Nicaragua!

Since we had Friday off we decided to leave Thursday after work for Nicaragua! Nine of us got onto a bus from Liberia which was only $2 and takes only a couple of hours to get to the border. Once we got to the border sooo many people were trying to sell us customs papers and get us to take their taxis. It was absolute chaos! People were screaming "hey lady!"  and "beautiful woman!". I couldn't help but laugh...But it was so confusing and without Pauline's spanish I'm not sure what we would have done.

From the border we split up. Five people went to Granada and the other four of us went to Isla de Ometepe. I would have liked to see the city, but something aboutt the volcanoes and adventure tours convinced me to do otherwise. Isla de Ometepe is actually two small islands that are attached in the middle and each have a volcano on them. Volcan de Concepcion is 1610 mts high and Volcan de Maderas is 1394 mts high. I wanted to climb one of them, but I probably would have died since it takes 8-10 hours apparently.

So we took a cab from Nicaragua's border to San Jorge, where some guy at to Port organized a day tour of Isla de Ometepe for only $15 American for us, as well as a cab and a hostel. The ferry to the island was an hour long and was absolutely insane! Even though the island is on a fresh water lake (Lago de Nicaragua), its huge (8624 km sq.) and it had the biggest waves I've ever seen. Waves were washing up the side of the boat and spilling across the deck. So unfortunately we had to sit inside, but Nanna (Denmark) and Pauline (France) had to go outside several tims to throw up overboard! Dylan (Australia) and I found it really fun and quite hilarious... Our taxi was waiting on the island for us with a sign and our names, so that was pretty convenient since it was now 8pm and dark. When we arrived at our hostel we thought it was SO nice at first. It was right on the lake and there were hammocks to lounge in everywhere. It was so cheap too - only $4/person. However, I guess in this particular spot on the lake there were TONS of bugs. We woke uo feeling disgusted and decided to switch hostels. Our guide for our day tour helped us find a nice and cheap hostel. It was even nicer than the last one, no bugs and was $5/person.

From there he took us to an old village that was part way up Volcan de Maderas. The roads were actually just dirt trails - I couldn't believe he got the jeep up there! We saw a bunch of ruins and volcanic rocks that had carvings on them from before Christ apparently. The last time the volcanoes erupted was 1000 something. Next, he took us to a fresh water spring further up the volcano. It was called Ojo de Agua and was the most beautiful fresh water natural pool I've ever seen and probably will ever see. There was a rope swnig and the water was so clear! You could see right down to the bottom through like 10ft of water. I got tons of pictures of this place, so don't worry!

After the spring he took us to a natural reserve where we had lunch at a really nice restaurant that was right on the beach. Following lunch, we took a nature walk through the reserve which was actually REALLY cool. We saw so many monkey and they were SO adorable. We had some great views of both volcanoes and chilled on a beach at the foot of the volcanoes. The sand was black from volcanic ash and there were a lot of really cool smaller volcanic rocks. SO cool! The entire day was only $15 American so that was awesome. I can't believe how cheap Nicaragua is...We spent only $52 American to cross the border, take a 1/2 hour cab ride to San Jorge, the ferry, 1/2 cab to our hostel, the night in the first hostel, our dinner and breakfast at the hostel, and our day tour - INSANE!

Our second hostel was on Playa Santa Domingo - a small beach between the two volcanoes. We had a great view of each volcano too so that was pretty cool. We spent the rest of the day just chilling on the beach at our hostel and hanging out in the hammocks on the beach.

The next morning we got up and paid $1 to take a bus back to the ferry. From there we came to San Juan del Sur which is about 1/2 hour from San Jorge. It's a really cool little surfer town! Jordan actually came here on his trip last summer too. We went out Saturday night with a bunch of people we met in our hostel. So much fun! Today we're going to just chill on the beach for a little bit before heading back to Costa Rica! Work tomorrow! Which I can't wait for...I absolutely love the school that I work in and I've started going to Martina Bustos everyday after work.

Anyways, I'll update later this week about my travel plans for next weekend and about what's new at school!

Love you all,

Kate

After the spring he took