Back to Reality

Landed in Montreal a bit over an hour ago and am bummed out about it.
I'm not exactly sure what it is specifically, but there's something about Latin America that just makes me feel like I'm home.
It's probably not just one thing but a combination of various things. I love the chaos (my friend Jenn calls it the pulse I think). There's people everywhere, on the sidewalk, in the middle of the street, on porches, everybody is doing something or another. It's great! Another thing I like is the people. I've never had so many people smile at me or talk to me.
I miss it... :(

Nicaragua: último día... No quiero regresar

I leave San Juan del Sur in a couple of hours and it sucks. I should be a viajera artesana like the guys I was hanging out with yesterday. They mostly all had university degrees and decided that life in an office with a boss and multiple obligations wasn't the way to go. Sometimes I think they are absolutely right. They don't have a lot but they always have a smile on. Doesn't that say everything? I have to plan my next trip when I get home and really improve my Spanish.

After breakfast, I went to say goodbye to the beach. The rays were there once again. There was one that was coming so close to the shore, I thought it would get stuck. I did a little research on them in the middle of the night. Might as well be productive while one cannot sleep! So my result is that they are Longnose Eagle Rays, hense the jumping out of the water and not hiding in the sand. But they do also posess that venomous tail spine that can inflict somekind of pain.

At noon, Armando came to pick me up at the hotel. He's the same guy that picked me up at the airport 2 weeks ago. We were 4 in the van to make our way back to Managua. A young guy from New York sat in the front seat. He spoke some Spanish but his English accent was so terrible that poor Armando kept on asking me what he was saying. I think the guy just gave up after a while and I also think that he had problems understanding Armando. The other 2 people were a young couple from Ottawa. We talked for a while but they were sitting way in the back and, being in the middle, I had to turn around to talk to them. That just made me seriously puky after a while. So in the end, the van was really quiet for about 2 hours. By chance I was the last one to be dropped off at her hotel. Armando said he did it on purpose because he knew I would enjoy going around Managua.

Now I'm in my new room, it's appropriately seriously raining outside, I'm writing emails and such, and trying my best not to think about my impending departure...

Nicaragua: penúltimo día

So traveling alone can sometimes be a little lonesome but travelling alone also gives you the opportunity to encounter people and do things you otherwise wouldn't get the opportunity to do. This morning I chilled until noon. Last night I was invited for lunch at my Spanish artesano friend's place. I had an idea how to get there but trying to avoid a group of people, I took a wrong turn that led to nowhere. Being me, when I walk I try and salute people nicely. So when I backtracked my steps, of saw again this guy sitting under a tree with his 79-year-old dad. They stopped me and we started talking. It was really nice. The dad was a little bit difficult to understand given he had no upper teeth whatsoever. People here are so happy to talk with people who are trying to learn Spanish and they are really patient with all the dumb mistakes I make. So we talked for quite a long time because I got to my friends house around 2 pm. I missed lunch but there was some gazpacho left which was yummy. So we sat around, with a couple other artesanos from Argentina talking about culture differences and drinking maté. I was pretty excited to taste maté since the only place I had heard about it was in the Che's biography.

Nicaragua: day 10

Omg this dream is slowly coming to an end. Mi amiga left to get back to San José and I only have one full day left. Snif... After the "chicken bus" to the Costa Rican border left, I went and booked my way back to Managua for Friday and then decided to go for a walk on the beach. (I'm still debating if I should go in the water or not because I really burned my back 2 days ago.) So As I'm slowly making my way back on the beach, I'm watching this old man kind of fishing. He has a bucket and is throwing what looks like a rag attached to a line. So he probably sees my puzzled look because he invites me to take a look at his catch. Turns out he's "fishing" crabs and the rag is not a rag but large slabs of fish that the crabs are apparently fond of. So this dude who I'm guessing is in his sixties, chatted me up for a good hour. He's from the city but used to work on a boat, so visited a lot of places. He showed me la cara del Indio naturally carved in one of the surrounding mountains and also told me that the rays that were in the water 2 days ago were not rays and were not dangerous. I'm still not sure who to beleive because they totally looked like rays. But the fun thing is that I got to practice my Spanish again! I was having a bit more difficulty than when I talked to the columbian guy but I think it was because of the pronunciation.

Later, I returned to the beach for a swim and actually saw one of those non-ray rays fly out of the water... I'm no specialist but aren't rays more fond of the bottom floor? I'll have to look that up. Later one of the students came on the beach so we just hung out for the rest of the afternoon. I went back to my room around 5 pm for a shower and then went out across the street for a quick and lonesome supper. I was starting to feel a few pairs of predaceous eyes on me when, thank god, this artisan we had met a couple days ago passed by and decided to sit with me for a beer. This 30-year-old is from Spain and has been travelling for 4 years. He studied to be a social worker and worked successfuly in the business world and decided to drop everything. After the first year, he arrived in Argentina were he learned how to make these really intricate string/macrame bracelet and that alone pays for his travels. It's got to be pretty nice to be free that way. He speaks with a different accent and very quickly so some parts of our conversation I'm not sure I understood. It was still nice to practice some more. After supper, he was nice enough to accompany me to the artisans street corner were I wanted to get this ring I had seen a few days ago. It's really pretty with a nice pink rock.

Nicaragua: day 9

Jenn arrived yesterday afternoon. We had a whole night of catching up. Lots of gossip a even more laughters. It was great! Just like we saw each other a few days ago. Today we woke up fairly early due to the amount of noise the hotel staff was doing. We watched a movie and then ran for breakfast which ends at 10 am. And... we went back to sleep until noon I think. Que parezosas!!!

It rained all day here! People were kind of happy but just before noon the electricity went out and only came back before 6 pm. We walked around town a bit, running some errands and then sat in a beach front restaurant for I don't know how long. At one point one of the students from the school walked in and sat with us until he had to go for his supper at the school. We ourselves went for supper but now I'm just not feeling so well...

Before or after supper, I just can't remember, we went to check out the hostel I first wanted to stay at. You know, turns out to be a good thing they were full because it was another example of a bit of false representation from their web site. I think we ended up in a much better place.

Nicaragua: day 8... I think

I'm loosing count of the days I've been here. To me that's a very good sign.
Yesterday I moved to my new location. It's ok but for the price they charge, I expected quite a bit more. It is not remotely close to the hype they make it out to be on there website. AND... This morning there's a freakishly oversized black spider in my shower. I didn't kill it cause it's just going to make a really gross mess under my poor little flipflop and in the process, make me want to puke. My friend is arriving later this afternoon so hopefully it will still be in the same spot and hopefully, she won't have a problem killing it with one of her own shoes.
The really nice thing about the hotel is that it's restaurant is right across the street hence, on the beach. I had supper there last night and was entertained by this spectacular sunset on the ocean. I will defenetely try and take a picture of that before I leave... If I leave. :)

I think that today will be a beach day. I tried to stay out of the sun yesterday due to being slightly sunburned. But so far, the sky is somewhat overcast and I plan on being more vigilant with the sunscreen. The vigilance is a little difficult for me due to the fact that I have a tendency to stay in the water for hours on end.


We'll my beach morning was cut a little short due to the visit of quite a few rays. Just as I was getting use to sharing the water with them, this local dude told everyone he could, to get out of the water because he said that these rays have this thorn that can really cut you. On the up side, the maid totally took care of my uninvited guest! A shout out to maids everywhere!

Nicaragua: day 7

Yesterday was a nice and long day. I started by taking my laundry to the lavanderia around 8 am to make sure I had it back that same night since they are closed on Sundays. Then I walked the whole beach for about an hour. I had just too many things with me to leave my stuff on the beach and jump in the water. So I just sat on my towel for the whole morning, reading and people watching. A bit after 11 am I went back to the school and took a shower. When I came out for lunch, to my surprise, there was a new student that had just arrived. He's a Britt that doesn't really have any Spanish and is here for one month!!! Lucky guy. He wants to learn a bit of Spanish for the rest of his trip (because yes, he is not finished travelling after this month of lessons).
After lunch, we went to town were we parted ways after a couple of bebidas. I just had to get in the water and had prepared myself acordingly by hardly bringing anything with me. There was a ton of people at the beach in the afternoon. Aparently, SJDS is the weekend getaway for quite a few rich people from Managua. I stayed in the water long enough to get the tip of my fingers all rinkled and to get my little pile of stuff soaked by the incoming tide. The waves could have been a little bit more present but it was pretty nice. I even got to practice my Spanish with this Columbian guy from NY, that was on vacacion with his family.
After supper, the Britt and I decided to go for a drink. Man does this town ever morph on Saturday nights!!!!
There was at the very least 3 times the amount of people I've seen during the week. I had a pretty good time. We ran into a group of people he stayed with in Granada and ended up partying with them until the wee hours of the morning and all for about 30$.

Today, I'm leaving the school. I'm a little bummed about it but am also looking forward to a decent shower. I really wanted to stay in this hostel but there was no rooms left. So I ended up in this hotel but the good thing is that it's right on the beach.

Nicaragua: day 5

Yesterday was a little different from the others. I had my normal 4 hour class but I also had an extra 2 hours after lunch. The reason is that this morning there is a special exam being given to a very advance group of students who came here just to take it. So, that will be in the morning and then I'll have my very last 2 hours of classes. :(
Two of those students stayed here and we had supper with them last night. The interesting thing is that Spanish was pretty much the only language all of us had in common. They were a Japanese girl and a German guy, who by the way really rubbed me the wrong way. It took him about 10 minutes to make my black list. The Japanese girl, who spoke close-to-perfect Spanish was saying she was nervous about the exam because she has a lot of difficulty writing the language. Well the idiot was on her case saying how he couldn't understand because it's just sooo easy. He only shut he's pie hole when she said she's still wrestling with the alphabet. I think only then he realized where she was coming from and that Japanese and Spanish are two extremely different languages.

Now the day is over and I finished all of my classes. :( I'm a little bummed. Also, I lost my fellow student who left early this morning for the weekend. Bummer again. So I'm kind of left alone to entertain myself. Tomorrow, after taking my laundry to the laundry shop, I'll go hang out at the beach in the morning and then maybe go into one of these bars that are open to the outside to continue studying (or just return to the beach). I know, it's pretty much impossible to feel bad for me. I'm not whining I'm just stating facts! A veces, la vida esta buenísima.

Nicaragua: day 3

This morning I woke up to a rainstorm. According to one of the teachers, it was the first time it rained since June. Unfortunately, for the farmers and nature, it only rained until 10am.
It rained a tiny little bit more during the horse ride through the forest. I was hoping it would last more than the two minutes it did because it actually was refreshing and the poor horses were sweating like crazy. But thankfully they were not morbidly skinny like other ones I've seen.
After the ride, me and my fellow student chilled at the school and goofed around with the director's kid, Alanito. Quite the rowdy 6-year-old who atempted to teach me karate after trying to pulverize the other student while wearing his batman cape.
After supper, which was again pretty awesome, we decided to go back to a bar to do our homework. But today we picked a different one with better lighting and mellower music.
Oh and note to the connaisseurs, I finally realized that they sell salsa Lizano here tambien! Que suerte!!!!
So tomorrow I have to go back in "town" to do a few things and I will go buy some Lizano at the same time.

Nicaragua: day 2

I'm just at the end of my second day here and I'm still pinching myself. I can't beleive I'm here. Not only that, but I can walk around and chitchat with anyone and we understand each other!!!! Yay!
So far, we've had full days. Get up at 6am, breakfast at 7am, class at 8am untill noon, then it's lunch, homework, somekind of activity and then back for supper. However, yesterday I walked around town after lunch, looking for a place to stay for my second week. I really had fun doing that because it gave me another oppotunity to practice my Spanish. Once I found a place, I went to this bar on the beach to do my homework. Again I had a chance to practice more with the server when I decided to strike up a conversation with him.
Also the weather has been frightenly perfect given that it should be the rainy season here. My teacher says she has never seen a winter this dry. There is a river right by the school that should connect with the ocean but as it is, it's about 500 meters short.
Tomorrow our activity will be horseback riding... Yeah... I could do without that. Putting my weight on a scrawny horse in this scortching hot weather just makes me feel guilty. There is absolutely no fun in it for me. But hey, I go with the flow.

Life Story

Today I fell upon this site and it really moved me.
I highly recommend you take 15 minutes of your time to read this story of this man's last years with his dad.

hm...?

Isn't it a little weird how happiness is so easy ... and then so difficult!!
One of life's little quirks!

Dentistry Perks

I laughed so much when I received this video, I almost had tears. Well I guess another fun thing about being a parent is having the opportunity to laugh at your kids a bit. It almost made me want to go to the dentist!

Mis vacaciones on film

Voici pour les impatient un avant goût de mon récit!

CR Last Day

Here I am, at the Juan Santamaria airport, trying to kill a few hours before my departure. I had a very good time and again met a few more wonderful people. I'm not sure if my Spanish is all that better but I certainly felt way more confident about trying. Like the previous time, I'm totally not looking forward to getting back home, but this time I'm not super bummed out. It's probably because I know I can come back whenever. I cannot believe that in a few hours I will be back into discustingly cold weather. I'm hoping that this little 10 day break from it will make the rest of this not so wonderfull season seem a little shorter.

I want to send a shout out to every one who had a hand in making this week a really nice one.
¡Pura Vida amigas y amigos!

CR day 2

Just a few hours left before I leave the big city. At that point, I will no longer have access to my virtual world which I fear I'm getting addicted to. I'm also a little sad to leave this little hotel. It is so cute! And there is this super nice guy at the front desk (Pedro) who's been teaching me more Spanish in exchange for a few French lessons (and there is absolutely no gutter to put your mind into with this statement!). You know what's great about Latin America? Everyone is always smiling at one another. Or maybe I'm just seing things through rosy glasses because I'm happy to be here. Either way, it's great.

So last night I went out with an old schoolmate, whom I hadn't seen since our highschool graduation over 20 years ago. She's been living here for 12 years! It was nice to go out with someone who knows the city but more importanly, knows the people. We went to an asian (yes I know) restaurant. We tried going somewhere else but it was full. On our way to the restaurant, we almost ran over a transvestite prostitute who seem to think that the idea of almost getting run over was pretty funny. How come these transvestite often have the most beautiful feminine bodies?!?! Anyway, I got back at my hotel around 10pm after a respectably good supper and Pedro wanted to hear all about it... in spanish... well we switched to English rather quickly.

I'm eager to see how much I can communicate with the people of El Sur this week. It's weird because I was able to talk with the cab driver yesterday and with Pedro but this morning I asked a lady if they had sugar for the coffee and she signaled some guy to talk to me as if she had no idea what I was saying. I know my spanish isn't that good but I'm certain the idea of what I was trying to say was understandable.

CR

I arrived in one piece and with all my bags. On the way to the hotel (which is quite cute) I was having a little chat with the cab driver (in spanish!!) and we both had a little thought for all my fellow Montrealers. I cannot believe that a few hours ago I was in -30 celcius weather. It is actually a little chilly right now but... I'm not wearing a jacket!
Now I'm all checked in and am killing time waiting for my old schoolmate to finish work and come and pick me up. It is pretty cool when you start knowing people in various places.

Hasta luego!

Believe

A year ago, when I was too close for comfort to rock bottom, I looked at my life and questioned what I wanted out of it. One of those things was to travel. Something I have never really been able to do for various reasons. Well, today I came to the realization that life actually listens to me! In four hours, I'll be calling my cab to take me to the airport. For the second time in about eight months, I'm going to Central America. By myself! I am packed, fed and way tired but deliriously giddy! I hope everyone I know gets to see a desire come to life the way it has been happening to me. I use to think these things only happen to deserving people... Now, I'm starting to believe!
CR! Here I come!

Go!

Well it's a go! After getting real feedback from various people, I understand that none of the areas I'll be visiting have been affected by last week's earthquake. So two more days and then I'm off!!!

On Hold?

I am booked to go back to Costa Rica next week but now I don't know if it's on hold or not. There was a major earthquake two days ago. The center of the quake was some 35 km north-east of San José, so I'm not sure what it means for the area where I'm suppose to go, which is farther south-west. I've never really felt an earthquake so I have no idea of the area it can cover. I've sent emails to the couple of people I know that live there (in completely different areas) and I got no response. Which makes me think that things are not good. I emailed the girl with whom I booked the trip and her answer was that she talked to someone over there on that day and there was no mention of an earthquake... Is it just me or is that answer really irrelevant?! The quake lasted around 40 seconds I think. Ok let's say 1 minutes for the sake of argument. Isn't there a lot more minutes in one day??? Lady, go on the web and check it out for yourself if you don't believe me!