Taste of Vanagua

Buenas Notas

2008-09-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to stay a little more on top of this blog. So I'll put an entry in for the week, but its not gonna be to exciting. School was good this week. Like I said in my last entry, I have been working pretty hard during the first few weeks of school. I had been putting together note taking sheets for every class, every day of the week. While these take a long time to make, and is definitely not something that I look forward to doing, I am starting to see the payoff for the hard work. Progress reports came out last week and most of my students had improved their math grades. That was exciting to see! I can see in their faces during class that they are confident that they will be able to do the work when they get home and they are confident come test time. If that wasn't enough, one of our school administrators came up to me on Friday and pulled me aside. She just wanted to let me know that she was hearing from a lot of parents that they are pleased with how much their kids are learning in math class. I was pretty excited to hear that. So that's school.
I tried to consciencely spend more time at home this week with my Nica family. They have gone out of their way to make me part of their family and I am enjoying the time that I spend with them. So this week has been a good Spanish learning week.
That's it.
j

Kicking off the year

2008-09-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

So we're off and running for school year number 3. This year has come on quickly, it seems like the summer flew by. We started the school year on August 11 and we're already six weeks into it.
I'm teaching the same courses that I taught for the last two years. I still even have the same sweet schedule. I have all four class periods in the morning, when I have most of my energy. If you don't know, I am most def a morning person. I am way more productive between the hours of 6 am and 12 pm then I am afterwords. Then in the afternoon I have only one class. Love it.
So far this year has been going really well. I started to make note-taking sheets for every class to hand out to the students and it has really seemed to help. So far all the grades are up for the year and I can tell a difference in the students confidence in class. So that is awesome! Of course I can't take the credit for that, one of the things that I have been praying for all summer and this school year is for the Lord to use me to be a better teacher. So far, prayers have been answered.
So that's school.
This is my third year at NCA and my contract is up after this year. It seems like everyone I talk to asks me, "What are you going to do after this school year?" That's a great question. I don' t have any idea yet. I have a few ideas rolling around in my head, but nothing that I have been able to nail down and say, "That's it!" At the same time I don't want to keep my focus solely on something that is months away, I need to keep focused on what I am doing now. So I'll continue to pray that the Lord gives me direction for my life after this school year. So if you're praying with me, that would be something that you could pray about.
This year I am living with a Nicaraguan family. I did this for two reasons; first, I wanted to improve my spanish, and secondly I wanted to learn more about the Nicaraguan culture. Both have improved so far. I can tell my spanish is getting better all the time and I am most def learning more about the ins and outs of Nicaraguan culture. So this has been a blessing in my life.
Those are some general things.
What's been going on lately...well, last weekend was the Independence Celebration for Central America. Our school puts on a festival every year for indepedence day. Each grade in the high school has a period in Nicaraguan history that they are responsible to represent. They make huts and do plays/skits reenacting that time period in Nicaraguan history. The grade school kids come around and get to see all the different stations and judges come around and grade how each class has done. Afterwords there is a dancing portion to the day. Each grade does a traditional Nicaraguan dance and then the teachers do a typical Nicaraguan dance. Of course, all the students line up to see all their teachers try and do a traditional Nicaraguan dance. First of all, most of the teachers have little to no dance experience. Secondly, I'm pretty sure that none of us have any formal dance training so doing a choreographed dance together is just not going to happen right. So needless to say, we stunk up the joint but we stunk it up to roaring applause, so it was fun. Afterwords there is a feast of typical Nicaraguan food, so we just hang out for a while and eat some grub.
After the festival I went to San Juan del Sur for a few days, since we had a couple holidays. It was great to just get a chance to relax for a few days. I had been running pretty hard for the first six weeks of school. The break came at the perfect time. I most def needed a couple days off.
Nos vemos,
j

Body Movin'

2008-04-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

What up party people,
Hey, it's been a few days. Well let me update you on the last post about flag football. Turns out that gringo's tend to be better at American football than Nicaraguans. Shocker! Anyway we have had 6 games or so and we have won all of them. Of course now that I say that we will lose tonight. Pride cometh before the fall. We had a game a couple weeks ago and I was trying to catch a tipped pass and dislocated my pinkie finger. It was nasty looking, the top half of the finger slid on top of the bottom half of the finger.
This week our landlord has finally decided to repair the roof on our house. I don't know if many of you know this or not, but last rainy season whenever it would rain heavily, my bedroom would get flooded. It would drip water all over my bed and my floor. Not fun.
Anyway, after many months of trying to get the landlord to repair the roof. He waits until the next rainy season is almost upon us to repair the roof. Smart. The good news is that he is finally getting around to it. The bad news is that, for this week, I moved my into Bob and Robbie's room. In their room they already have a queen size bed, a twin bed, and now my single. Needless to say there isn't any room for walking around. I had to move out of my room because there isn't a roof over my room and all kinds of crap that has been in our roof, for who knows how long, is falling all over my bedroom. Oh, and by the way, our 'attic' has been home to hundreds of bats, rats, and iguanas over the years. Lots of fun stuff in our attic.
This week is just a regular school week. Only 5 and 1/2 more weeks left of school, not that I am counting down.
Sorry, not too much to report this week. Talk to you soon.
j

Standard Week

2008-04-11T07:23:00.000-07:00

Hola,

This week there is not too much to report. We had Standardized Testing this week at school, which was cool to be on the other side of. I always hated Standardized Tests when I was in school, but being on the other side of it I actually enjoyed it. It was a really easy week, I didn't really have to prepare too much for classes, so I don't really mind the tests.

My roommates and I have joined a flag-football league here in Managua, our team name is Los Bigotones aka...The Mustaches. Our team symbol is the hair and mustache of none other than...Magnum PI, Tom Selleck. That's right Mr. 80's sex symbol himself has returned to a Nicaraguan Flag Football Team. We played our first game this past Tuesday night and we won something like 51-8, I believe. Granted it was against probably the worst team in the league, but it was still pretty fun. We have another game tonight.

It's time for me to give a shout out to a special lady in my life that is having a birthday tomorrow. Happy Birthday Ellie! The day has finally come! No more of this "I be 3," you made it. Now it's "I be 4." Hope your birthday is full of love and fun.
Not too much else. Hope you all have a great weekend!
j

Surfin

2008-04-05T13:22:00.000-07:00

This past week the waves have been huge!! My roommates and I have had quite a few chances to head out to the beach on the weekends. Bob and Chris, two of my roommates, and myself have been going out and having a good time together in the ocean. Here are just a few pics of us.

Pic 1: Me

Pic 2: Bob

Pic 3: Chris

Pic 4: Myself paddling into the sunset

Pic 5: uh...

nos vemos,

Semana Santa II

2008-04-05T06:43:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Semana Santa passed about two weeks ago. My friend Eric Krauss came down for 10 days to visit. I hadn't seen Eric in 4 years, so it was really good to hang out with him again. Eric was a friend and roommate of mine in college. We had a lot of fun together joking and had some great conversations.

Eric came the week before Semana Santa. He spent a few days working, hanging out, and coming to school. We went on a short motorcycle trip to Volcan Mombacho with Joel and Lora Kleinsasser and some of their friends that came down to visit them.

The next day my roommates, Eric, some other friends, and myself all left for Costa Rica. My roommate Robbie lives half the time in Costa Rica and half the time in Managua. We stayed at Robbie's family cabin in the mountains just outside San Jose. It was cold up in the mountains, we were wearing jackets and started a fire every night. The view down on the city was beautiful.

We also did a lot of hiking and trail walking, as you can see from the pic above of Eric in the forest. We stayed up in the mountains until Tuesday evening.

Wednesday morning Eric left to head back to the states. The rest of us went white water rafting. It was a lot of fun. We split up into two rafts and went down the river for six hours or so. Thursday we headed up to Arenal, which is a volcano in Costa Rica where there is also a beautiful lake. The volcano is one of the most active in the world, at night we could see the lava running down the side.

Friday we went to some hot springs. They were OK, a little bit too touristy but they were still alright. Saturday we went horseback riding and canopy touring. We had quite a bit of fun. Horseback riding was a blast! Because we are in Central America they actually let you ride the horses instead of just trotting along. Saturday afternoon we headed back to Managua on our eight hour trek.

was a fun Semana Santa and definitely a needed vacation from school. Now we are up to the 4th quarter and I feel a little bit more mentally ready to tackle the last 9 weeks of school.

Nos vemos,

Mom and Pop Come to Town

2008-02-24T10:59:00.000-08:00

Hola,

It's been a couple weeks, but I hope you all are doing well. I am doing very well. My parents were in town this past week; actually, they just left today.

We had a lot of fun while they were here. I picked them up Saturday evening. Sunday we went to Laguna de Apoyo, which is a crater lake about an hour outside of Managua. We sat around for a couple hours in the sun and went swimming in the lake a little bit.

Monday - They came to watch me teach. Classes went well, they stayed for the first four periods. Mom and Dad decided that I teach very similar to my everyday actions. Which was a compliment, always nice to hear that you comfortable in your profession.

Monday night we did the Volcan Masaya night tour, which was actually posted about here earlier (the second post). Anyway we saw the volcano, the bat caves, and the mouth of the volcano. Mom didn't particularly enjoy the bat caves, I don't think, but she was a trooper and didn't complain.

Tuesday - We drove to Granada, which is more of a touristy town about an hour and a half outside Managua. After Granada we went to Mombacho, which is a mountain nearby, and walked the trails. On the trail we saw a couple monkeys which was really cool. We also had a great view of Lake Nicaragua and all the isletas. Mom was also very stoked about all the wild orchids.

Wednesday - We went to the market early in the day. Shopped in the market for maybe an hour. Didn't really get anything but just had a good time people watching. At about 1 in the afternoon we took off for San Juan del Sur. It takes about 3 hours to travel down to San Juan. We checked into the B & B and went for a drive down to Playa Maderas, which is a famous surfing beach here in Nicaragua. It was really cool to see all the surfers.

Thursday - In the morning the owner of our B & B took us on a tour of some of the properties

available in San Juan, as well as some of the properties that he is developing. It was really cool to see all of the available places and for what prices they were available. In the afternoon we went to the coolest pool on a hillside. It was an infinity pool, at a resort called Pelican Eyes, that overlooks the bay and ocean. It is really cool (pictures posted below).

Friday - More pool action.

Saturday - More pool action. Then we drove back to Managua and went out to eat at Sushi Itto.

Sunday - Dropped Mom and Dad off at the airport at 6 this morning.

I had a great time. Hopefully you all are doing well. Feel free to e-mail anytime.

On my International Harvester

2008-01-28T19:46:00.000-08:00

Hoggin up the road on my m-m-m-motorcycle,

Hi again. Hope everyone is doing well. Things here are going well. School is going great and the weather is b-e-a-u-tiful, Clark.

I feel like I am saying the same thing in every post, but not too much is different week in and week out. Couple weeks ago I tore a muscle in my foot playing soccer so I was laid up for a couple weeks not being able to do too much, but I am starting to get back on the playing field again. My foot still hurts a bit when I run or play ball, but I'm sure that's just part of the recooperating process. If not, I'm sure when Dad reads this he will tell me stay off it a few more days.

Last Friday our school, NCA, tried something we have never done before, we had a spiritual emphasis day. Spiritual emphasis day is a day where we don't hold regular classes but the whole day is devoted to chapels and seminars on different topics that the student might have questions about. Por ejemplo, Spiritual Disciplines, Why do bad things happen to good people, Being a Christian in a Secular world, God and Entertainment, Dating, etc. There were more seminars than that, but you can kind of get the idea from that. Anyway, I really enjoyed the day and some of the seminars. I really think the students enjoyed it as well, I also saw and heard a lot of them wrestle with some tough questions. Prayers were definitely answered.

Last weekend me and my roommate Mike drove our motorcycles up to Leon on Friday evening. The ride was beautiful, it was great weather and we got to see the sunset over the Nicaraguan countryside; really cool. We stayed over night in a hotel and got to watch a few hours of cable TV which was a treat. The next morning we got up at 5 and drove about a half hour to the ocean where we went fishing for 3 hours, unfortunately we didn't catch anything, but it was cool to see the sunrise over the Pacific. Afterwords we got off the boat we high-tailed it over to a local volcano called Cerro Negro. We were going to go sandboarding down the volcanic rocks, BUT...the trail to mountain consisted of 6 inches of volcanic ash. I don't know if any of you have ever tried to ride your bike in sand, but it is tough. Imagine trying to ride your bike in the sand when the bike weighs some 3-400 lbs, and if you fall off you get cut up by volcanic rock and ashes. It was not a fun ride. Anyway, the sandboard place is open from 8-12:30. Our plan was arrive at about 10:30 and board for two hours; however, we ended up taking an hour to get through half the trail to the volcano. By this time it was 11:30 and we still had half the trail left to go on our bikes, meaning by the time we would have gotten there the rental place would have been closed. So we decided to cut our losses and head back to the highway.

We rode back to Managua (about a 2 hour ride) it some of the windiest conditions I have ever ridden in. Thankfully the sun was shining and I love riding my bike so I still had a great time on our weekend excursion. It's amazing how a bright sunny day keep your spirits no matter what goes wrong.

These next couple weeks I will be pretty busy trying to get ahead because my parents are coming to Nicaragua in a couple weeks. I'm pretty excited, it is their first time coming down to check Nicaragua out. We should have a good time and I have a bunch of activities planned, and, of course, we'll spend a few days at the beach just lounging around.

peace out,

1. Chapel during Spiritual Emphasis Day 2. Myself and Jason up front during Spiritual Emph Day

Gerardo and Chris pose for the camera on Spiritual Emphasis Day

Guess Who's Back? Back Again...

2007-11-26T20:59:00.001-08:00

Que pasa,
Welp, not a faithful blogger. Sorry about that. I got a little discouraged about blogging when my camera got stolen, it's just not as fun to blog when I don't have any pictures to post.
Things down here are so much different than the last time I posted on this. I have boughten a motorcycle, which is great for getting around. Don't know how I ever could have not had one before. It is definitely one of the best purchases I have ever made. It's a ton of fun to ride and gets very good gas mileage. Since it is my only mode of transportation I drive it everywhere. Especially now that the rainy season has passed.
School is going well, we are three weeks away from ending the first semester. I am busy getting finals ready to go, it'll be nice to have those made; 0ne more thing to cross off the checklist. I am not looking forward to grading them, but that is all part of the experience.
Life in general is going pretty well for me down here. I am having a great time with my roommates; Bob, Mike, and Chris. We hang out at the house, play soccer, go to the beach, or go out to eat. All of which are fun and, of course, we have a good time just joking around.
A couple weeks ago was the anniversary of Leslie's plane crash. Don't have too much to say about that, but to my family, I love you and am praying daily for you.
I am looking forward to coming home for Christmas. Especially looking forward to seeing how much the little squeeker grown over the last few months. I am sure that she is quite the little person now!
This past weekend for Thanksgiving I ate bunch of different meals at many different friends houses. It was nice to really take a break and think about all that I do have to be thankful for. God has blessed my life with so many things; His grace and mercy cover me daily for which I cannot be thankful enough.
Hope that you all are doing well. God Bless!
j

A New Year

2007-08-22T14:06:00.001-07:00

Well for the 6.2 people that read this thing, it's been too long since I have put a post up. There is too much info to cover, so much has happened over the last 3 months. So I'll give the brief recap. This summer the first week I went to Corn Island here is Nicaland, it is a beautiful island in the Carribean. Next I went home for a couple of weeks, went to WY to work for my uncle and cousin, went to Lake of the Ozarks, went to Chi-town and saw a couple Cubs games, came home for a week and took off back for Managua. I had it pretty rough this summer.

So now I'm back to teaching, we're in our third week already. Things are much easier this second time around. I have been working my butt off though trying to add meat to the math ciriculum that I used last year. It has been a lot of late days at school but it really is helping the students learn much better.

I moved out the apartment I was in last year and am now living with a couple other missionary guys, Bob and Mike. Mike is from Ohio and started a vocational school down here teaching Nicaraguans the art of blacksmithing. Bob was actually at Calvin the same time I was, we had hung out like twice but it has been getting to know him better since I have come back.

The power situation down here is freaking ridiculous. I think it has not gone off once since I returned at the end of July. It goes out everyday for about 5 hours, in the evening of course so it's pitch black in my place. Leaves me a lot of time to just sit there and think. Thank goodness I have a laptop with battery backup; otherwise I would be insane right now. Even though, the power has been driving me nuts, it's taught me how merciful our Lord is that he gives us the energy that we so often take for granted. He says that He will take care of all our needs and how true that is. I may not have power but I've been blessed with so many other things.

I am planning on buying a motorcycle within the next few weeks. Since I have been back I have driving a friends car who is in the states, but he comes back on Sept 12 so I'll have to buy my bike before then. I can't wait to spend some time just taking that cruising.

New posts will be more frequent from this point on, sorry about the long delay.

Paz,

Attached is a photo I took on the plane ride home this summer. It's just a beautiful sunset, reminds me how beautiful the Lord created his earth.

A pic of me and my lil sis Britter

Random Info...winding down

2007-05-24T20:13:00.000-07:00

So I've been slackin off on getting this lastest blog entry in, but that's mostly cause there is not much to tell. Pretty much been staying busy working and ready for the year to end. One more full week left and then three days of finals. Been playing a lot of basketball, a little bit of soccer, some frisbee, but mostly just been workin.

Couple weeks ago I was playing basketball with some Nicas, went up for a rebound got my legs swept out from under me and landed on my back. So that layed me up for a couple days, although I couldn't keep myself off the court so I just kept playing; probably not the best idea.

Took a couple pics of some students in one of my classes I'll put below, one of them is Gerson who is one of the guys I wrote about in my last blog, he's the one with the big smile. The rest is just some random pics that I tried to take without the students noticing but that didn't work very well, they of course are trying to hide from the camera, so I just put the couple decent ones that I had below. I'll definitely get more before the summer to show you.

This past week was supposed to be my sister and brother-in-law's anniversary, so that was a rough couple days. Usually doin alright, but spent a couple days bummin' around thinking about it.

So...sorry to say, that's about it. Looking forward to seeing many of you in a few weeks. I pray that you all are doing well and enjoying the spring weather back home, or where ever you may be. Hopefully shooting a couple rounds of golf, which I am looking forward to, or just kickin it with your friends. See y'all soon.

Making Progress

2007-05-01T12:59:00.000-07:00

Well one more week of school gone by, I've got to say that I am ready for the school year to be over. I don't want to say that I haven't been enjoying teaching this year, it's just been a challenge and I am ready for a break. This has been a long school year, I've definitely been through quite a bit and I am ready to "relax," although I won't really be relaxing this summer. Maybe relax my brain is a better way to say it. This past week was a pretty routine week, classes went well and students are just as ready for the summer too.
Two of my students, brothers, have been talking to me about a youth group that they run every Sunday afternoon; this past Sunday I went to check it out. Their father is the pastor at a church and they run the youth group. They hang out with some kids from the neighborhood, play games, sports, and break dance. This was really cool, I went down there and they just chilled, did some break dancing and just chatted with the kids. It was a real low key way to witness to the neighborhood kids, they weren't pushy they just shared the love of God. I was very impressed with these two guys. Their names are Gerson and Denis. Gerson is a sophmore and is in my Algebra II class, Denis is a junior and is in my PreCalc class. Gerson is a good break dancer and he was hanging out 'battling' with the guys, and Denis just chills and chit-chats with those who don't dance. Afterwords they take the guys to a Sunday night youth service at their church. It's a tight way to reach kids that probably wouldn't have been reached. So if you think about it, you could pray for those two guys and the ministry that they are doing down here.

On a different note, progress reports are due today. Which means that there is light at the end of the tunnel. We are halfway through the fourth quarter, with only 5 weeks left. I have a friend, Josh, coming down here in June to hang out with for a few days before I head back to the states for the summer. Gives me an event to look forward to. That's about it for the week. I hope each of you is doing well and I thank God for all your prayers.
j

'nother week

2007-04-24T19:36:00.000-07:00

This is just going to be a pretty brief entry, there is not much new to report. Last week Thursday through Saturday I was a chaperon on the senior class trip. We went to Montelimar, there is a beach resort there called Barcelo which is a pretty nice place. It has a sweet beach and a nice pool, some mini-golf, tennis courts, clubs, casino, and a ton of food. I was worried going into the trip that I was going to have to bust some seniors for drinking, smoking, gambling, or trying to sneak out and hook-up but everyone was well behaved. We got there on Thursday afternoon, checked in and I played a round of mini golf with some of the seniors and a couple other chaperons. Then we ate and went swimming in the pool for pretty much the rest of the afternoon. Went to a huge dinner and then had devotions for the evening. By this time it was about 8, and I went back to the room to rest a little before we headed out for the night. These senior love to dance (we of course had a talk with them about appropriate behavior before we left) and we went to the dance club around 11. I gotta tell you, being on the responsible end of a trip is a lot more work than being on the partying end. I was playing dad all night, the students were fine but there are men anywhere from teens to 50's that I had to keep an eye on, didn't want them to try anything. Wasn't too eventful thankfully. Friday was more of the same, just chillin around the pool or beach and eating. Then Saturday night we went to the dance club again, they got me and the other chaperons out on the floor for a couple dances and I shook my moneymaker. They got a kick out of it, and I had a good time so it was pretty fun. We left on Saturday at about 2, all in all a pretty fun trip.

Once I got back I had about 15 minutes to get ready for my soccer game, we we played down 8 to 11. We got slaughtered. I had to play goalie for a half and that is not fun, we were eliminated from the tourney after that game. I'm not too depressed, the season was starting to wear on me...it's been going on since September.

I've been playing basketball with some teachers from another school and US Marines from the embassy on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so that has been quite a bit of fun.

Like I said not a ton to report this time, hopefully I'll have more for you next time. I'll put a couple more pics from the hike just to keep it looking nice, peace.

Volcan Masaya

2007-04-16T21:04:00.000-07:00

Well my roommate Jake is leaving on Wednesday, leaving the place to myself for the last few months of this school year; so we decided to go on a night tour of Volcan Masaya. Jake had not been to Volcan Masaya and really wanted to do the famous night tour before he left. We went on Saturday night, it's about 40 minutes from my apartment, and it was well worth the drive. This is the best guided tour I have ever been on. We got there at about 4:45 and met up with our guide on the top of the mountain at about 5. Our guide Carlos was a great story teller and very knowledgeable about the mountain.

Volcan Masaya is what the native used to refer to as the mouth of hell. Which is easy to see why they would think that, as you can see on some of the pictures. To keep the evil spirits at bay they used to sacrifice some men and children, but their favorite sacrifice was young virgins. They would prepare them, not really sure what that consisted of, but then they would drink their blood before they would throw them into the volcano. Pretty interesting history.

I'm not sure when the catholics came and blessed the mountain and "Christianized" it, but at some point they did (that part got lost in translation), they made a huge monument on the top of the mountain; a giant cross. So...that was the brief history behind the mountain.

Anyway...we looked down into the mountain and all we could see was smoke rising. You could really smell the sulfur, it was almost too much. We went to the cross monument took a couple pictures and then we hopped into the micro bus and went down to the bat caves. By this time it was dark. Oh and the sunsets there are b-e-a-u-tiful Clark, the gases set off the sunlight. Awesome.

The bat caves are sweet, they continue to descend into the earth for a number of kilometers, and there are bats everywhere. They fly around you, but rarely bump into you as they have a great sonar sense that keeps them from flying into other objects. It was pretty cool.

After the bat caves we went to a different vantage point of the volcano, and they gave us some gas masks because you can damage your lungs or pass out from the fumes coming out of the crater. You could literally see the lava flowing in the volcano, one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I could see why the natives thought

that it was the mouth of hell. It was amazing.

So Jake is leaving on Wednesday, I'll miss hanging out with him, but

it was good while it lasted, but life goes on. Hope you like the pics, I still have some more to steal from other people, I'll post those when I get them.

peace,

Semana Santa

2007-04-10T21:40:00.000-07:00

Just got back from Costa Rica on Thursday. We had a full week off for Semana Santa, also known as Holy Week. Myself and 8 other teachers headed down to Costa Rica for a 6 day, 5 night trip to Monte Verde. Monte Verde is a mountain (monte) lush with rain forest, technically a cloud forest which I still need to find out what the difference between the two is. Anyway, we arrived on Saturday evening after an 11 hour ride in the microbus, well actually not all in the microbus, some of it was spent at the border in lines waiting for passport stamps and van certification, but most of it was in the van. The last 2 hours of which was spent on a 35 km trek up the rocky mountain road, it takes that long to get up the mountain (they said it couldn't be done in less than 3, but if you know me that was just a challenge). Awwright! Anyway, so we made it up and spent the night just getting acclimated to actually being in a climate where jackets are needed, which was a welcome respit from blazing Managua. The next day we went on a hike up the mountain, which I thought would be easy; however, that was not the case. By the time I got to the top my calves felt like they were split down the middle, but the view was beautiful. That afternoon we just took some naps, and then we thought maybe another small hike and then we went out for dinner; so we just spent the first day on hikes and eating. The next few days we much more of the same, lots of hikes and lots of eating. We went on some canopy tours and went ATVing one afternoon. Saw some of the tourist stuff, but the best part of the trip was a night tour through the forest, where we saw some sloths, poisonous vipers, terantulas as big as footballs (no joke), scorpions, and lost of various birds and mammals. All in all it was a pretty sweet trip and pretty affordable. I would recomend it to anyone that has a chance to go. Alright, as this is my maiden blog voyage, and I'm tired I'm gonna leave it at that for now, but might edit it later-if you can do that. peace.

j