Nicaragua

I was lucky enough to get a ride to the bus station and lucky anough again that a bus was leaving within a reasonable amount of time!!! I got in Tica bus, which runs form Mexico to Panama and headed to Managua, Micaraguas capital! The rde while uneventful was beautiful and comfy and I had a double seat all to myself! I grabbed some pics out of the window and here they are.... I am not sure if one is a market or slums and I guess I will never find out...there was a lady selling corn on the side....this is common everywhere...I have not really taken pictures of people on this trip and for once I decided to as I was on a bus and figured the windows were tinted!

After taking a pic of the corn lady she stared at me and I waved and she waved back!!! I guess te window werent tinted, but she was not mad as she returned my wave and smile!

Walking around Managua in search of a restaurant I was told repetatively not to walk aroudn and get in a cab! I guess it is a scary place and people are looking out for me! I did take a cab to get home form dinner! After explaining my diet at a restaurant (the one highly recomended in my guide book was no longer in existance) I received a huge plate of veggies!!! yum yum yum! That was all for Managua as I headed to the beach the very next morning!

Again my guidebook failed me with bus times...and after telling my mother the night before I was probably done with chicken buses I found myself on one as I headed to Rivas, on the way to San Juan del Sur and the pacific ocean!

When I arrived I was told by a guy on the street no problem I can camp right on the beach...but I decidednot to take his advice and found a room in a surf shop, for this was my reason for heading to this area!! To try surfing!!! Hang ten dude!!! As I was heading down to the Pacific for my first dip in it since California in february someone called my name and it was some Aussies I had met in Honduras...We caught up a bit and then I slipped into the water! It was much warmer than in the winter in California! I wasnt the only one swimming this time! That night I went to happy hour with Australians at a beutiful bar/hotel they heard of....we watched the sun set over the pacific and had neat drinks....

That second pic is of a pool with a waterfall at the end, and it is up on a mountain, in the back you can see the ocean!

The very next day with the Beach Boys on my mind i headed to another beach to try to ride the waves!! My instructor didnt really speak english and my spanish is not full of all the little words you need to understand how to pop up on a surfboard! So with much effort I did make it! Your first time (and probably many more after) you are not riding the waves but rather catching them after they break and riding the white stuff! This is still moving quite fast and on my third go I was up and standing....then down and falling!!! I may have even invented a few new ways to fall off a surfboard and surely increased my bodies salinity tenfold!!! What a ride! It was lots of fun, but not great enough to hold me at the beach for another day as the forest called! After a dinner with a fellow yid from Toronto, and some fun philosophical discussion, I hit the hay and was on the 7am bus back to Managua.... Without taking a breathe I hopped a cab across town to another chicken bus terminal and found an express microbus to Matagalpa...a city in the mountains....and here I am...air is fresh and mountains are lovely...

Happy father's day pops!