The Good Life

HAPPY EASTER!!!! HE IS RISEN :)

 Wowie, Easter break was QUITE an amazing adventure, and we are back safely in Gracias!  We made it to Nicaragua, Costa Rica AND El Salvador even...God's world is SO beautiful and I am so excited to share my adventures with you through words and pictures, enjoy!

Saturday morning Kiley, Amy, Tabitha and I headed out for an adventure we had been waiting a good time for.  We headed to Tegus first, making our way by night to the border of Nicaragua.  We had planned to stay in Nicaragua for a day or two in the beginning, but there were issues with our visas, and we would have been illegally there in the next two days if we stayed there.  We thought our school figured everything out with our visas, but it turns out that because Nicaragua is in the same region as Honduras, there were problems.  We decided to just stay the night and then head to Costa Rica right away, and enjoy Nicaragua on our way back.  We got through the border on our "taxis" which were men on bikes with wooden carts in front for us to sit in.  We then got on a bus and headed to the town of Leon, staying at a hostel called Sonati, and rested up to head out the next morning to Costa Rica.

We woke up at 5am to catch our buses to Playa Tamarindo where we were going to stay in Costa Rica.  Because it was Semana Santa, all of the buses were EXTRA crowded.  These buses are normally packed, but we are talking about 200 people on a 50 person bus.  It was not fun!  On one of the buses, we were all standing up and everyone was so packed together I began to feel claustrophobic and have a small anxiety attack.  I knew I was going to either pass out or vomit if I didn't sit down and get some air fast.  Thankfully we were towards the back of the bus, and a family rearranged themselves so I could sit in a small section in the very back corner and have the breeze from the window, which helped me feel much better.  I gave all the children some Trident gum and their smiles and chomping on the gum non-stop also brought a huge smile to my face.  We had a few more issues with the border for Costa Rica, because they needed proof we were coming back into Honduras, and they wouldn't allow us to show them our plane tickets.  All of the buses we had been taking and planned to take didn't provide tickets, so we had no other option but to buy their only expensive bus back..kind of like a tourist trap for us.  It was only $25, but we didn't need to spend that amount of money when other buses cost barely a fraction of that price, but we had no other choice--so we bought that bus ticket for our journey back to Nicaragua, for two days later.  After we figured the border problems out, we soon we made it to Tamarindo, which was as much of a surfer town as you can it-it was awesome!  There were tons of tourists everywhere, and the beach and the music just made it really feel like vacation.  We found a surf hostel, La Oveja Negra, and got a room.  We walked around the town for a bit, finding some dinner and then we played ping-pong at our hostel and just relaxed.  

The next morning we all woke up early and went for a nice run on the beach.  We found breakfast at a place down the rode, and then we enjoyed the beach all day together.  We made a mermaid in the sand, swam in the waves in the ocean, and enjoyed the sunshine.  Soon we realized we had enjoyed too much sunshine, and were all fried, oops!  We went back to the hostel and napped for a bit and then we headed back to the beach to play some sand volleyball before sunset.  We met two guys from MICHIGAN (woot woot!), Pat and Ben, who also played with us.  After the sunset we cleaned up and headed out for a yummy dinner we were all excited about, sushi!  It was every bit of delicious.  After, us girls tore up the dance floor for the night!

The next morning we took the 9am bus to head back to Nicaragua.  I ended up getting really sick on the buses and was puking in bags--it was awful.  I felt so sick and I just felt like my skin was burning and I couldn't sit still.  We got off at a stop to wait for our expensive bus back to Nicaragua, which happened to be a gas station.  We waited there for about an hour or so, where I continued to be soaked in sweat and vomiting up even food from the morning before.  I was starting to get really scared--that's when Tabitha and I crossed the road to the pharmacy that happened to be there.  We talked to the pharmacist and she said I was fine, but she would give me two injections to ease the pain and vomiting and relax my body.  I had never been so excited for shots in my life.  So there in the random pharmacy in Liberia, Costa Rica, I went into the small room and got a shot in my left butt cheek, and then to even it up, another in my right butt cheek.  What a morning it had already been!  We walked back to the gas station just as our expensive bus pulled up--air conditioning and comfortable seats and all.  With the cool air and medicine in my body, I instantly began to feel better.  I cannot tell you how much thanks I continued to give God throughout that day for both the pharmacy and that expensive bus none of us wanted to pay for, but that ended up being a huge relief for me.  God is good.

We finally made it to the ferry to take us to the volcanic islands in Nicaragua of Ometepe.  The volcanic islands are on a huge fresh water lake--which seemed like the ocean or one of the great lakes to me.  The ferry before had just left and we were sitting and waiting for ours to arrive when I noticed a man ahead on the sidewalk take off his shirt and climb down the rocks into the water.  I instantly scanned the water for what he was doing when I noticed a man in the water trying to stay afloat.  Men on the other ferry had also just thrown the safety raft into the water and one of them began to swim towards the drowning man as well.  The waves were big and the man continued to come up and go under water.  The men were close by this time, but my prayers were still going strong.  Thankfully they made it to the man and pulled him safely into shore.  We later found out that the man had put his stuff on the last ferry to go to the islands for someone, but he didn't want to go to the island himself--the ferry left before he got off--so he decided to jump and swim to shore a bit after it left.  Thank the Lord those men were able to save him!

We got to the islands and found our hotel--The American Hotel & Cafe, which was run by an elderly American couple.  We walked around the small town a bit and found some pizza, and then rested up for the night.  The next morning we had breakfast and then decided to rent scooters to ride to a small beach at a National Park about 20 minutes away.  It was so beautiful to be riding through the islands on scooters, dodging stray dogs and even more cows.  We were almost to the beach, and turned down a road with a lot of loose sand, and Tabitha and Amy fell on a turn in front of us.  Luckily it was very sandy and they just got a couple of scrapes.  The small beach was very beautiful and we swam in the fresh water lake.  After awhile we walked through the park a bit to get to a lagoon, where we wanted to swim across to a small island.  We started to swim, but soon realized the current was way too strong and we would not be able to safely make it to the island.  So we enjoyed the scenery and water for a bit more before walking back to our mopeds and heading back into town. We enjoyed lunch quickly and then took the ferry back, and found Louis, the taxi driver we had met the night before and hired to drive us the three and half hours back to the city of Leon, where we originally planned to stay in Nicaragua.  We had some price issues with Louis in the beginning because we realized there were two Leons, and he wasn't planning to take us to the right one.  All throughout this trip we were VERY thankful for Tabitha's Spanish that we ended up needed very often.  She worked it out with him and we continued on our way to Leon. 

We checked back into Sonati, found a restaurant with delicious chicken wraps, and looked at souvenirs in the park.  The next morning we made breakfast at our hostel and then walked around the town a bit.  All of the museums and shops we wanted to look at were closed because of Semana Santa unfortunately.  We ate lunch at another hostel down the road, and then went back to our hostel to plan our way back to Honduras, since we decided we would be able to make it to El Salvador as well.  After planning for a bit, we got ready to head to the activity I enjoyed the most: volcano sledding!  Tabitha had done it last year, so she decided to hang back at the hostel.  Kiley, Amy and I headed out with our tour guide Nony to Cerro Negro, about a half hour away.  Nony was such a cool fella, originally from Israel, but working in Nicaragua for many years as a volunteer.  Him and our hostel Sonati work with young children and teaches them the importance of the environment and how to keep it clean.  We hiked the hour up the volcano learning so much more about volcanoes, while seeing the craters, and gases being released and feeling the heat from below.  It was like being on another planet!  We went up diagonally, reaching the top in one hour.  The view was incredible!  We had to wait quite awhile on the top for the group in front of us to finish, so we just sat and talked and enjoyed the view.  Soon it was our turn, and Nony went down a bit before us to take some pictures of our rides down!  The ride was AWESOME--you had to lean back to go faster and then keep yourself balanced by using your appropriate foot on the ground when needed.  I was having such a blast I couldn't stop smiling, and I got volcanic ash everywhere in my mouth and everywhere else--I probably still have some in my hair right now!  Volcano sledding was so beautiful and thrilling at the same time, I wanted to do it again instantly! 

After our sledding we showered and found a small rooftop restaurant for dinner and then we went to bed.  The next morning we headed out at 4:30am to El Salvador.  Because it was Good Friday buses weren't running as often, so we were kind of going with the flow, but we ended up in the town we wanted to get to, Perquin, before dark.  The rides to Perquin were so beautiful though, and the air was much cooler and fresher feeling.  We found a beautiful hotel for the night, and it soon began to pour.  It was wonderful!  I sure do miss it raining often and also thunderstorms!  In El Salvador they only use American money, and we each had only taken out $20, not knowing there would be no where to exchange Lempiras at all.  We each split dinner to save money, and luckily our hotel had a free breakfast, so our $20 was just enough!  That night we enjoyed HOT showers and played cards together before bed.  We enjoyed our breakfast in the morning and then began making our way back home to Gracias to be able to make it back by Saturday night, to have Sunday to relax, plan for school, and enjoy Easter!  Buses again were few and far from in between, so we ended up walking 5km on a dirt road towards the border of Honduras, and the mountains and hills and towns were SO beautiful.  We got to a hotel on the road, Hotel Arizona, where we hired the owner to drive us to the border, which was 10km or more, that we would have never been able to walk the whole way.  The ride was beautiful in the back of his truck, and we soon made it to the no man's land--the dead area between Honduras and El Salvador that belongs to neither of them.  We walked through this area which was just so interesting, and 1km later we made it to the Honduras border area.  From there we went to two more small cities and made it back to Gracias by 5pm!  WOW!

God has blessed me with such an incredible life here and it has been so awesome to see more of His creation here in Central America.  I am happy to be back to be back in Gracias, and although I am not fully prepared to teach tomorrow yet, I am fully ready to see all the kids at school again, I sure do miss them!