that make up the island, volcan maderas. it was easily the muddiest thing i have ever done. it was a steep 3 and a half hours up, culminating at a beautiful crater lake. HOWEVER, we were in a cloud the whole time, and by the time we emerged out into the crater visibility was at about 20 feet. then for some reason we practically ran the whole way back down, doing it in two hours. and while we were all winded, leg-shaking, dying, etc, our 65 year old guide was walking around as if nothing had happened. then i spent the next day relaxing at charco verde because my legs were shot and i got sick the night before so i was recovering from that. but i got to swim in lago de nicaragua, just the 19th largest in the world. and that brings me to two days ago, when i arrived here in Granada, which is rumored to be the oldest real city in the americas. it is nice and colonial with a couple big churches. and i hiked another nearby volcano yesterday but it was more around several craters than up it. it was real nice nonetheless though, and i did the tour in spanish. oookey dokey, i probably left stuff out, but you´ll never know. i am past the 100 day mark of my trip. i´ve written over 140 pages in my journal. theres a pool in my hostel. the toilets don´t work very well. love!

gus

pictures because they kicked me off before i could write

well i meant to write a bit to go along with the pictures but im getting kicked off, so ill have to do it another day. from the bottom pic to the crocodile is tortuguero. the top few are nicaragua so far. and there will be more! maybe tomorrow.

gus