After a very looooooooooooooooooong trip with two stop overs and about 14hours of flight... I've managed to find my way back to Canada.

The cold mountain air is killing me even though I'm being assured by everyone here that it's hot.

Was greeted two nights ago my sister and brother in law in K-town.... their new puppy Emma... and MY SISTER IS PREGNANT!!! I wonder if I'm allowed to write that. Next day made my way to the Armpit to unpack my latino clothing and start looking for my teacher sweaters... sigh...

Will be back in K-town this next week... will be in Van the week after... or so I think...

I just realized how tanned I am surrounded by all the white folk around me.

I need a haircut

Am loving San Jose!!!

Have had an unexpected turn of events in my life... will explain later... am cutting my vacation/volunteering/learning spanish year short and am flying back to K-town tomorow morning:

* CO 1485 - San Jose, Costa Rica (SJO) to Houston, TX (IAH - Intercontinental) on Tue., May. 15, 2007
* CO 1739 - Houston, TX (IAH - Intercontinental) to Seattle, WA (SEA) on Tue., May. 15, 2007
* CO 8520 - Seattle, WA (SEA) to Kelowna, BC Canada (YLW) on Tue., May. 15, 2007

and will be in Van hopefully a week after that...

Wahoo... so after a couple of nights in Tamarindo and experiencing the wierdness of stepping from Latin America into a scene that looked much like V-town... I have landed in San Jose... loving it.

Had an "interesting" passport interaction involving about 7 police officers who couldnt seem to locate my costa rican stamp in my passport... they almost took me off the bus I was on. The guy kept looking at me saying "this is NOT good", leafing through my passport... the stamp was on the first page... i kept asking if I could show him... and he kept saying "this is NOT good" then passed it off to several other police officers who did the same. After several minutes, they finally found it... and I was allowed back on the bus.

I have BIG news... will be coming home sooner rather than later. Will explain more soon... and this is good news!

Remembering of course the cheapest meals available ever... this is the other thing im going to miss about nica.... namely bus driver chants

Masaya:



Managua:


Guatemala City:


Leon:

ok, where to begin????

people have asked about my bruised rib... so Ill try to explain... I was swimming in a crater lake in Nicaragua near Granada (which was incidently very good for my skin... maybe the sulfur???)

There was a dock about 10 metres from the beach with a ladder on it. I didn't use the ladder the day before but thought I would climb up it. There was a good layer of slime on one of the rungs so I thought I would take my chances and jump on it to hoist myself out of the water. I slipped but managed to get airborne long enough to impale myself onto the top part of the ladder....

(picture of lake and dock that i slipped on above)

suffice to say that was about a week ago and am still aching.

spent three days in San Juan del Sur in Nica which felt ueber-touristy... but was very beautiful...


and enjoyed a good gang of people...


oh and also bought a new hat to replace the old one:


then headed to Isla de Omotepe for 3 nights in the center of lake Nicaragua... the island is born of two volcanoes (one still active) and covered mostly with farms, horses, these funky birds that follow you around that have long tails... and like the sound of castanets....

1st night spent at Finca Magdelena (a farm) only to discover that the next day some guy from the World Bank showed up in a helicopter and had some sort of "meeting" there... kind of bizarre... slept on a tarp bed (not so good for my rib)

the next two nights went to a different finca and ended up sleeping on a bed made of wood for two nights... also not so good for my rib.

Yesterday on a whim with a friend headed to Costa Rica with the promise of sleeping on a matress... have found one... feeling better.

Was not so excited about Costa Rica because of the tourist reputation that it has but came along with a friend for the ride.

Am in Tamarindo now.

Shocking things I have found about Tamarindo:

1) There are no tamarinds in Tamarindo
- incidently , I couldn't find any lions in Leon either... (those pillars in front of people's houses that usually have lions.... they have rabbits in leon) , nor could i find grenadines in granada... but im not so sure they're related...

2) There are soooo many Canadians and strip malls here it feels like Whister.

Will spend a couple of nights here so that maybe my ailing rib will get better and maybe go get an x-ray....

... soon to come... the sounds of granada....

...am in San Juan del Sur at the beach... spent 3 days in a crater lake near Granada... then headed here...

..has been an eventful couple of days... bruised a rib in the lake... hurts to laugh now... also hurts to lie on my belly on a big flat board in the ocean.

grrrrr.......... after 6 months of travel in latin america have experienced my first outburst of incredibly infantile macho behavior....

was walking down the street in granada.... dude starts cycling by me... talking to me in English... doing the "hablas expanol?" thing... so i ignore it and he goes away...

am walking towards the lake in a more quiet part of town 5 minutes later... noticing that the ambient is getting a bit more "unsafe"? so i am holding close to my bag....

and then out of nowhere... the same guy from before comes cycling behind me... grabs the top of my head (hat and HAIR)... yanks away at my hair and steals my $1 Army and Navy hat....

and speeds off on his bike

cowardly...

sad...

have relocated my hair elastic... will look for a new hat in a couple of days