HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN.....

So yeah, been pretty out of touch the past couple of weeks. My apologies, once again could not access blogger for some reason. Seems to be a problem only in Nicaragua.
Anyways, I’l give a quick overview of the past couple of weeks and skip the details or else this would be a novel.

So two weeks ago I to a Friday off and went to the city of Leon, about 4 hours from here. It is an old colonial city, probably the most touristy place in Nicaragua. I went with my friend Luis. And it was an awesome weekend. Didn’t touch a bed or a shower the entire time….perfect haha. Friday night we stayed at his aunts house and crashed on the couch, we went out and explored the nightlife there, it was fun, live music, good people etc. etc. no details needed. Saturday woke up early at about 6 went to take the bus to Las Penitas, a small fishing village about 40 minutes outside of Leon. I found paradise there. It was nothing short of amazing. Amazing beach, big waves, no hotels or resorts or anything. Just small hostels and beach huts with people who rent out rooms and have set up a bar and serve food fomr their kitchen. It was probably one ofmy favourite palces in the world that I have been. Completely chill and relax, only a handful of people on the beach as far as the eye could see. so Luis and I took it easy there all day, spent a lot of time in the awesome ocean water frolicking among the waves and when I wasn’t doing that I was hanging out in a hammock or patio furniture sipping a nice cold cerveza. At first we checked out a couple of different hostel type of places but they were charging $20 for the room, too much for me thanks, and much too much for my nicaraguan friend. So we went walking along the beach asking the houses/hostels we passed if we could sleep on their beach. We found one place called Playa Roca, asked the guy if we could sleep on the beach and if we could keep our bags somewhere safe and he was like ok, how about I set up a couple hammocks and you can sleep here for $3. DEAL! So this palce was awesome, a small beach house, a bar, a kitchen and plastic patio furniture on the beach….perfect. So we slept on hammocks on his backporch and I fell asleep listening to the waves crashing against the rocks. Sunday morning woke up at 6am…..sun on the beach will do that to you. Sunday was the day from hell. An hour bus ride back to Leon, an hour walk form there to the central bus station….oh and Leon is like 50 degrees all the time, no joke, nothing short of ridiculous heat. We get to the bus terminal and there are no express busses and Sundays to Esteli. So we take an ordinary bus to the town closest to Esteli which took a hellish 6 hours! Literally going 10 km/hour the entire way because the road was so bad. It was so damn hot, most of the time packed with peole, there were evenlive chickens at one point and I was exhausted because I had woken up at 5:30 or 6 am 3 days in a row, had not showered (other than frolicking in the ocean) was too hot and of course for that 6 hour bus ride was the on time I do not have immodium or something on me and all I will say is that I needed it. Day from hell. BUT it was worth it because it was an awesom awesome weekend. I shall return to Las Penitas!
Oh yeah, we never went on moto because it was raining when we woke up Friday morning and his brother needed it so we said we would just take the bus. It was a lot cheaper too. Next time it will be on moto though because that bus was hell.
I love having local friends because I love travelling with them because I get to see the country from more than just a tourist perspective. Everywhere I have gone so far I have been able to stay at a friend of afriends house or family member or something. And when we go out we don’t just go to the tourist places, but actually to the real parts of the towns and cities and stuff.

Haha, when we first got to Leon Luis was like I’ll take you around the touristy part, like the old colonial square and stuff. So it was 10 and had been up since about 5:30 and I needed a coffee so we went to this restaurant open to the square and it was super expensive, I guess because of being a tourist spot. I order a coffee and Luis orders a beer. How much is the beer he asks…25 Cords…wow, that’s like almost double what it normally costs….how much is the coffee I ask….25 cords SHIT man its like 7 at other places. You mean abeer and a coffee cost the same….yes sir…..scrap the coffee, get me a beer. Then we left there and went to a cheaper place away from toursit area.

What else is new. Ania from my program at school for anyone who does not know has a contract in Honduras, also with Oxfam-Quebec and the town is about 3-4 hours from Esteli. Well it isa new project and it is delayed and there is not much work for her to do so they sent her here for a month to work and do spansih lessons!! So she is living with me for a month, how cool is that!
I don’t know what she will write on her blog, should be interesting though, probably a bunch of lies subsituting my name for hers saying that I was all drunk and stuff. Don’t believe her, all lies….everyone knows I don’t drink. hehe.
So she arrived last Tuesday. Getting straight to the point, Thursday night we got absolutely tanked haha. We are like lets watch wedding crashers and have a couple of beers. Well a couple of beers ended up being a lot more and throw in some shots in there too. We ended up doing a beer run to the gas station at around 12:30 or 1am haha. All I know is that we had a teethbrushing party because we have pictures of us dancing around brushing our teeth and that we sang happiness is a warm gun and other beatles song at full force. The nieghbours probaly think that this white nboy is crazy with all the singing and gringo music coming from my house. Anyways, woke up Friday morning and the couch was in the kitchen and the armchairs were strewn about the living room….signs of a goodnight. That Friday I had two 4 hour meetings. I was tired but they were extremely productive and went very well despite being exhausted. Went o bed extremely early Friday night.

Saturdya night I introduced Ania to my friends and we hung out and stuff and I took her around town a little bit during the day. We also made frijoles and tortillas…from scratch!! We need a bit of practice on the frijoles but they were alright…tortillas were awesome.

Sunday was an awesome day. Went to Jorge (guy form work) farm with his family and a couple others from work and hung out there all day and he took us for a driving tour through the mountains and cloud forest which was pretty awesome. My ass is pretty soar from sitting in the back of the pickup most hours on end but it was a really relaxing and awesome day. I love the Nicaraguan mountians and countryside.

This week was pretty uneventful, Ania went to Honduras from Monday to Thursday for a conference and some other stuff. I wracked my head all week thinking about thesis stuff and I am 95% sure that I am changing my topic and doing something drastically different than I had anticipated and though of. I will keep you posted.

Friday is Luis’ birthday so he is having a party at his house and his mom is making a bunch of food and stuff, should be fun. The plans are to go to La casite one morning this weekend, a chill organic farm place with homemade breads and organic vegetables and coffee and hummuss and stuf in a huge tropical garden….very chill and relaxing. After that we are going to buy hammocks…the best place for hammocks is about 30 mnutes outside of Esteli and I have been meaning to go there for ooohhh about 3 months now.
Also, the plan is to go to La Tisey de La Estanzuela…the waterfall just ouside of Esteli with the long hike to get too. I have already been but it is awesome and I think Ania should experience it. It’s fun playing tourguide! Other than that I plan intense thesis work somewhere inbetween all that.

Anyways, hope everything is going well. Thinks are all good here, miss all of you and have fun back at work and school HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Suckas!