¿Donde estas el bus de fiesta?¿Como entrada el bus de fiesta?

um so yeah... megan and I had our last night out in Panama city and it was only a half success...again. We did go see traditional panamanian dance. I was all about it. I have decided, wether or not this is politically corect or not, that latin women really love shit on their heads. Wether it is flowers, fruit, heavy baskets, or gold sparkly things, they are all about it. Come to think of it I am too! I was really happy with the amount of costumes involved with the traditional dance, panama hats, this type of exspensive ruffle dress maybe called a pollera, pom poms, man purses, dragon suits, and best of all enormous purple flowy dresses that were flailed around while men tap danced at the feet of women. I have pretty much decided that I always want to dance with shit in my hair and huge long ruffley dresses.... and if a man tap danced around me I´d probably be into that. We had to eat dinner at this show and I had some delightful squid with red peppers and coconut sauce and then my favorite latin dessert ever tres leches cake! This show also involved a lot of middle aged and old people, including but not limited to a group of spanish women who were swaying back and forth, clapping and singing along with the opening songs. It also meant that I got to exsperience one of my favorite past times... watching old folks try to dance and move their hips. Fantastic. After that Megan and I had planed to try to catch the fiest a bus ( a us school bus, painted, with disco lights, a dj and a pole inside) and then go to karnak a egyptian themed bar next to a cowboy themed bar on isla flamenco. Well let me tell you! we saw FIVE fiesta buses on the way there, I was pretty hopeful and excited! But alas when we arived at flamenco... neither cheesy bar existed, then we acidentally crashed a birthday party, and then left just in time to catch someone elses wedding´s fireworks show. We decided to wait a bit for the fiesta bus, and then call it a night, and then it happened... we saw the fiesta bus! I flagged it down! and it passed us!!!! Snubed by the fiesta buS! we solemnly flaged down a cab, and asked him how the fiesta bus worked... he exsplained you could rent it out... or sometimes pay 10 bux to ride.... and then he cut two of the fiesta buses off! we got out at supermercado rey because no cab drivers know where our hostel is, and we figured we might see the fiesta bus on the short walk home..... we did not, but we did watch a live salsa band complete with fedoras through a chainlink fence.... we couldnt afford admission. Today megan and I went to the egg shaped bahai temple on top of a mountain in panama city.... it was very sureal and involved alot of our cab driver asking for directions and recieving dome shaped hand gestures and directo! mas ariba! when we finaly made it we quietly read all of the bahai literature... and then we were given silk capes to cover our scandalous shoulders. We listened to the service... which was mumbled in the poor dome acoustics... and then we left and said to eachother that was cool and all but lets go get fancy iced coffee and go to the mall, so we did to kill time before our flight home. Yup its true the journey is ending.... next stop on the central american tour Philadelphia... and thats not a typo spelled with a ph not a fil. I cant say that im ready to go home... im ready to do all of south america... but im broke and i should probably visit all of my awesome friends in philly and then get a real job and use my degree....

we fly out at 8pm tonight.... philly get ready!

oh! and we visited the kuna tribe in the archepelago de san blas.... and they are a bunch of jerks! Also Im not a fan of bucket showers..... ask me about all this later....


see you all soon!

being striped by natives, painted purple, and covered in beads.

so i cant really even begin to tell you about the rest of my day with the naso right now because so much has happened since my last blog!!!... you will just have to hear all of that when you ask me about my trip. I also must preface this blog with two a. there is a line of people waiting for the internets b. this story is much better in person, acompanied by photos. But before I get to the good stuff, let me say that before we went to the darien gap we went to panama city... and surprise of all surprisas... it was a citudad... verdad. There are billboards, flat screen tv´s, iced coffee, stores i cant afford ( yes I found the latin american version of anthropologie... it is via vae ) , it is crazy... things are open 24 horas. So anyways after nightclubbing, eating octopus with purple olive sauce, and shopping... we headed to the infamous darien gap... well I mean as lose as you can get without being kidnaped or paying a guide 500 dollars. I mean we couldnt travel through all of central america and then go to panama and not see the end of the pan american highway.... so we traveled to yavitza its a good thing we did not listen to lonly planet who called yavitza unremarkable. When we got there there were tons of interesting friendly people. Of course i dropped off my backpack and picked up my camera. I had seen a woman with a neon colored wrap skirt, When we got to yavitza there were tons of people wearing them, I had a hunch that they were indigenous... so like any good photographer when i saw a woman with a skirt ... i followed her... to her house. at which point i asked her to come in and ended having a 20 min talk with her about the embera... yeah thats right the tribe i though was inpossible to find in the darien without paying an arm and a leg for a guide was right under my nose! i ended up buying a wrap skirt from her and then ... shock of all shocks they offered to paint us with jagua fruit! Megan and I were so excited! they told us to return at six, so after exsploring and getting a bit closer to the gap, and discovering a whole embera comunity, we returned at six, and got painted. it was amazing. They told us not to shower for one night. So we eagarly followed instructions, and much to our surprise we woke up in the morning covered in purple splotches.... what they did not tell us was that the jagua gets darker over night and soaks in more... but when it is still tacky it transfers and then stains.... it was absolutly hilarious everywhere our arms rested while we slept was covered in dark purple splotches.... luckily both of us dont rest our face on our arms.... after that hilarious mornings we put our purple splotchy bodies on a bus for a few hours and checked in to our hostel in torti and hoped a 5 min bus the next morning to ipeti embera... which was amazing. we wandered around inviting ourselves into peoples houses.... which were crazy... and a but scary, they were on stilts, and the floor was made of palm tree fibers, i kind of felt like i was going to fall through everyones houses, oh and you clibed up a log to get in them, on of the first few houses we invited ourselves into was marias... she and her boyfriend were sitting in a hammock making baskets. After a interesting lengthy conversation she showed us all of her crafts, then pictures of their traditional dance that they do in the wrap skirts topless, covered in beaded necklaces and jagua paint, the she showed us the beads, then she offered us the opertunity to try them on.... on her porch... I of course said yes and maria and her mother exuberantly and as modestly as possible striped me down on their porch and dressed me in traditional embera dress.... while megan took photos... and then megan followed suit... the pictures really say it all ask me to see them when i get back in a few days. Then maria after we were dressed showed us more necklaces and then gave us earings she had made, we tried to pay but she insisted they were a gift, we both bought some baskets, and then she asked for my phone number, i dont know that she will ever use it but I was touched none the less. After more exsploring we stumbled upon the cultural house, and some women insisted on feeding us for free, then after that delightful lunch we exsplored more meeting amazing people and taking photos... i kind of want to live with this group and always wear just beads and a wrap skirt and purple dye, and make amazing photo essays. The next day we went to ipeti kuna... the kuna dont speak english or spanish, they speak kuna, and understand spanish but refuse to speak it, which is cool, i used the lonley planet guide and spoke kuna... and they gave us the cold shoulder as lonley planet warned.... lets hope they are a bit nicer on san blas... the islands that they own and inhabit... because that is where we are headed next.... and then the adventure finally comes to a close... three days in san blas two in panama city and then back to the states.... however i must say as sad as i am to leave i am sooooooo excited for philly!!!

The most delicious hot chocolate ever.

So today I went in a dugout canoe to the naso tribe to visit with a family in the rtibe and ask them about the challenges that their tribe has faced. After this conversation the most amazing thing took place..... Hot chocolate was made. No not from a mix but from cacao seeds that were roasted over the fire in a cast iron pan, ground in a pila, mixed with nitmeg right off the tree, and cinamon sticks, then mixed into hot water..... soooooooo delicious. hot cocoa will never be the same. As if that wernt enough we were also treated to sugar cane, and roasted coconut, oh and we also sucked on the sweet white fruit around the cacao seeds. there will be more on this day later but I had to blog this with my remaining few minutes of internet. Up next panama city then ipti embera to get painted purple!!!

The tale of the ¨no show novio¨ and the ngolbe bulge.....

So I am in panama finally. I wasted a few days being a girl and exspecting that once I found my long lost novio, once is phone emerged from ´fui area coveratura¨, we would overcome flakyness and tico time and give me some much awaited bessos. unfourtunatley no dice. This wild goose chase ended it a few to many local calls, and a extra day or two in san jose ... not the end of the world. In the extra day I did manage to see some beat boxing didgery doo players that were fantastic. After giving up on my novio I decided I was done giving him chances and was ready to get the hell out of costa rica. I bit overtired and a bit disgruntled after a fitful night of sleep I boarded the 6am bus to puerto viejo where megan was waiting for me. Now I have a pretty iron stomach... I have eaten at street markets here and drank the water... but I guess not eating much and girlily obsessing at 6am means that for once it was not megan throwing up on a bus here it was me, and my nervous stomach. Luckily I was able to calmly get up and say ¨perdon, nesicito vomitir¨ The bus driver pulled over and I imediatly vomited my jugo de mora and threw away the rest of my pan tostada. Upon re enetering the bus a very nice woman offered me a tissue and we ended up having a delightful three hour conversation in spanish. Which not only kept me amused but made me feel great about my spanish! When I arived in puerto viejo, town of my fling with the no show novio it was apropriatly grim and rainy. Megan and I decided to leave imediatly if no sooner. We caught the next bus to sixiola and crossed the most hilarious border crossing yet. If you are ever going to go from costa rica to panama do it in sixiola... the boder literally is a huge rickety wooden bridge that you can see through at some parts due to rotting wood. You have to prove that you will leave the country at some point ( very intense) and then if you are american you need to get a visa... very fun. After that we continued in the rain to get a boat to bocas del toro. Everyone that we have talked to told us that bocas was amazing.... I dont know what they are smoking. We first went to isla bastimentos which I liked more than colon... the island everyone talks about. We arived on bastimentos in the middle of a downpour. We checked out lonley planets hotel pick... it had bed bugs. So we ran in the rain to the next closest cheap thing. Hospedaje sea view. It is located on stilts over the sea, the roar of the ocean put us to sleep. Amidst rain showers we did manage to hear the gali gali language ( a combo of creole, spanish, english, and ngolbe bulge). I did some shooting, and checked out the west indie imigrant town we were staying in. Then the next day megan and I went to the other side of the island, which lonley planet neglected to mention that you cant get to it the 1 dollar way when it has been raining. We hired a boat for a whoping 50 bux. I figured that I wasnt going to be stuck in the rain and not go to the tribe I came for.... I should have not gone. When we got to the tribe, after a hilarious boat ride with a old man with tons of shit who didnt know where the creek he lived in was, we payed 2 dollars to get in and treged through mud and gasoline, I asked many questions about there culture but got vauge informationless answers, They pretty much looked like a normal village, and there traditional crafts looked suspiciously like tourist trinkets.... But I did get to play with some children and spend the day on a boat. After returning megan and i caught a 3 dollar boat to colon. We checked into our hostel and realized that we had acidently wandered into spring break. We indulged in some cheap hookah and free drinks for ladies night at several bars. We stayed today to go to the beach... which is why people come here. Unfourtunatly like on bastimentos you cant walt to the beach ( ridiculous) we took a 4 dollar colectivo bus, and then had to walk 20 mins through mud to get to ¨the beach¨which really was alot like a foot of sand and some warm waveless shallow water. Another fun bonus was that there were ants and unidentifiable ¨bugs¨maybe, that looked like small clear quills or needles that kept atacking our feet and causing a ton of pain. We got to the beach and said screw this and screw this archepelego, we walked back to the dock and sunbathed until the bus came. We are off to the wekso station in parque amistad to see the naso teribe next.... Lets hope that goes better. After that we will be off the the embera and wounan tribe to be painted purple!

poor decorating, methodist missions, crayola walls, and lost novios.....

well loyal bloggers it has been a while. Let me preface this by saying that I am in an ornery mood right now. Why am I bloging? I am in hotel pange again with free internet and no berny... thats right no novio. My novio that i have been planning to meet back up with for a month is mia... well actually i am pretty sure is boss and freind who is um praying for my safe travels and wishing me well, is keeping berny hostage in a distant mountainrange that is fui a la area coveratura... in other words so cell signal no internet. Why i was not informed of this is beyond me... but the last e4mail was i love you i cant wait to see you... so now i am in san jose standing at the trendy email in the bar at my douchy hostel... wanting no one but him... but I will only let myself be disapoiunted for another day and then its time to move on to panama. I am so excited for panama. So nowe that that disclamer is over.... its time to talk about el salvador! getting there was a bit complicated from belize and resulted in another night at dona goya... one of my favorite hostels. then of to el salvador. Getting there took a day and resulted in uys staying in san salvador... only slightly less frightening than managua.... but then again the guide book did not warn us that the majority of hotels rent by the hour in managua... as is the case in san salvador. We checked into american guest house, which rents by the night not the hour but just barely. The decor of our room was hilarious.... its where my facebook profile picture is taken. It was at if 1975 had a epileptic fit and vomited all over the room. There was some peeling 70s print wall paper, printed bed linens which did not match, a non functional tv cerca 1968, a bright blue fan, a tourism poster of el salvador, and a glass unicorn lamp. Naturally megan and i spent the entire night taking photographs and posing in pattered dresses. after all this fun I went to use the bathroom only to dicover antenae poking out of a hole oposite the toilet in our bathroom, I ceased all bathroom activities. Megan decided to brave it and wound up being eqauly freaked and beating the wall to frighten our roach friends while she went pee. We slept with the lights on and left in the wee hours fo la palma. Whatever cruel foce that alowed us to stumble upon american guest house allowed us to stumble upon a great hotel in la palma. We asked for a fdouble room and received a 8 dollar per person suite. Literally. Tile floors, two twin beds and two full beds all with real matresses and box springs, a table, a patio with hamocks, a fridge and a tiled bathroom full of mirors and shelves. I of course took of my bags and jumped across the room atop the sea of matresses. La palma was an adorable town full of mirors and adorably painted things... and not much else. Megan and I had a blast window shopping and eating and crafting at our table. We left in the morning for alegria. we missed the last bus to allegria but everyone was so friendly that they found us a cheap tuk tuk that took us with all of our bags up the mountain to allegria and searched intensly for a hotel for us once we found the one we wanted closed. I am convinced that no one visits el salvador... we did not see one tourist and as a result everyone was SO friendly. We had come to allegria for the hotel that we could not find that lonley planet said was run by a cute couple who teach art and have a gallery in the hostel, it alsoi said that we could help with classes. the first day there we could not find the hostel owners but were assured it was open. Instead we tried to go to the quote un quote healing waters that was a short walk down hil, about 20 mins, actually lonley planet was wrong... after ignoring directions from some school children who were stalking us, we found out that is is actually a hour uphill, i told the children that they did not love me and should go to school, and we headed up the hill. when we finally arived we payed our 20 cents admission and swam in the ciy bright green healing waters... which actually turned out to just be cold and muddy on the bottom, i beleive there are still some healing waters on my shoe. We returned to our hotel , which by the way was decorated with religous icons and strange wooden animals. The next day we wound up finding the people who run the art coop, we thought we might stay another day and teach a class, but first we needed money. After finding that the atm in the town literally did not have 5 dollars in it we left the enxt day for nicuragua. Rather than going back to san salvador we decioded to take the unknown route to the border and not backtrack. After 7 buses, a tuk tuk, a rickshaw, and a cab, we found ourselves in nicuragua in a crapy hostel with dirt on the beds. After a dinner of SALAD!!! and a pina colada, and a ok nights sleep we found a better hostel and camped out there until we left for megans aunts methodist mission. Now this is not my normal vacation scene... a christian misson, but it was a nice break. We helped some people, ate some free food, slept on real beds and most inportantly did LOTS of free laundry. All thanks to the generosity of the mission and megans aunt. And megan and i finally got to teach an art class, but this time for orphans at the schools mission, pretty great. To all of you from the mission who are reading this thanks a million! well blogging has made me a bit less sad... I think im going to use my cheap international calling privledges now... hopefully I will have a exubverant post next... we shall see

belize it or not they dont want us in dangriga no mo!

so belize.... its kind of crazy. Belize is a interesting cultural salad; originally latin, lots of africans migrated thanks to the brits, they are the ´indigenous people´of belize... i supose they exist and they are called garifuna, then more imigrants from asia, then, and i think this is most recent, imigrants from india, oh yeah and german menonites have been there for ages too, and they have rastafarian acents just like everyone else.... and there are some mayans and latin people too. Now I dont want you to think that Belize is not mostly english speaking dark skined caribs.... im just not sure about ´garifuna´we were told by lonley planet that the garifuna still drummed and dressed traditionaly, they were suposed to be in guatemala, honduras and definetly belize.... however tradition dress did not happen, and megan and i think that when they see us they stop drumming. The people in la moskitia were most likely garifuna... not that they would know it. but actually I´m getting ahead of myself. We started our journey in orange walk, we got of the bus and were imediatly flung into a parade for a mayoral canadate. They are very enthusiastic about their politics.... later we would hear the election time song... among my favorites. we checked into our shity ´concrete box with scorching hot water´as lonley planet called it and then ate some shitty chinese food. then we were sold the exact tour we were looking for off the street, slowly we realized that our tour guide was really into me but luckily I was able to evade him. We took the long boat ride down the river to the ruins, and they were pretty cool, but honestly I think im ruined out after tikal... oh shit i dint write about that yet... tikal was friken huge, and awesome, and really exspensive... anyways after the tour we returned to our hotel with the cute asian couple with the two fluffy dogs. and the next morning we left for dangriga. I knew dangriga would be cool because we listened to reggae the whole way on the chicken bus. we got there and we saw some more houses on stilts and some creole food that we had never heard of. I convinced megan that we should totally eat from the shack on the side of the road.. we at garnaches ( corn chips with cheses and coleslaw and katchup) and sorel juice, and a burito like no latin burito ive had. we asked our hostile about garifuna druming and val of vals hostel, said maybe on the weekend, which is also what the guy hitting on us at the bus station said. So we decided to go to placencia ( which of course we called placenta) to go to the beach, we did that for a day and intended on two days but stupidly let oursleves get so burned as a result of limeaide and good books as ample distraction, that really we couldnt handle another day at the beach. So after retreiveing our jelly from the ladys fridge in the morning after the invitation, ´sur gal go up da an get yo jellay, its no prob-lem´we headed back to dangriga... to go to the garifuna museum if nothing else.... and maybe even hear some druming. It was at the museum that we learned that the diferences between black people and garifuna would be sublte... and maybe we had been seeing them all along ( kind of like santa, if you beleive hes all around). we also learned about several migrations, punta dancing ( garifuna mating dance similar to a very reserved and subtle dropping it like its hot but shake), and making casava bread. After that I went to go shoot and got in trouble for taking a picture of a grocery store because the men sitting on the stoop thought i should pay them, and clearly i hated people in dangirga and was trying to get rich. After eating some more garnaches.. we set out to search for druming...we tried three times at various hours and all we found was empty bars and a truck full of guys who hit on us and slowly drove by us trying to talk to us as we were walking... awesome. We left the next morning for belize city. Before we left more people tried hitting on us, and when we did not respond they told us that you dont treat people like that and that if we hate black people so much than dont come to dangriga... I replied that it had nothing to do with their skin but that i just didnt feel like being hit on this early in the morning, and i reminded them that megan was dating black man. Then we were told that we arnt welcome in dangriga.. they said dont come back! and we said dont were thanks to you we wont! once in belize city, We checked into another shit hole hotel only to find that there was an 11pm curfew... even though we needed menonites to help us get into that hotel... we left and went acros the street to an even shitier hotel, struck a deal with the french canadian guy who ran it, and we were granted an exstended curfew... midnight, then we turn into a pumkin. We went to ´the club´only to find that there was a pricey cover and a ton of people waiting for the price to drop or th band to show... at around midnight... a garifuna band showed up... for a punta dance party.... obviously we stayed. We watched punta in action... and danced a bit, looking painfully white. I ended up non sexually dancing with a stoned guy with dreads who I could not understand at all. Megan ended up dancing with a guy who scared away all the cute guys to avoid the other guy with a fly fishing hat on and bad teeth... we had fun, felt white, were offered weed( and refused) , and free beers( and accepted them), and then left at 2am... to find a sleepy french canadian, and to hear a old man making gross noises through the thin walls. This morning we crossed back into guatemala and got advice on what buses to take to el salvador from a man and his family that are sneaking into guatemala without passports to they can eventually get to the us... aparently jesus told them to do it. We did find the bus and tomorow he start our decent to panama... next stop san salvador.. stay tuned.

semuc champey ¿death trap?

so I am back in the land of free internets. I am in flores guatemala right now and I am proud to say that I survived the semuc champey tour... that was almost not true of everyone... more on that later. So semuc champey is a natural rock formation out of limestone that entails several pools of turqoise clear mountain water ontop of a natural bridge made of the rock formation that is above a raging river... quite a crazy phenomenon. The tour was maybe my favorite tour ever... and I conquored a few of my fears involving heights and ladders. the tour started with getting on a rope and wood swing that swumg you 6 or 7 meters above the water, and then you jump off of it. I did this after a bit of debating and i think i liked it? then after that we started caving. This is by far my favorite type of hiking. This meant that for 2 hours we swam slash hikled with candles throgh a cave... it was awesome! at one point there was an option to climb up another scary ladder on the rocks or climb up the waterfall with a rope with knots in it... i tried this after watching many others and almost made it but was too short to reach the last step and after dangling for a bit climed back down and used the ladder. Then we got to another spot where we could jump off into water.. of course we could not see how dèp the water was or how high the jump was but i did that too! all in all the cave was great. After the cave we floated down the river on tubes and then we were given the option of jumping off a bridge... i once again said no to this.... im not sure that, even if i was suicidal, i would ever jump off a bridge volentarily. after that I bought some home made mayan chocolate with cardamon from a girl on the street... and it was fantastic. then we went to semuc champey... i swam in the amazing pools and went close to the edge of the bridge where you can see the river rush underneath it while a very nervous employee watched megan and i. then I swam some more and then our guide aske who wanted to ´do´the waterfall... not quite knowing what this would entail and not wanting to pass it up if it were at all a possibility i went alon... just to see. turns out you cant see the jump unless you climb down a flimsy rope lader looped around a limestone rock... I managed to somehow do this. This meant i got to stand above the river and below th bridge... pretty awesome. I declined the first jump after hearing that is was scarier than the bridge... but when compared to going back up the later i decided i would do the second jump that was not high up but involeved swiming out of the curent or plumeting to your death. The first guy went and our guide told us the current was too strong and we would all have to go back up. All of us followed his instructions except for one girl and one guy .. our guide asked if they were good swimers and then let them go. The girl made it and all of us watched as the second guy missed his opertunity to get out 5 times while his girlfriend cried and sweared in israli... she had said that she shouldnt do it because she wants babys and they just got maried. He made it finally. all of us were a bit freaked and we left. Near death aside... it was a great day.

the next day we went to the bat cave... and found not batman but a sparkly bat cave that looked like fragle rock. I also learned that batshit is sticky and dark brown and helps with traction when hiking in drippy caves. Also flocks of bats are really cool to watch. Also i wish people had not over exagerated the slipery nature of this hike ... i regreted not bringing my real camera.

we are now in flores after a crazy shuttle involving seeing a valentines parade, being searched for fruit and riding with some smelly germans. Upon reaching our hostel and learning I have free internet i checked my email only to fing berny my novio on gmail and i tried my hand at gchating in spanish... very tricky. then after that megan and i went to the cheapest place in lonley planet... only to find that it was fancy... and with bad service... but it was fun to have a fancy romantic evening with my girlfriend... and we saw the israli couple.. they are still alive and together...

tuk tuks and infections de mujares

yep as you may have guessed that is not a promissing title. I am writing you from a crapy vegetarian cafe, and i have just returned from the farmacia.... as you may or may not know in central america there are no rite aids or walgreens or really any place to buy any personal care products that are not behind a glass counter with an attendant. I thought it was bad last month when i had to exsplain that i needed papel hygenico para mi tiemo de mes... menos grande... para mas sange... whilst surounded by all of the customers in the only farmacia in puerto viejo... but boy was i wrong. Nothing compares to getting your very first infection de mujare and needing to mime itching to the lady behind the counter. At least i got a OH! entiendo... uno momento when i said hablar un poco espanol tengo un infeccion de hujare.... and then i got a worried wisper of en sus vajina? and i replied si.. with a frown... after a knowing smile was exchanged i received some crema and pastillas... this should be really fun to administer in the dorm. Luckily though i got a disquento... my medicina was only 15 dollars not 25... however thats still alot of quetzales I dont have. lets hope this shit works. in other unpleasant knews we made seasoned traveler mistake number one.... we trusted another backpackers opinion over the lonley planet bible. A fellow traveler recomended xela... she described it as more down to earth and with less touristy stuff and a hippy vibe. Translation... only a tiny bit less shitty than managua, my least favorite city ever, megan and i both hate it and we are now completly out of the way and need to take 5 busses to our next destination and we may not be able to do it in a day.... really this blows hardcore. not only are we here but our cabdriver who took us to the center of the city may have been brain dead.. we exsplained the location of the hosel in spanish showed him 2 maps and the written adress and finally stoped him and sed quiero nada mas! caminar es mejor!... basically no more id rather walk. we took the next cab and asked him if he kne of about 5 different hostels... we are staying at the one he knew of. Megan aptly decribed the dorm as looking like emergency shelter after a natural disaster. True story. At least yesterday was delightful. We went to lake atalan, specifically san pedro. We spent the day wandering and shooting. Unfourtunetly my favorite tanktop was stolen from the the clothes line... i questioned everyone.. its gone for good. However after getting to breifly photograph some mayan women bathing and washing their clothes in the river i almost didnt care. I have learned that lonley planet was right about taking pictures in guatemala... the myan women arnt dumb they charge you to shoot. As a result i havnt done much shooting but i played dumb and gave the group about a dollar. After wandering and getting woefully lost in san pedro, because their towns streets are layed out similar to a childs scribble, we headed back to our hostel to change into bathing suits. We had reserved a spot for 3 dollars a los thermales.... solar powered hot tubs... it was three dollars for unlimited time until midnight and it was fantastic. We had a lake view and our lady of guadelupe candels... really you couldnt ask for more. Unless you were asking for what we did before the thermales... went to buda bar for thai beef salad.. apple hookah and teqilla choclate coconut creme drinks.. after the hotub we became woefully lost again and took a tuk tuk back to the hotel. A tuk tuk for those of you who dont know is like a cross between a moped and a cab... there is a metal cab that goes around the moped.. and usually like the buses they say someting about jesus on them in big airbrushed letters.. i recomend them... ok thats all for now... back to the shity city of xela for some fun with hospedajes and crema de mujare

The polar opposite of the "easy" volcano hike

So we have learned in nicuraguia they lie about hiking and in guatemala they tell the truth. we went on another 'easy volcano hike' yesterday... and it was FANTASTIC! I had high hopes for the ease of the hike when they said it was only an hour and a half up, my hopes were lifted higher still when i saw our group a age range on 60-10 the youngest of which was threatening to puke on the way up and was crying when she got in the shuttle up to the start point of the hike. Lonley planet lied. There were no armed guards with us, and no need for them. The hike was perfectly delightful, aside from the barage of small children trying to sell us, or rather rent us 'schticks', megan and i did not partake, schticks are for wimps. Half way up the leasurly stroll wich was hard enough to get our heart beat up and breathing fast but not so hard that we wished it were over, the small childs parents rented her a horse... she couldnt hack it. They said she could ride for 2 dollars worth... it was hilarious. By the time her two dollars ran out we reached a clearing in the forest and saw hills of black pumice sand and piles of pumice... it looked like egypt meets starwars. team tigre as our guide called us pressed on until we reached a stream of tumbleing orange globules and rocks... we wanted to get all the way to the top but our guide didnt take us and pumice hiking is tricky. so instead we watched the lava and warmed ourselves with its heat. this hike was by far the best ever... great incentive.. easy but challenging... nice temperature.. great light.. and even pumice to slough off any hores shit in your boots you may have acrewed. awesome. worth the 15 bux. Today we are off to lake atalan.. to exsperience mayan culture,garafuna culture, weaving /beading classes, and maybe even yoga and hot showers! go guatemala... hopefully our shuttle suttles its but over here soon. Until my next post i'll be soaking in sun and hoping for free internets.....

oh! also antigua is great but its hookah bars close too early and its street sales people are super pushy! but they all look amazing in colorful mayan dress... hopefully the ones in atalan wont charge me to shoot them... because i cant afford it....

pickup trucks on rafts, 18 rabbit, and horchata oatmeal.

SO I am curently in a magical hostel called yellow house. It has free internt, free purified water, a kitchen, and free breakfast... including but not limited to horchata oatmeal....que rico! This place also has brightly colored adobe walls and a roof garden with twinkly lights at night. We are in antigua guetemala... it is fantastic. It is like granada, only more bustling and filled with women and children dressed in brightly colored myan fabrics... shooting will happen soon. It also hasa volcano... now I know i said I would not be hiking any more volcanos... but this one is only a hour and a half... and you can see lava... in fact you can roast marshmellows on it. .....fantastic. Before guetemala.. we were in honduras. Most recently we were in copan, we saw some really inpressive ruins and stellas of mayan kings including 18 rabit. We also met the first group of backpackers that were enjoyable to hang out with. We decided to stay a few days ... not because there was a ton to do... but we have gone to two countries and 6 places in a week in a half maybe two weeks and our wallets and backs were a bit weary. The journey we took before the one to copan was straight out of apocalypse now. We were going to la moskitia... a enormous region with...possibly ingigenous people who live in houses on stilts, and a region with no roads. The lonly planet book told us catch a but to this town and take the pickup to moskitia then take the ferry. This is what actually happened... We arived at the bust station to find a man with no pants on in our bus.... I explained to the cab driver that he picked us up 15 min too early and he was going to let us wait in his cab for free for 15 minutes because there was "un hombre sin casa y sin pantalones en mi autobus!"... later we were escoreted by a lagre black man to our bus... he said "tranquillo" and the man who early had no pants ... had put on pants and was now selling us tickets. The bus took tice as long because the driver kept stopping to talk to his friends. When we arioved in the town, we got a cab to where we were to get the 'pickup' when the cab door opened we were surrounded by a swarm of pickup drivers calling us mamisita, mi amour, and come with me i has good price.We went with the least pushy one.... this was both a good and bad choice. Bad because he waited 2 hours to leave and did all of his personal errands along the way... but good becuase we met some missionaries who live near the place we were going and set up up witha good boat driver and place to stay.... howver all of that was hours and hours away. When the pickup finally started going there were tons of luggage on it and a few people in the back three of us in the cab.. and a baby, and the driver and his friends... i thought the bumpy roads were bad at first but that was nothing, soon we drove through rivers, then we got to a ptch only accesibly by beach... that meant driving on an angle.. half in the water and half in sand. then we got past the beach to larger rivers that we crossed by.... wait for it.... putting the entire truck on a wooden raft floated by buckets... we would all get in get on the raft and 12 year onld would pull us across with a rope... sometimes aided by a motor. After doing that for 3 times we drove an hour more and arrived at the "ferry" the "ferry" was a oversized dugout canoe... with a motor. the missionaries told us there was a big drug traficing problem here... but our driver was good. We had wanted to get to the village at 3 and had lonly planet been right we would of.. but we got into the boat as the sun set... and 5 hours later... after being scared shitless that we would be kidnaped... we arived. Our boat driver woke up xy and she gaveus a impecably clean room, with a impressive bugnet and told us she didnt want us to get malaria. It rained most of the next day but that didnt stop us from having a great time meeting people and taking pictures... we would have stayed longer than a day... but it was really just houses... no resturants, no pulperias, no electricity... so aside from shooting and going to bed at 7pm... there wasnt much. While the trip hurt my but and mad me 120 dollars more poor... it is an exsperience i will never forget.

two second update

well actually 3 and a half minutes... thats all the internet i have left... um were in honduras.. copan ruins were awesome... we went to la moskitia ... which involved a 4 hour bus, a 6 hour ride through the ocean and bumpy roads and over rafts in the pickup truck and then a 4 hour ride in a oversized dug out canoe... more on this when i get to our next hostel which must have FREE INTERNET..... um we are going somewhere in guatemala tomorow... maybe antigua... hasta lluego

drug trafficing in paradise

so we didnt go to the corn islands, lonley planet, the u.s. state department, and megans mom via wiki traveler say that is it a posibility that we could get muged at gun or knifepoint, raped, or have our room broken into. So we regretfully declined the islas de maize. We had to go to the capital anyways to get out and megan decided we should check it out for a night. The book says that its dangerous... and it is... but less dangerous at the book points out than the corn islands. We are staying in a hotel that is inside someones house, ruth´s house actually, and it doesnt look like a hotel... so we are pretty safe. We took cabs everywhere and it kind of looks like 28 days later here. the city was devastated by volcanos and doesnt have th money to restore itself... and another volcano is likely... so its part shanty town ... like houses made of trash and half shit hole... whith a art museum... that we went to that is partially closed. It displays drawings of animals that may have existed ( but i doubt it) and a few pàintings. We also saw prehistoric foot prints thatare cab driver had to ask for directions to get to ... he asked us if it was near the trash... thisconfused me until i say the town made of trash and the river of trash. The museums human remains it boasted were lying around on a desk... we looked through the windows to see them not really on display... and looked at the cave foot prints with the jehovas witness from texas who split the cab with us. After that we looked for a resturant to eat lunch at near our hotel... all we found was a place called the other fish. it was covered in murals of unicorns, the marlboro man, and che govera thinking about the styrafoam fish mounted to the wall. Musica romantica and cheezy american 80´s music sung in spanish and english was playing and we ate what wasnt fish.. beacuse the pro`spect of fish here is scary... not fishmeans fried food... and fanta in a flavor i can only describe as how bathrooom cleaner smells..... we are going to watch telenovellas in our room and leave in the morning.


on a more pleasant note ... in granada last night we ate at the resturant that was purple and had crepes. it was like eating at shouk in `philly. and we got a banana dark chocolate flambe crepe for desert that was seriously almost better than sex.... meagn and i felt like we had done somthing inapropriate in public afte eating it. and for dinner we had vegetable currycrepes! seriously.... go to granada... get your nails done... ride cariages, go to the street market... and go to NECTAR!

super gay carriage rides and 6 dollar pedicures... I love you granada.

So megan and i got into granada at noon. On our way to our hostel we walked through the open air market... which was pretty much a den of iniqueties. We both found flip flops to replace the ones that we had worn out before even ariving at our hostel. The first hostel we tried had exciting cheezy prints painted on the wall but disapointing service, prices, and bathrooms. We ended up at oasis... which i already talked about... sadly the usb ports cant handle my photos. We spent the day taking pictures in the market of the soup in bags, people carying everything on their heads and wearing ruffly aprons, and old women who upon asking to take their picture babble undicernably and then hug you. we walked around being thuroughly pleased by the colorful buildings. Then we went and got a six dollar manicure and pedicure combo... which was fricken fantastic after the volcano hike.... however i kept saying disculpeme... caminar mucho en las montañas... lo siento.. Apolagies realluy were unesicary because my feet after the rough cliping and buffing would emerge in allsorts of different shapes, but whatever i payed 6 bux and got to read an entire magazine about princess di in spanish. today meagan and i took a 5 dollar carriage ride tour of the city and pretended to be lesbians, and had a enjoyable ¨full american breakfast¨and we plan to eat at the returant that is purple and has crepes. We would dance but we found out last night that both el club ( the bar lonley planet tells us has grandpas and transvestites, and the other recomended club) arnt open during the week. We did get to take a light speed cab ride in a cab that kept stalling and not starting with a cab driver who reminded me of mr bean, instead of dancing... but tonight i think we will swim in the pool and prepare for our bus riverboat bus ferry voyage to the corn islands.

¨ I thought both volcanos would have an atm¨¨

so i have fallen a bit behind in the blogging.. were going to go back in time to when i crossed the border into nicuragua on a bus with air conditioning and middle aged woman´s vomit. Megan and I left tamarindo to flea costa rica in search of cheaper countries.... first nicuragua. we forgot to buy our ticket a day in advance so we wound up going on a private bus with air conditioning and a bathroom and romantic music videos. The bus stoped at what i thought was a legit border crossing.... I figured big building... cops with ak47´s ( lonly planet tell´s us this is normal.. in nicuragua) ... and money exchange people with badges.... this must be ok. I agreeded to changing my colones to cordobas... and imediatly got cheated out of 15 bux. Some nice costa ricans from our bus alerted the cops... who said they would look for the guy... but did nothing when i found him because he said he had never seen me before and smiled at me. The nice middle aged costa rican and his son who looked like a skeezy guy but was sweet and kept helping us and letting us in front of him, exsplained that i was cheated because i have curly hair and my skin is not brown... fair enough, lets call a spade a spade. We got to the crossing and the nborder people left right before we got the the front... to i dont know pick their nose... and a creepy guy kept inching closer to me like he was going to rob me or hit on me... i lucking am smart and did not get robed... the border people returned and barely looked at my papers and then we were back on the bus. I walked past some bright yellow vomit and an embarased chic european woman... the bus atendants were covering it with newspaper as if they were adam sandler in big dady. We were in the bus for all of 5 minutes before we stoped again... the bus people scarily took our pasports to be stamped ( but did not tell us this) we took all of our bags.. stood in line only to be instructed to push a large red button which controled a stop light... I pushed it and it did not turn green and the man with the gun looked concerned and asked me to push it again... the second time it turned green and i was instructed to walk to the guy loking at bags who glanced at me for maybe a second and then let me pass. It was sort of like the good and bad egg scale in willy wonka.... the long and short of it being had i wanted to smuggle drugs that would be aok. the buss people took our bags back and then called our names from the passports and then let us get on... sort of like dodge ball teams. I heard edderrrr nuinan and got on the bus, glancing for a moment at the woman selling hamocks wraped up on her head making her look like frida. I really wanted to take a picture but thought i might get mugged. from the bus we got off at the shell station the lonley planet says you can catch the bus to san jorge from. However we were informed that the bus costs more than the cab. so we got a jesus is my savior cab to the ferry to the island of ometepe. The ferry showed music videos that were definetly inapropriate for children, and the whole ferry looked like it was out of a 60´s sitcom. we took another bus once on the island... and meagn asked if i had gotten more money out, because only the island we were not staying on had an atm.... i had not but luckily... i was only 10 dollars short. after a good nights sleep in our ranchero style open air camp beds we went on the hike up the volcano. It was exsplained to me by our nonchalant aussie hostel owner that for 10 dollars we could go on a guided 8 hour hike up the smaller volcano... we thought thats a good deal why not. Yeah we now know that when the hike is described as easy, and a little muddy ... nicuraguans mean the hardest hike you will ever do that will take you 9 hours instead of 8 because you will be hand over foot climbing up the most mud you will ever see, with your 3 litters of water recomended by your guide that is looking at you dispondently. Lonley planet said our guide would have ropes to help us..... not so much..... Megan and i have decided no more hiking for the rest of the trip possibly the rest of our lives. The view was nice at the top though. the next day we of course went to the mayan petroglyphs that were farthest away... and got another tour from a old man who i thought was adorable until he started toughing my arm and calling me mi amour. all in all i did love ometepe... it was sort of like boruca... and after the petroglyphs i got some great shooting done on the island with the atm. In the morning megan and i got on the ferry and at a hearty breakfast on the ferry of coffee and bimbo pinguinos... aka black hostess cupcakes with the white squiggle, while watching spanish music videos made from american movies and barry white videos where the lips dont match up with the spanish... all in all my best breakfast yet. We arived in granada at noon...

grañada has usb ports!!!!!!

this means later tonight when im dorking out and telling you all about the island of ometepe and the border crossing in to nicuragua... i might be able to UPLOAD SOME PHOTOS!.... or at least the ones that are jpgs.... maybe.... so sit tight... or actually don´t because you have things to do... but be happy for me that after waking up this morning to cockroach reincarnation and the early morning ferry... i get an awesome hostel with free internet, a pol, a cortyard free international calls and USB ports! fuck yes! i love you granada.... more on nicuragua later

tamacrapo

yes i have made it out of the cloudforest.... and i dont want back in.... but i think i want out of this country. I am in tamarindo beach...this is aparently where all of the california stoners and rich people go for their exotic vacations and exspensive condos. My theory is graduate the california state school or not... get sick of mommy... come to costa rica.. learn nothing about its culture... and bye your 10 dollar fast food pizza and 3 dollar juice... and go lay out on the stinkier beach that smells of piss and seaweed... then go get stoned like you do in cali. Maybe I am being a new england elitist... but stay in california... you can surf there. we are leaving here a day early... hopefully we can get on the bus to managua... even though it says to buy the ticket a day early... or we will be staying in a cheaper 5 dollar hotel in lackluster liberia. on a side not we did pass through filadelfia.... a but smaller that philadelphia... but still quite amusing. All i can say is i cant wait to see the petroglyphs on the island in the middle of the lake in the middle of nicuragua made of two volcanos. that will be awesome. are we there yet.... still cant make question marks. silly spanish computers and their lack of uniformity.

stuck in the cloud forest

well i'm on the internet again... because it is the only thing i can aford to do here. our friendly hostel staff at sleepers budget hostel neglected to tell us that they lock the common areas from 10 pm to 6 am. it would have been good of them to tell us this.... i dunno when we checked out a locker in the common area... or when we told them we would be leaving at 5am.... so yes... we did not leave our pasports and camera gear... in fact we did not leave at all. we are here for another day... hopefully staying for free... with nothing we can do. monteverde is gorgous... however the cheapest non tour thing you can do is take a ten dollar cab to the park and then pay a 13 dollar entry fee. so thats a no go... today activities may include... buying a bus ticket, siting in a coffee shop, wishing i had my jeans so i could walk along the road in the 65 degree mountain weather with high winds. owell whats a day right. still havnt figured out question marks on here. yesterday was fun though... after our slow tram to coffee we went to the frog museum as i mentioned and then returned at night to see the frogs more active. my favorite was the glass belly frog that you could see through and the iredecent one. then after that we splurged a bit and went to one of the first resturants i have seen on this trip with my favorite desert ever... tres leches cake. the resturant was bult in a tree and the ceiling was burlap covering the leaves with chinese lanterns, there was also a live three person salsa band with bongo drums, and i got a coffee liqour coffee with cinamon and chocolate... i figured i could almost aford this treat seeing as there was no cover charge and i had eaten rice for dinner. oh! and before that we went to a store in t own... without buying a thing, that sold kitchen apliances, clothes, stationary, music, toiletrees, and costa rican manuals about sexual health with cutionalry tales about stds, a childrens coloring book about where babys come from and a sex position manual with a hiku in spanish next to each one.... it was all i could do not to piss myself laughing and buy the 20 dollar book.... but i restrained myself

gringo pete and the crazy monkey

well it has been a bit since i have blogged. and the people at this hostel must think all i do is g o on the internet.... but lets see whats happened... well we left san jose in the wee hours of the morning and got to la fortuna around noon after surviving .... somthing i will tell you about then i get back... and a creepy guy staring at us on the bus for a few hours. after a landslide of no gracias tengo un habatacion no gracias! we went to gringo petes... a bright purple hostel with two top bunks for us with ladders meant for tall people. after levatating up to my bed rather ungracfully and unpacking, we went on a tour of the volcano. The tour started with our guide telling us about his friend who died in the first eruption and then showing us a old photo album, and stoping on the side of the rode to show us leaves, and ant eaters, and toucans. We got the the begining of the hike and soon realized that we were to be govered in mud, the whole hike was large steps into mud and up steep inclines.. where we were not suposed to touch trees. after all of us loosened up about the mud... in cluding megan, we came to a vine hat our guide let us swing on like tarzan. It was a ton of un... and i would like to say that i have a great picture but megan forgot to take off the lens cap. After that we hiked up more and then it got dark and then the rain started. the night hike in the dark with the missionaries spreading jehovas witness doctrine in madagascar was interesting to say the least. I bit my tounge and did not ask about what the indigenous religion was in madagascar, i instead focus on avoiding but and the fer de lance snake our guide casual pointed out and noted was the most poisonous snake in all of central america. after the hike and after our free guaro drink and some lava viewing... meagn and i headed to the baldi hot springs, mad made but heated by the volcano. the baldi had many themes for our eyes to take in ... including but not limied to , italian, jewish, roman, and a fake myan pyramid leading up to hot waterslides, that reminded me of that early 90's show legends of the hidden temple. after speeding through a few pools in order to get the full exsperience in the two hours we payed for, we headed to the long awaited pool in the bar. after seting down our muddy hiking gear so that we could see it... because we were too cheap to rent a locker.... we headed to he bar...with are wallets raised above the water. We ordered a rediculous tropical drink made of coconut milk, a banana, choclate, and rum,called the crazy monkey ,we only got one drink to save money. little did we know it wouldnt really matter because we were so relaxed in the pool bar that we unintentionally floated away without paying... and everyone was so relaxed that no one caught us. i noticed in the next pool and qickly took the coctail unbrella out of my hair. I didnt pay for it because i figured the karma evened out for when i had ten bux stolen at rocking j's. after the springswe returned to gringo petes and was greeted by the incesant cleaning ladys ... who were somehow miraculously STILL cleaning. we left in the morning and took a van, a boat and a van to monteverde. Making a breif stop at a soda so the drivers could eat some rice and beans and all of us ..from many contries stoped to watch the obama inaguration ... dubed in spanish. after a breif freak out in monteverde about money.. my amazing mother agreed to give me a loan, interest free, and told me dont come home early live your life. and so i went to the orchid garden... learned all about my favorite flower. later meagan and i cooked some scary chicken went to bed ... feasted on included breakfast and then rode on the longest cheapest most uneventful gondola canopy tour ever... but had a great time frezing our buts off and talking, and laughed so hard it hurt when the gondola stoped infront of a restyrant on a platform made just to hand us free coffee and cookies. after that we went to the frog museum...where a andorably guy... with a hilarious acent ... who almost resembles a tree frog gave us a great tour... we will go back tonight for free whne the frogs are more active... after we eat our gross chicken, and then we plan to eat tres leches cake in the tree house resturant... then its off to tamarindo o stay in the argentinian run cow themed hostel call ed the milk bottle... then to nicuragia to the corn islands... the glamourous corn islands.

if you cant go south why not go north to the glamorous corn islands?

um we decided since columbia is mean, and the 3 day bus would save us a few nights in a hostel and is 40 bux and takes us to guatemala... why not go to costa rica , panama, belize, honduras, el salvador, AND costa rica? we are going to see a ton of myan ruins... the corn islands.... which are caribean and good for hiking, an island made of two volcanos in the middle of a lake in the middle of nicuragua, and more indigenous people... and then you know back track to panama and say hi to the darien gap that f-ed us over, and the indigenous tribe that invented poison darts and lives in stilt houses on the river.... oh and by the way meagn bungee jumped today... i took pictures and did not regret my hells no im not paying 65 dollars to jump of a bridge at 9am choice... tomorow we are of to arenal to stay at gringo petes and see some lava... then we will travel by boat jeep boat to monteverde to the cloud forest and orchid garden! i love life.

mis adventures in tramsit with ticos

well i am back in sanjose, i had a absolutly wonderful day yesterday. Berny mi novio, and maris and hers went to san jose, I got a leasurly breakfast while i waited for bernie to get back from shoping in panama... its close and cheap and tax free. we spent the whole bus ride cuddling and listening to buena vista social club. It just so happens that my favorite song by them is about wanting your companero to come home and dance, and berny kept singing it to me, it was really sweet. when we got to sanjose he insisted on carying my bag and having megan walk in front for her saftey. we got to the hostel and they treated us like shit because we had costa ricans staying with us. maris's guy lost his id and they told him he couldnt stay i said i had to get money becuase they dont take cards but that berny and i were staying and they gave away my room too, but we ended up staying in a much nicer hotel for 20 bux more, which is alot but at ten at night i didnt care. berny tried to pay for it all but i wouldnt let him because its like a weeks pay for him. we all had a great time... maris so much that she missed her flight, i hope we can get money wired to her because she also lost her card and i cant keep fronting... but we will work all of thar out im sure. I cant be stressed here its inpossible. tomorow megan and i are going to the butterfly garden and then im going to watch her bungee jump... and maybe if i go crazy jump or repel down a waterfall. and then we are off to arenal to swim in volcanic hot springs...then maybe nicuragua..

eyore egor.

well I can't say that I have anything that tops my adventures with moses, but I will say that I have had a great time in puerto viejo. the town itself is a bit touristy ( a bit too much for my liking so I did not really shoot here, well except for taking pictures of my hostel.. rocking j's... look it up its awesome. I have been renting a tent for 6 bux a night and the whole hostel is covered in mosaics, it is sooo awesome, i feel like i have been living in a hippy commune for the past week. I knew it was going to be good when i saw the sign reading prohibitar fumar marijuana in el hotel va a la playa.... don't smoke pot in the hotel go to the beach. I also enjoyed the 'emergency sex chair' that was holding tour brochures... I have mostly been going to the beach with Maris here. I'm generally not a huge beach person.. but I have adapted. I have been going to the beach so much that my black skirt that i wear with my bathing suit was so salty and faded beyond repair or washing so bought my first thing for myself here.. a new coverup and i just threw out my skirt. other than going to the beach Maris and i have been trying to get to the indigenous reserve in bribri.... however we keep getting distracted by the beach and sleeping in late with our 'novio's'.... Novio's are by far my favorite part of staying in one town for a bit and going salsa dancing... Pretty much i have it made... a beach all the time, a guaranteed dancing partner ( even if they are on tico time) and someone to take long walks on the beach with. I leave for San Jose tomorrow with Maris, our novios cant keep their eyes dry and have decided to accompany us on our journey to San Jose.... for just one more day...oh! and i almost forgot... berny mi novio has been trying to learn english from me... we established that burro- spanish for donkey... is not exactly the same as the word jackass... we have learned that eyore is a donkey... the one in 'winne poo' and egore is not in dracula but in frankenstein and is a monstre.... however i was unable to exsplain the meaning of hommie when asked the best sentance ever ' que significa hommie?'

Puerto viejo de limon

yep thats where we are now... um internet is expensive... beaches are great... i´ll write more another day. I´m gonna go sit on the beach now and sip piña coladas....

moses of the jungle

well it has been an interesting week, and that is such an uncontrollable understatement it´s not even funny. The festival de diabilitos was just as amazing and crazy as last year, I would try to describe it but it is really undescribable and i´d need to use my voice and hands to even attemp it. but after the festival we headed to corcovado, martin the guy from maine who is always there told us to walk down the amazing road ( a road in boruca that is mostly unihabited andutiful and running along a mountain ridge) because it leads top the pan american highway. He said we should just ask a borucan to give us a ride to the higway and from there we could could hail the bus. However during the diabilitos fighting before the fie with the drunk machete man, we3 started talking to moses, a local borucan, who was about 40, he told us he had a huge house with a waterfall and lake, an fruit trees, and he had a car and he could take us there... while this was against every rule of safe travel... we ecided it was also not the smartest idea to hith hike, so we figuered whats the diffeence. We asked around, and my host family didnt think he was creepy or bat a eyelash, so we told him we would meet him at 7 am full well knowing that we woul be hit on ruthlessly. he showed up in his dirty led zépplin shirt in a rusty pikup truck, with two other people sidney ( or el sid, the body guard, or micheal jackson, as all of the locals have been calling him), megga ( megans name when prounced ) maris (mari), an myself ( edder) piled into the bak of the pickup truck, an roe on the dirt ridge road for about an hour and a half with all of our bags. The rie was so beautiful I couldnt beleive it, I felt drunk on happyness. My hair was flying in the win while I ate my de abuela muffin and my melecotin juice. when we arrived at moses{s house that i didnt think would exist.... it was exactly as he had described it, in a beautiful mountain range, next to where the river meets the sea, with ten rooms, an outdooor kithen, and suoune by fruit tees. When we got there we introduced ourselves to the kind of sketchy looking guys and moses knocked down three geen cocnuts an cut them open with his machete.We stood around drinking coconut water, and then one of the kittens ame over and started licking megan, he liked her so much he pretty much nursed her han an followe us when mosses took us to see the crocodiles in the river. He informed us that we had missed the 9am bus and the next one was at 5 so we would have to stay for the day.We were all kind of bummed about this but ha we know what was in store for us i ont think anyone would have had any problems. Moses asked us if we wanted to go on a hike, we said yes and nervously took our money and passports with us. He told us we could hike to see the borucan grave yard with the large spheres of stone. We starte on the hike, one not meant for wimps around 10am, the first stretch was so steep that is was almost hand over foot hiking in hot sun, but we were well fed an hidrated because moses kept piking us fruit, we tied cacao seeds ( what chocolate is mae from) we has at least three types of citrus, an some cas, an star fruit, as the hike got going it got increasingly mote rediculous, soon we were in the middle of the jungle avoiing bullet ants an using fines to brae ourselves as we traversed the terain, I felt like an il equipe jane of the jungle, but it was so amazing. When we reached the borucan graveyard they told us to wait for them, and isapeared for about 5 minutes in the jungle, an this point we all joke that we had broken every rule the travel medicine lay ha talked about, hiling in open toe shoes, drinking the water, eating fruit without thick peels, not wearing 50 percent eet bugspray, and the whole following strangers thing, they ame back though ( we figured out that they had to pray to their gos and i remembere that non borucans are not allowed to see it) they brought us bak small round spheres of stone, and then we kept walking and were told to slide down the slope an then go uner the barbed wire, afte another hour or so we reahed a natural waterfall surouned by cedars, an blue morpho butterflies, the walk was absolutely amazing, when we got back we were greated with homemae plantain chips, beans an pork, coffee an ecuadorian tea. we sat with moses fo a bit an then he took us to go swimming ( with the crocodiles) and kyacking, at which point he asked maris if he was to old for her to marry him, and she said yes he was to old... we got changed and then went with him to a shack where we would hail the bus, we caught the bus and rode it at sunset to ´puerto jimenez. We tried to get the bus thismorning to corocvado but missed the only bus which leaves at 6am, so i spent the day on the beach with maris looking at wild parrots and toucans. tomoow we will go to corcovao, which national geographic says has one of the highest biodiversity rates in the world, then its off to puerto viejo e limon, to stay on the black sand beach in hammoks, tents or tree houses, and then to limon, and possibly la fortuna to see the volcano an swim in hot springs, an then back to sanjose... to send sidney and maris off after they fling them selves into the air bungee jumping... more on this later. ok I have probobly used all my money on internet.. so im gonna go... oh! and this keyboard is awful so excuse the spelling and have some fun spanish charachters¿¿¿¿`ñññññ