Day 8 - I Want To Break Free

People of the world with arthritis, I feel your pain! Through what can only be described as a act of God, I woke up today without a single cramp through the night (or on the hike for that matter). However, I can't believe I made it out of bed. My legs were so stiff and my knees nearly gave out on my as I stepped down. PAIN!

Before breakfast, I was able to go out on the beach and snap a few photos. The beach was amazing (remember that it was a lake, though it could have been the ocean for how massive it was (I couldn't even see the other side through binoculars (just look up Lake Nicaragua on google earth)). As I took in the beauty of the place, the song "I Want To Break Free" was going through my head. It was a very fitting song that somehow my subconscious must have mustered up as I thought about how crazy it was that I am in Nicaragua, a country that just ended it's civil war 7 years ago. It is awesome to break away from everyday life and experience something so foreign and unique as Nicaragua is.

On the Van ride back to the ferry, I had a lot of time to think and was sure to right down three things that I wanted to now write about. They are: Laundry, Peter's Dream, and Girls Just Wanna Have fun. I'll start with the latter. In the van, the driver had a hits CD that apparently, every taxi and tourist van driver in central America owns. When the song got to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," I was quickly reminded of the ratio of girls to guys in our group. All the girls sang the entire song in it's entirety at the top of their lungs. I am sure the locals got a kick out of that one. And that brings me to the locals. If I could take a picture of all the cool things I am able to see down here, I would easily be photographer of the year for National Geographic. The only problem, is that I am in a bus going down a road with 15 people in tow and stopping is not an option. There was this one place, where a virgin stream is flowing though the rain forest off the side of the road. As I look down the stream, I see a lady washing her laundry on a rock. The light is still low on the horizon (7:30am) and a single ray of light is reaching the lady through the trees. She is dressed in white and scrubbing a shirt with soap as she stands waist high in the water. The scene was simply amazing. The people's faces here have so much character and beauty, that even the old lady tilling corn in the field or the dude with the afro and no shirt on would have made awesome photos. If only…Oh, and in other news Peter had a dream that he was Whitney Houston.

On our way to Grenada, we stopped in San Juan del Sur, a huge expat hangout on the Pacific coast (this was actually a side trip to allow those of our group who had never seen the pacific a chance to do so). It was a cool town with a nice beach (see photos), but unfortunately, it left a bad taste in my mouth. It turns out that the entire city (and as we later learned, the entire country of Nicaragua) was out of power for the couple hours we stopped there. When we ordered our food, we were told we could pay using credit card. Now, because there was no power or any way to get my debit card to work, we offered to pay everyone's bill if they would pay us in cash. They all agreed and I collected the money. When it came to add up the bill, nothing seemed to add up and we were short 15 dollars (or about 3 people's meals). It took us about an hour of adding up and figuring out who gave what money to who to realize that the restaurant was trying to screw us over. Then when the power never ended up coming on (though it was supposed to come on two hours before we left, never did) everyone ended up having to pay in cash and we had to bum a loan off someone to pay for ours). It got a little ugly, but it all worked out in the end.

Side Note: Haley and I were getting incredibly frustrated at not being able to get any money from anyone anywhere. Nicaragua is a very poor country and they do not have the resources to support the plastic fantastic lifestyle us Americans enjoy. Headaches ensued throughout the afternoon.

Grenada: The giant cloud has a silver lining. Grenada is a nice colonial Spanish town with lots of quaint churches and packed streets. Initially, the only problem was the incredible heat. It is hot here. However, after we got the hotel and dropped our stuff off, we headed into town to find a bank. Luckily, Haley's debit card FINALLY worked and we were able to take out quite a bit of money. Also, the bank was the holy grail of air conditioned buildings. As we walked up the stairs, we could feel the rush of cold air seeping out the seams of the building. Heaven!

So we walked a little bit though the downtown square, snapped a couple shots, and then the wind picked up massively. All the vendors in the square knew what was going on and pack up right away. About three minutes later, a huge rain came and we got somewhat soaked. On the way back, Erin slipped and bent back her big toe nail and got it all nasty. I was right behind her and couldn't believe it when she didn't complain or yell out when she slipped. Then at dinner she told us of all the other injuries she had endured (very active in sports) and I see why this was nothing comparatively.

It is now 12:00 and I am ready for some sleep. I have been catching up on blogs for the past three days (going off my notes I had made), and am dead tired. I hear they have just turned the water on (apparently they have been doing work in the street and we haven't had water since arriving earlier today), but a shower will have to wait 'til morning.