Hi
Before I forget I was able to post a bunch of pictures some of which are from places in Guatemala and Honduras. They should be attached to this journal entry but in case there aren't just click on the pictures link.
I'm currently in Granada, Nicaragua but leave in the morning for Ometepe which is an island (actually two volcanos-one active and one inactive) in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. Random fact about Lake Nicaragua is that it has a population of bull sharks that migrate from the Atlantic up to the lake through out the year-apparently the only fresh water sharks in the world. I will probably just relax for a day or two and try to climb the inactive volcano. After that I will head to the beach at San Juan del Sur which will be my last stop in Nicaragua. Hopefully I will be able to see some sea turtles nesting while I'm there.
The baseball game I attended in Leon was probably the equivalent of a Doube or Triple A came in the states. There were probably 2500 people there but the game had a soccer game atmosphere complete with chants, drums, and trombones. It was a pretty bad game but still fun to see and the stadium probably had the worse seats I have ever sat on. Actually chairs in Central America in general are really really really really (I'm serious) uncomfortable.
The climb of Telica went pretty well. It turns out that despite the hurricane changing directions and heading overland in Nicaragua I didn't get much bad or at least not terrible weather. We were able to summit the volcano in pretty good weather so we got good views of the surrounding landscape as well as the huge crater. The volcano is still active so was producing a lot of steam. You are supposed to be able to see lava at the bottom of the crater but the weather wasn't good enough to allow us to see any. The climb was a two day climb so we camped near the summit but that night it rained a little bit off and on. Unfortanately in the morning it was really raining so we couldn't go back to the top to see the lava and got pretty wet on the walk out. Oh well all things considered it really wasn't too bad. One other note about the volcanos in Central America. They are generally very small with an elevation right around 3000 feet. So they are not to strenuous at least compared to the volcanos in the Pacific Northwest. So really all 3 volcanos I have climbed have really just been glorified day hikes with a crater at the top (which often is still active).
I came to Granada on Monday and I really like the city. Maybe one of my two or three favorite cities so far. It is much more laid back than Leon with a bunch of churches. It is right on the shores of Lake Nicaragua but interestingly enough (and very opposite western cities) the shoreline is not developed with high rent/cost buildings. Instead the closer you get to the lake the smaller the houses get, the road becomes dirt, and the amount of garbage/pollution increases. In fact on the lake I saw horses and cows grazing and a bunch of garbage. Another observation I made is that there are a lot less cars here. In fact for about every car there are probably 5 to 10 bikes. Then for every 5 cars you will see someone driving down the road (through the main part of town nonetheless) on a horse and carriage. I just spent a day walking around the city and even visited the cemetary on the day of the dead. I had heard it was normally a big party but it turns out it was really just people cleaning up around the tombs including repainting them. Actually I think that there were more people there offering to provide labor (even to me like I was going to have relatives buried there) than actual mourners. Last night I spent the night at Laguna de Apoyo just outside the city. It was a nice little lake that was really warm so I spent a lot of time swimming and getting sun burnt. Very nice to relax on the intertubes and just float in the lake for the day. It also turns out that I have run into about 15 people that I had met at other times during my trip here so that has been fun catching up again.
I realized today that I leave for Rio de Janiero in two weeks exactly. Pretty crazy that this portion of the trip is coming to a close. I have also realized that I'm only going to spend about a week in Costa Rica instead of the 4 weeks I had planned before I left. I just decided to spend more time in Nicaragua and really see the whole country and I will just go back to Costa Rica some other time. Funny how plans change while you are travelling.
Love
Scott
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