Nico Times

Hello everyone, me again...

Well we just got back from Isla de Ometepe in Lago Nicaragua and now in Rivas heading into Costa Rica first thing tomorrow morning. Nicaragua has been incredible....since I wrote last we were in Managua took an hour bus ride to Leon for a day. Little town with lots of churchs, most were built hundreds of years ago and were still standing tall. From there we moved to Granada and wound up staying there for 3 nights. Little town, probably the most tourists we have seen the whole trip but met some cool people from the States, Australia and Canada. Spent most of the time taking in the sites and also went and found a lagoon in the cone of a volcano with crystal blue water. Spent a day there swimming, reading and lounging in hammocks, wish you all could of been there, words really can´t describe it, so I took pics for everyone and will try to upload them soon. Went out to a couple bars in Granada and tried my hand at salsa dancing, thought I knew a little bit about what I was doing...this turned out not to be true and was put to shame by the locals...actually they were really great and took the time to show me a couple things. Oh yeah, also watched the Bears game there, WTF was that all about....pretty sure Andres and I were the only Bears fans there and made sure that everyone around us knew we were...thinking we were going to win, this turned out to be our worst idea considering the Bears left in the second half and were replaced by the freshman backups...wtf...oh well in the old chicago tradition ¨there´s always next year¨such bullshit!
Anyway, from Granada we took a 4 hour ferry ride to the Isle de Ometepe, great place, small local villages with amazing beachs and volcanos. The first morning we were there we got a guide and attempted to climb the larger one of the two volcanos. This is a 10 hour total climb through jungle and types of nonsense. Needless to say we only made it half way before the weather came in and messed everything up... our guide who I like to call the ¨machine¨because he is 53 years old and kicked our ass up the volcano, this might have something to do with the fact that he takes people up this everyday and is nuts....anyway once we got up in clouds the storm moved in and dry season right now my ass. The wind and rain kicked our ass and following our guides advice we turned around at the half way point. I think if we kept going up... that whole promise of me returning in one piece might of not worked out so well.....so probably a good idea. We stayed one more night on the isle at a place by the name of Choco Verde...nice spot on the coast in the middle of no where. So now in Rivas and crossing the border in the morning and heading to Playa de Coco and following the west coast down most of Costa.

Sorry for all the highlights, so many things go on each day can´t write about it all. Everyone we have met has been great and I have mostly been learning about their culture, history and politics....for those of you that know me well, i´m sure this does not suprise you at all....

I hope everyone is doing great and things are well all across the country, considering all of you are spread out across the country... going to try to upload pictures soon, been having problems at the place i´m at right now so maybe in costa.

Well, guess thats all I have right about now will try to write more soon, should be a little easier to get the internet in costa than nico...

take care

mike