Travel Junkies

After 8 hours spent on buses and slowly making our way through a long hot line to cross the border, we arrived in Granada, Nicaragua. The oldest city in Nicaragua, Granada is colorful and Spanish-inspired with towering adobe colonial-style buildings and fluffy palms lining it´s laid back streets. We moved into a hostal right on the edge of the hectic Central Market. Our room was huge- big double doors at both ends, tall ceilings, and 7 full sized, if not queen sized beds. We wandered through the laid back parks, crumbling churches, and down a long lazy stretch of road to el lago de Nicaragua where we savored a rare sunset breeze. Nicaragua is smoldering hot. We have spent the last two days dripping with sweat and not surprisingly our intinerary has us moving fast through the beautiful colonial cities and to the beach as soon as possible.

Today, after cruising through the tunnels of Granada's truly eclectic market, we took a bus for the equivalent of 30 cents to Masaya. Nicaragua is also wonderfully cheap. Our hotel tonight is $4 and we're about to go get a mexican dinner for about a dollar. There are also dollar stores on every street which is pretty humorous considering how often everything here costs just about that anyway. Masaya is drastically different than it's near neighbor. We got dropped at the most third world bus station any of us has ever experienced. Between broken english help from a couple friendly students, Lauren's Spanish skills, and a map we got into a taxi and made our way to the center of the little city. We ate and wandered their markets, one of which, Mercado Viejo, is a dreamy shaded maze of hammocks, homemade knick knacks, and satisfying snacks inside fortress-looking walls. As I type there are horse drawn carts driving by the window of the internet cafe and it's wonderfully hard to ignore that we are indeed hanging out in Nicaragua. We're sublimely happy to be on the road, out of place, sometimes lost, often confused, and in control with our Lonely Planet guide by our side.

Mercado Central en Granada . . .

Mercado Viejo en Masaya . . .

Tommorow we throw on our neglected sneakers and hunt down our first volcanoes. Of the 20+ residing in Nicaragua, half are still active and I can't wait to get an up close peek. Parque Nacional Volcan Masaya seems to have a handful of volcanoes and craters, one of which, Crater Santiago which last erupted in the 1700's, is quite active and known through it's history as "the mouth of hell." Back in the day children and maidens were sacrificed into it's fuming cone and Nicas still find their skeletons inside the lava tunnels from time to time. Skeletons, molten lava, the mouth of hell... we'll be going to bed early. After our adventure we're heading to Isla de Ometepe- an island in el lago de Nicaragua, the largest lake in Central America, formed completely by it's two side by side volcanic peaks. Hopefully by tomorrow night we'll have made our way to water and refreshment.

La Pura Vida

I was ironically greeted in the endlessly and overwhelmingly confusing San Jose, Costa Rica with a personalized sign and driver. The hombre who drove me to my hostel did not speak a single word of English. As we flew through the dusty bustling streets of the city, passing cars by speeding around them in the wrong lane, choking on the sweet familiar smell of burning garbage, and attempting the simplest of conversation I had to smile thinking ¨here we go again." It had been a year since exploring South East Asia and I was just brimming with spent up global curiosity.

San Jose is infamous among travelers as an unwelcoming place, atypical of the ¨pura vida¨attitude that runs rampant across the rest of the country, due to it´s ever growing crime rate. In the daylight hours (strictly) it had charm, or at least I had to respect it´s ability to culture shock before the sun went down. It has to have something to offer considering 1/3 of all Ticos call SJ their home. The streets are arranged in a grid- avenidas run East to West, calles run North to South. I have to say this system might operate a bit more smoothly if there were street signs.


My hostel (kapsplace.com) was the perfect nightly retreat. On my first night in Costa Rica the electricity went out. I was already tucked safely behind the camera surveillanced three doors that led into the hostel from the street, but sitting alone in a dark hostel room looking out on barbed wire was a little disheartening for the first night of my adventure. Luckily, the common area was alive and I found myself struggling (both physically and just to understand) Spanish-led yoga by candlelight. The next morning I was suppose to get myself to a park in the middle of the city to catch a faculty bus to the UN founded University of Peace. Of course I took one wrong turn & missed the bus- or I´m still convinced I may have let it go right past me, seeing as every shuttle bus looked completely identical. Regardless, this meant weaving my way through the maze of a city to the beyond dysfunctional Coca Cola bus terminal to catch a local bus to the nearest city to the campus where I would then get a taxi. Sounds easy enough. Josefinos give directions in kilometers. 100km equals one city block. Directions are given as East/West/South/North instead of right/left- this information would have helped me that morning. I wandered around until I found an open internet cafe where I photo-copied my lonely planet map (so as not to look like a total turista) and printed another map from Ciudad Colon to UPeace. Once I found the "bus terminal", it took me a good hour to find a bus that I was told would bring me to Ciudad Colon, although it had no such label. I guessed where to hop off, judging by the fact that this town had a soccer field, and so did Ciudad Colon. Another hour later, after wandering the sleepy dusty streets, I found a taxi that drove me through coffee plantations and down a bumpy dirt "road" to the school. At this point I was starting to think war might just be the answer afterall.

Universidad Para La Paz

My experience at the UPeace was worth that mornings effort. I toured the jungle campus, sat in on a Peace Operations class with an incredibly diverse group of students, met with high ups to ask questions, and got to sit in on their once yearly ¨town hall¨meeting where I listened to the entire faculty address the concerns of the 160 enrolled students. I can´t say I know that I would be happy living for two years in a rural foreign countryside, but I was truly pleased with my introduction to the campus. For a number of reasons, mainly in comparing themselves to their war torn neighbors, Costa Rica prides itself on being peaceful- on avoiding conflict at all costs. It could be great country in which to plot world peace. After another night on lockdown spent playing in the kitchen, bouncing on the massive trampoline, and wandering the halls of KAP´s place, I got on a 7 hour shuttle to playa Tamarindo.

I sat shotgun listening to Bob Marley CDs on the sunny drive down the Pacific coast. My long lost deeply tanned girlfriends came running at me as I pulled into their little surfers haven. They made me feel home in their precious beach house and filled me in on two months of missed adventures as we sat in front of my first endless summer sunset. It´s easy to understand why you see so many expats having made their home in Tamarindo. The town has everything you could need (with the exception of electricity and running water now and then) right on a beautiful stretch of beach with numerous other beaches to visit up and down the coast. Playa Tamarindo has lots of energy- for nearly every night of the week there is a specific bar hopping ritual attached. We spent our first night (Thursday´s ritual) right down the dusty dirt road from the house dancing in the heat and under the stars to reggae at Babylon bar.

The next day we made our way South to nearby Playa Avellanas, known for it´s surfable waves, fabulous food, and Lola the pig. We spent our Saturday baking in the sun, combing the beach for shells, swimming in the waves, and lounging in hammocks.

lady Lola

proof that they wear helmets.

After a couple more warm nights frolicking around town, and a farewell dinner party, the girls have shoved two months of life in their little house back into their backpacks and tomorrow morning we will head up to Nicaragua via bus and boat in search of volcanoes and looking forward to shifting to a different pace.