masaya, esteli

I just arrived in Esteli today, but for the past 2 nights was in Masaya, which is supposed to be the artsy center of nicaragua. it had lots of nice leatherwork and hammocks. i got to watch one guy making a hammock and he was crazy fast at it, so that was cool. his name was carlos. i also found baseball caps made out of leather, and one that even still had the cow fur on it which was hilarious to me. the city itself was pretty loud and dirty-at one point i was just walking along when something blew into my eye and started burning instantly. so while im standing in the street trying to blink it out some old lady invites me into her house to wash it out etc. and then she started talking to me about religion, which turned out to be a lot harder than i expected because i quickly realized i didn´t know any religion-related words in spanish. so that was a bit tricky. but she kept thanking the lord for this and that and told me i should get glasses to block my eyes from things in the wind. one of the days i went to the nearby volcan masaya national park and took a looksee at the craters there. one is constantly smoking and smells terrible, but not normal like sulfur, it was much worse. one lady said there was hydrochloric acid in it. there was also a huge cross above the crater for reasons i think relating to how the natives used to make religious sacrifices there and throw live people into the lava. i also took a tour of a cave which had lots of bats which were very hard to take pictures of because the dont like light. but i got one and they are funky lookin. mostly it was just good to get out into the park for a bit where it was quiet and the air was fresh. my hotel room in town was in a smoothie shop which was about equal to putting a coyote in a chicken coop. it was great. and now im in esteli where two of my friends from seattle are volunteering. i haven´t found them yet but i will! one last piece from granada-it was superbowl sunday the night before i left, and all the americans in town (plus one fanatical swede who said he streamed in every nfl game online at home and thought it was the greatest game on earth) came together at a sports bar to watch it. so that was fun. okay, thats all folks, write soon.

gus