Oh the rains comin´ down

Hola amigos y amigas, I am excited that I get to write this now. In the part of Managua that I am residing there is no power available between 5 and 10 pm. that makes it difficult to stay up to date with these entries as class finishes at 5 and immediately the power goes out. One of our classes is held at CIES, a public healthcare school that has generators but closes their computer room at 3 pm, que triste. Anyway I had to trek over here in my first out of doors tropical rianstorm. I guess luckily I was the only one sensible enough, out of my friends, to have a rain jacket.

In my first post I wrote about the beach near San Juan del Sur and I think I should expand on it some more. There were six of us with limited supplies of money, which is silly becuase Nicaragua is super cheap and the exchange rate is 20 cordobas to 1 dollar. However we didn´t want to pay the amount that taxis cost in that town for cheles (gringos) so we went to walk to a beach near San Juan del Sur. No one in the group was interested in scaling the beach wall like I was so we went on a treck in and around the hills of San Juan. We came to a gated property with magnificent gardens and armed guards, which isn´t unusual, just private security. We traveled on; up some hills and through some woods and surfaced midway up this tiny mountain onto a gorgeous view of the pacific ocean with these terraced fingers reaching out and around the water and dotted ginormous rock formations in the distance. Mostly formations of volcanic rock but also igneous rock as well. We made our way up and around and down the hill with the wind blowing in huge gusts at each crest. We made our way down to the beach following this tiny stream for the last part that fed into, well, the ocean ofcourse. The beach was super rocky and you couldn´t really swim there, but there were pretty rocks and pieces of coral to be found. It´s a good thing we didn´t scale the wall like i wanted because it wounld not of worked at all.

We walked up and along the hill some more to find a more swimable beach and accidently walked in a circle above the beach so decided to find another way becuase we had little water and no food and the threat of dehydration was looming. We made the peak of one hill and saw in the near distance a 15 foot gate with another armed guard infront of a tin shack who looked way more menacing than the ones before. We approached him with caution and he began to raise his gun towards us... just kidding that didn´t happen yet, dios mio. But we talked to him and explained where we entered but he didn´t know why the guards on the other side didn´t tell him. He unlocked the gate and let us through. 10 yrds past the gate we look down the hill and there is the city of San Juan del Sur in very close proximity when we thought we could only ten numbers of kilometers away, and ofcourse when we walk down we arrive at the first gate we entered but by a side path.
Anyway that was the beach and turned out to be a long story.

So back to the city; I saw my first chicken on a bus, but it unfortuantely wasn´t like the scene from borat in the subway. There were just to smallish looking chickens calmy lying in a bag, alive of course, wating to be made into some fried chiken, or some other dish. I only say fried chicken because that is what my host-mom, who I will call mom from now on, made me last night. Strange because it seemed so American, but less so than the turkey and mashed potatos I got the night before. Maybe she thinks I don´t like Nica food which is strange becuase I eat everything given to me and tell her how good it is. To all my hommies living in your own cribs this year--God I love getting meals made for me twice a day--umm umm good.

Food is an odd thing here, especially sushi in Latin America. i know most people like cheese, right? but tell who likes it on their sushi? besides latinos of course. YOu can´t get away from it, it is served in almost every roll. There are also these breaded fried cheese squares served on a skewer. 2 in X 1in X 0.5 in was there dimension. Anyway we got this roll that wrapped in a layer of melted gooey cheese layer probably served with some cheese sauce. It was very flavorful but I think it started my decline into a lactose-intolerancy. que triste.

Last night was sweet- If you know of Victor Jara you are cooler than me, if you don´t know about him check him out on line. He was a revolutionary Nica musician who was, alcharse al pico, which means along the lines of assassinate in nica spanish. on 9/11/1979, I think that was the year. So ofcourse last night commemorated his death. And there was a concert with a ton of groups who performed revolutionary type folk music que twany(cool). There were a ton of young folks there boozing and singing and being merry, and let the truth be known there are many pretty nicaraguan women down, and handsome boys for all you lady readers as well, and well some of them flocked to this concert which was, in one word, great. I have to go to class now but stay posted and I will keep you updated. PAz y Luz mis amigos.