Nicaragua Through the Eyes of the Ambiguously Gay UR Duo

hey gang,

rather than have separate conversations with everyone, i figured i'd send out an email giving a little recap of our nica trip.  james, shog, whalen, sam - feel free to add anything i miss out on.

weather was bomb.  90 and sunny every day.  coming from 20 degree ct, this couldn't have been more welcome.  but you were just constantly sweating/feeling sticky.  fine by me for a week, but not sure how sam has gotten used that all day erry day. 

our trip got off to a rushed start as we tried to catch a bus out of granada at the last minute.  we had sat down in a restaurant and ordered breakfast when we realized that the best bus for us to catch was leaving in 15 minutes.  so we had the breakfast packed up to go and whalen and i ran ahead to stop the bus from leaving.  we made it by the skin of our teeth, but nica packs buses like you wouldnt believe, so we had to stand in the aisle squeezed in on every side for the 2 hour ride. 

from there we went to the island of ometepe (for all you survivor buffs out there, this was the name of one tribe a couple seasons ago.  and a volcano on the island, maderas, was the name of the other tribe.  neato.).  we hiked the other volcano, concepcion, one morning.  we woke up at 4:30 and got going early.  our guide told us it would probably take us 4-5 hours, but we made it up in just over 3 (pound it).  it was truly bizarre towards the top, as we were in a cloud, it was raining sideways, winds blowing super hard, and the temperature dropping a ton.  we went from soaked through in sweat to soaked through in water, and then back to soaked through in sweat towards the bottom on the way down.  messy stuff.  the top of the volcano was awesome.  it's still an active volcano so the ground was warm at the very top.  the cloud we were in eliminated any view unfortunately, either of the island or of the inside of the volcano, but it was still awesome making it all the way up there.

after ometepe we headed to the beach for some surfing and R&R.  we went to playa gigante for 4 days.  did some surfing (some more successfully than others), playing in the ocean, hiking around the area, bonfire on the beach at night, some awesome star gazing (no homo).  one day we bought fresh red snapper from the local fisherman and made some fish burritos.  don't love fish, but that was really awesome. 

overall...great trip.  it was really rewarding to see sam in his element, speaking spanish with the locals, navigating about the country, shredding the gnar, etc. and i feel like i can relate to his peace corps experience so much better now.
There's more to say, but that's enough for me for now.  i'll let the other guys fill in any gaping holes.  off to bed.
night, phil

Pretty much nailed it, great summary by phillip.Certainly captured all great moments of our trip. I'd say as terrible as those bus rides sound, i think we all enjoyed them for how cheap they were and how real it felt to be in sam's shoes and other nica people. sam certainly had us worried on that first trip, everytime we stopped we were checking that no ones stole our shit we put on the roof... which had our passports/cash/etc. he was just looking out for us though. Sam Shepard: class act and a stand up guy.
we saw a lot of americans living down at playa gigante, including one guy who ran this bodacious burger joint. we went twice, great burgers, nice guy (bryce), and chalk to draw on the counter. also saw a DJ spinning some good music at the hostel, rocking some beats by dre headphones like a DJ does, all sideways and what not. great tunes there and at bryce's burger shop.
awesome trip, could go on forever, but thats all from me.

jimmy