life in granada

so i finally just found the supermarket, pali. well, i wouldn´t call it all that "super", but mostly convenient, it is.

along the way back, we passed a group of boys playing a game - checkers, but using soda lids as markers. blue vs white, 2 lids on top of each other make a king.

in the regular market, where stalls and stalls of everything a nican could want are all under the same thatch roof, the girls ask, "¿que busca?" - what are you looking for? nada, i say, just looking. thanks.

they drop the "s" off the end of words, so it´s "adio", not adios. and "gracia", not gracias. it works for a lazy tongue like mine.

a normal sight: a donkey cart loaded to the hilt with packages of paper towels and toilet paper. it has to be tied down to stay on the cart.

most of the people i´ve met are solo travelers. there are far more women than men traveling. most are crossing a huge chunk of central america, such as belize to panama, panama to LA, or even NYC to panama. of these travelers, the americans travel the shortest trips, 40 days being the shortest i´ve heard so far. the europeans, such it´s such a far way for them, usually take at least 3 months. i´m amazed that i speak the most spanish of them. but then again, spanish is touted as the easiest to learn in schools in america, and it´s certainly more prevalent in some areas than it is in virginia beach.

i mentioned to one of these longer-term travelers today at lunch that i´m impressed that they are taking such long trips. he replied that he was more impressed with people who are in nicaragua (or any place, really) for a specific purpose, such as to learn spanish or do social work (like my missions trip would be considered). the grass is greener, i suppose.

then again, there doesn´t seem to be heaps more to do around here. i just created things to do today, and i dno´t know what i´ll do tomorrow. i´ve been to mombacho volcano, where my canopy tour was. i went to the masaya volcano with the group on saturday. i went to the masaya market then, too, and as much as i´d like to go back, i don´t have the budget for it.

i had planned to go kayaking at las isletas today, but the other 2 backed out. one of the islands is "monkey island", and they heard that the monkeys living there were caught in the jungle adn sent there to live in exile so that their owners can make money selling tourists bags of crackers to feed the monkeys. they weren´t down with that, so they decided not to go. i have no idea of ths validity of this argument, but i´ve got a decent sunburn, so i´m not sure i would have wanted to go, anyway.

yesterday i went to laguna de apoyo, a crater lake. it was beautiful there, and i enjoyed lounging and swimming and reading, adn i did take a short kayak trip there, too.

around town, i went up in the bell tower of one of the churches, walked around teh sensory overloading market, been for a swim in the hostel pool, and hung out around the central park a bit. the only thing i still want to do is go to mi museo, which i´ve heard is small and won´t take long.

if i had longer here in nicaragua, i wouldhave gonesouth to san juan del sur, a surf town, to lay on the beach a bit and go down to the national park where teh turtles lay their eggs. i also would have gone north to the highlands to see a coffee plantation and perhaps "volcano board" down the slopes of a volcano near leon. but that´s about it. so i think i´m glad i´m not backpacking teh length of central america, i think i would get bored quickly. in accordance with this, bookstores cateringto backpackers adn book exchanges are in great supply. one guy i´m hanging out with the most just lounges around the hostel most of the day. i can´t imagine spending 40 days doing teh same thing in a different hostel.

anyway, i´m glad to be coming home. i don´t want to feel like i´ve wasted my last 5 days here, and i don´t, but it´s borderline. i´m very thankful for the first part of my trip wheni was legitimately doing something productive, and i had a better look at the culture. maybe it´s just that i picked the most gringo-filled town in all of nicaragua, and no where else is like this.

thanks, friends, for reading more of my ramblings!