Nicaragua

Its harder than we thought to keep up on a blog while we are on vacation. Usually the bad internet connections have kept us from doing more...as well as the beach and the scenery.

Since we last wrote I feel like we have traveled thousands of miles. We made it to the Carribbean coast, to a town called Cahuita. It was a quaint, laid back one road town with lots of flavor. We stayed for two nights spending the days in the National Park with howler monkeys and beautiful alcoves of white sand beaches. After Cahuita, we took a bus inland...and then another bus closer to the coast, and finally a taxi to a place called Cano Blanco where we waited for a water taxi to take us to Parismina, a town close to Tortuguero National Park (where the leatherback turtles are). According to our book, its egg laying season and tourists rarely visit Parismina, yet more turtles go there than the park. Its obvious the town has not seen many tourists, there are no cars, no motorized vehicles, no bank and not one supermarket. Just a familys home with the essentials for cooking. After such a long day of traveling, we felt ill...it was hard for us to say yes to a local conservationist to take us on a turtle tour...but we did and it was the most amazing and thrilling sight. We saw a green turtle, a little smaller than a leatherback, that was about 5feet long and 3 feet wide...it was so amazing to see the turtle climb to the top of the beach to find a place to lay her eggs in the pitch black darkness. Her tracks were like a fourwheelers tracks would have been. Jackson and I, still feeling ill, thought we were hallucinating.

That night, we took off our sandy shoes and fell sound asleep. In the morning, we walked out to get ready to pack up to find that our shoes had been stolen. We were left with flimsy flip flops, and to this day are shoeless. Jackson especially hates it since hes told me about a million times now that he hates flip flops. We planned on heading to Monteverde and Volcan Arenal, but with the lack of shoes we would be unable to hike, etc. (And you all know, we are too cheap to buy new shoes). So, that day, we decided to take about three buses to get to San Jose and to go to Nicaragua.

We arrived in Nic. about three days ago after a grueling and sweaty bus ride. About 9 hours...that is, after the other three buses we took before. I must say, though, that it was well worth it. Granada, a city on Lake Nicaragua, was beautiful and bursting with cultural flavor, something that Costa Rica lacked. The architecture was simply amazing, with colorful walls and antique doors. We took more pictures in Granada than any other place...wish the internet connection was better so that we could post them. But, we will be home soon enough and can post all of the pictures.

Now, we are in San Juan Del Sur, a small beach town on the Pacific Coast where everyone has a bottle of rum and a hammock. We havent explored much, but realize this town is more expensive than its neighbors, too bad for us. Although, you can still get a three dollar bottle of rum.

We have decided to come home early, nearly a month early, but have had such an amazing time in the past six weeks. We realized that our heads are in the clouds, where they intend to stay, but our wallets are just as light as those clouds.

Missing you all!

Love

JandN