Well from Saturday to Saturday, Leslie, Susan, Kelly, and I (again, girl girl girl & me) took off for Nicaragua. The trip itself was pretty painless, suprisingly. The bus was nice, crossing the border was more or less a breeze (by breeze I mean no hassles, but still a scorching-hot two hour process), and into Granada which was our first location. We were told this city was possibly the most beautiful and culturally rich city in Nicaragua. And I wouldn´t argue that. We originally designated 2 1/2 days, but ended spending 3 1/2 because there was so much to do. Before I mention all of the things we did, I mention briefly some random things I noticed and really enjoyed.
Nicaragua is far behind in terms of development compared to Costa Rica. So obviously, there was a very strong cultural shock as we came in. There´s really no middle-class, so much to most of the homes that we saw (especially right outside the city) were wood or sugarcane built.
The people I would say are just as friendly in Nicaragua as they have been in Costa Rica, which was a very pleasant suprise.
Interesting note, there is a very strong sense of distain or dislike between Nicaraguans and Costa Ricans. It exists among the people and even the government, which I´m still not totally sure why. I believe the Nicaraguans felt that during their civil war, the Costa Ricans inappropriately capitalized on it, and the Costa Ricans feel like the Nicaraguans come over and, more or less, "pollute their pretty, healthy country" or something...its really weird, but its topic that came up often enough when we explained we were volunteering in Costa Rica. In fact, they also both argue that THEY invented Gallo Pinto, which is rice and beans mixed together with a certain sauce. They can´t even agree with that (by the way, Costa Rican Gallo Pinto is much better, so I think I know the answer).
The police are much more like in Mexico, corrupt. We met two people on one of our tours who rented a car. They tried getting to a city outside of Granada, where a policeman stopped them, told them to turn around because they missed a turn. So, they turned around, took the turn, and then another policeman stopped them for having turned onto that incorrect road...was pretending to give them a citation, and eventually just said, "put 20 dollars under your licence as you hand it to me." Little shaddy...
Throughout the city of Granada, people would just sit outside their door (whether a door to their home or a business) and watch, and sit really. Similar to maybe the image of in the early to mid 1900s (and I´m sure still today in some parts), where people would just sit in a rocking chair on their porch. But in Granada, it was everywhere, and in the middle of the city.
As soon as I got into Nicaragua, still at the boarder, we were waiting around and I saw a vendor with a torilla wrapped around mozerella cheese, some diced onions, and a cream lathered on top. It looked awesome!!!! I didn´t get one however until the last day as we were leaving Nicaragua...aaaannndd it wasn´t. But that kinda sums up the food in Nicaragua. We got lucky with some stuff, but their food just didn´t see to compare to my Mom´s back in Atenas.

So in 7 days, 5 non-traveling, we visted Granada, Ometepe, and San Juan del Sur. Starting at Granada set high expectations because the place was awesome. It is surrounded by volcanoes, a volcanic lagoon, and an enormous lake, called Lake Nicaragua. So of course, we visited all of them. We did a cloud forest excursion, a canopy tour, and spent a half day kickin it at the Lagoon (which although smaller, is VERY comparable to Crater Lake).

The city of Granada was fascinating in itself.  We saw their history with the Spanards, the tribal-people, the war, the architecture, etc.  We visited a couple of the churches, one of which was the first Spanish church established, back in the early 16th century. Got a tour of their famous market, which was very interesting. It´s a giant farmers market pretty much. Some of the stuff looked awesome, and hten our guide said that the first thing he looks for when he buys things from the members is their fingernails. If they´re fingernails are dirty, it means their food is too, and he wont buy anything. Lesson learned there.

While at the cloud forest, it began to rain on us a little, which was perfect cause you need to be walking through a rainforest while it is raining, right? It was gorgeous views of the volcano crater that the forest was positioned around, along with natural water springs and small holes in the ground where the gases vented out of.

The canopy tour, which is basically a sequence of zip-lines, was a lot of fun! The drive to the zip line is more interesting to hear about though. There were 9 of us total (the 4 of us, and 5 others) crammed into the back of a SUV. I have no problem being cozy with strangers, and it seemed they didn´t either...good thing. The drive was 45 minutes long, on a road that no joke is a river bed during the wet season. The road was rocks and mini canyons that we were flying through...being in the back of this car felt like what I would imagine to be...well, 9 people in the back of car being thrown around for 45 minutes. I think that´s a sufficient description. We took a video with one of our cameras, but because there was SO much movement, it didn´t really come out. I´m glad I don´t get nauseous easily, cause that´s not the best way to start a 80 ft high zip-line tour.  Anyway, the ziplining was awesome as well. Got some good speed on some, and some good distance on others!!

The highlight of my trip I think was this following day, when we went to Masaya Volcano. It is an active volcano that is releasing mass amounts of sulfur at any given time. It was very cool. The tour thing started with us learning about this volcano, and the other 4 current volcanoes all next to each other. However, all 5 of these are located inside a previous volcano that was HUGE...you could look out and see the wall to this original volcano that erupted 100,000´s of years ago. We got there was the sun was starting to set, which obviously made for a beautiful site. After this though, we went to some lava tubes, where for 10 or so minutes, we sat outside the entrance and had 1000´s of bats just flying by us (I suprisingly got hit by them a couple times...their solar-skills must not have been on their A-game).

So after a lot of action at Granada, we went to Isla de Ometepe, which is two Volcanoes sitting in the middle of a lake. We went by Ferry to actually get on the island, and before we knew it, we were at our Hostel. (The four of us did hostels this whole trip, with just did private rooms for 4. On average, it was 4 dollars per person, per night! Not bad!) This hostel on the island turned out, in my opinion (I think I´m slightly more tolerable than the girls in terms of the conditions of our stay) to be decent. Besides seeing the typical cockroach in these type of places, our room had blood on the bathroom wall (certainly added character) and the ceilings were taped together with packaging tape, which still allowed sunlight to come through the cracks. BUT...what this hostel had was a pet deer that roamed in the back (of course, they called it Bambi, which in Spanish sounds like Ba-mbi) and a restaurant up front that had awesome, awesome food. For a dollar, you got this record-setting sized smoothie, pinnaple-banana being the best flavor! The two days we were on the island, we hiked the smaller of the two, almost to the top, hoping for a view of the larger one!! Well, in theory...it was brilliant. buuutt....as soon as we were making our final accent to this view-point, it started DOWNPOURING like no bodies business. So my view of the volcano became a view of this wall of rain...obviously, the hour hike down wasn´t a walk in the park either. During the hike though, we saw a cool lookin snake, some howler monkeys, and a tree that when you snap the branches or leaves, an army of little ants come rushing out (from who knows where) to start defending it. That was interesting! Oh...and our way up the mountain, we stopped at where there were petroglyphs (sp?) from tribal times. And I guess this particular tribe was Aztecan´s who wondered off the colony way-back-when. They unfortunately couldn´t decipher many, or any for that matter really, of the images. 

That night I went to the local disco (which happened to be right accross the street my our hostel) where a band of 11 guys were performing. It was good music, and fun to see how Nicaraguans get down! 

The following day we checked out a local beach and hike close by where we got a good view of both volcanoes (the beach was located right in the middle of the two of them, Volcano Concepcion and Maderas). The day again ended at this disco where a famous DJ was apparently ´"spinnin it" sooo, we checked that out as well! Around midnight the electricity went out, which sent about half the crowd (maybe 100 people) home. Then...someone did something, and back at it...party on!! I didn´t fall for the head-fake, no electricity move. 

Both nights we had these local kids come up to as were having a drink at the restaurant in our hostel. About 5-6 of them. And they would just kinda watch us. We of course starting talking, with limited vocab, to these kids. Susan bought them a drink (no, just soda) and we just kinda hungout with them. I taught thumb-war, slap-hands game, and how to fart with your armpits...you know, valuable life skills. 

Our last stop in Nicaragua was San Juan Del Sur, basically Cancoon for Nicaragua. We were told we were retarded for going there without a hotel reservation, because it the whole city sells out their hotel. Even our taxi driver as we were arriving laughed at us and recommended other beaches when we told them we didn´t have any reservations (again...it´s Santa Semana, or Holy Week, which is by far their biggest holiday of the year, all week of course). But, low and behold, the 4 of us got a room, for 3 times the regular price. It had AC AND HOT WATER, total luxury!! Basically, it was exactly what you might expect for a Cancoon-type beach during the busiest time of the year. What was weird was that there were SO MANY tourists, but Nicaraguan tourists. We really saw only a hand-full of foreigners. The beach was pretty though, the food was awesome, the one night we had we spent well at a bar overlooking the beach!! 

And finally...the bus ride home, which...the four of us are dumb. We slept in, ate breakfast at a restaurant, caught a taxi to the border, and hoped for a bus or a taxi to Liberia (about 1 1/2 hrs from the border). We got lucky, missing one of the buses and catching a second. This day we were in 2 taxis and 3 buses, and home in Atenas by 11pm. 

And congrats to those who read this whole thing!