Okie dokie, when last I posted I was still in Chicago and way too much has happened since then. I´ve now been away from home for twenty two days and counting and I miss my family and friends a lot. I´ll do a quick synopsis of the most intersting things that have transpired thus far (wow, that sounds way too educated!)Here goes:
Arrived in Managua and traveled to Granada through a torrential down pour. It looked like we were going to be washed away but our driver said "Oh that´s just our afternoon rain". Anywho, I spent two days in Granada with my friends host family and we were off to Costa Rica. Our bus driver failed to let us know when we reached our destination of Liberia(no, not the frozen tundra) and we almost went all the way to San Jose. Luckily a girl that lived there clued us in. The bus driver the peachy guy he is dropped us off literally in the middle of the busiest intersection in the entire town(way to go dude, get the tourists killed!) By now you get the picture so I´m going to speed things up a little so hang on.
We asked around about how to get to Monte Verde which is an amazing canopy forest in the mountains of CR. Lesson number one, never trust what one person tells you. Ask at least six and see which answer pops up the most. First of all bus schedules or bus stops do not exist. Seriously, I don´t how people get around here. Long story short it took a bus, taxi and old school bus to get us up the windy topsy turvy mountain. I don´t know how the cows(which have the cutest long ears) hang on and don´t fall off while they´re grazing. I found that people live along the way and use the bus as a sort of parcel, letter and message delivery system. Pretty innovative. Sorry I digress, Í´ll put the pedal to the medal and speed up. Here´s what the bus ride up the mountain included. Shoulders hunched because there were too many people to sit normally, a marathon smooch session in the seat behind me(snuck a photo hee hee) by an old toothless guy with a much younger girl(ewww) a weird guy who chose to stand in the aisle and place his sorry hind end(not a nice one by the way) in my friends face, bouncing up and down so hard I almost hit my head and then almost fell out of my seat´(didn´t know you could get sea sick this way) yes indeedy folks all this included in the bus fare! Wow , what a deal.
Long story short had a blast in the beautiful mountains, zip lined 13 cables of canopy, jumped off the Tarzan swing(sung The greatest young lady on the flying trapeze song) after I quit screaming. Visited an outdoor frog museum by flashlight(amazing little critters), danced with the butterflys (ok they were airborne and I wasn´t, darned gravity) stayed at the cutest hostel (my 1st) and had an all round great time.
Next leg of the trip places me back in Granada after experiencing the tortures of customs and immigration from both CR and Nicaragua borders. It turns out being Latin American tends to work against me with them. My friend had no prob at all, but me no way. It was a literal inquisition every time. Sheesh, give the girl a break I say! Oops sorry, going below the speed limit again, I´ll speed up. A quick list of the major things. Read Freddy? Ok here we go. Got to meet my host family, got semi mugged(I´m ok!) got moved to another fam(they´re great) dying of humid hot hot weather(yes I know you are too, but you have a/c) legs are tenderized by bugs(thank you malaria pills)walk to class every morning to find goats, horses, bulls and lots of other critters mosying along the road. I even had one that was working on getting a pooper out and he had the funniest look on his face. Since I´m bilingual I´ll translate it for you. Fido was clearly saying "Hello, I´m working on this, can I have some privacy please?) I wish I could take photos but walking around with a camera will only invite more unwanted attention, as if I haven´t already had enough. So suffice it to say I´ve already visited lots of other places and seen many crazy things but seriousley my dear friends(yes, that means all five of you) things here are hard.
Life here is very difficult. It´s hot, loud, dirty and smelly and it´s truly the best example I´ve seen up to this point of survival of the fittest. I cannot judge people for the choices they make(stealing my backpack off my back, trying to steal my camera from my hand) because I don´t know what I would do if my children were going hungry and shoeless. All I can say it that I give people here lots of credit for getting out of bed every morning and loving each other the way they do. My question is How do you dream, how do you hope? I thank God that he placed me where he did in the world, my own little heaven. I´m grateful that my children have what they do and I choose to believe that God wants to show me a whole lot more while I´m here. I love you guys and I send you a great big hug!