Hello mudda, hello fadda, here I am in Granada Nicaragua...

I'm thoroughly enjoying being in Granada! This place is lovely and my new friends are a lot of fun to be around. Since I basically had been on a bus from Sunday morning to Tuesday night from Guatemala City to Granada, Nicaragua I felt like I'd been hit by a southbound train! I was sore from head to toe so I took it easy on Wednesday--mostly relaxing in a hammock and walking around town a bit. I also got my laundry done so I feel fresh and clean! It was funny because Lincoln (from New Zealand) has a thick accent and we were getting our clothes ready to take to laundry. He asked me a question and I couldn't figure out if he was asking me if my clothes were white, wet, or if he was asking about their weight. Come to find out he was asking if they were wet because the laundry service charges by weight. It was pretty funny! He and Laura (from Scotland) also use the word "fortnight" defined as a two week period of time (i.e. I receive my direct deposit fortnightly). It's interesting :-)

Today is Thursday and it turns out that my new friends are heading to the exact same place as I am so we're going to continue traveling together! It works out well because we all save money and enjoy being together. The place we have been staying in Granada is $6/night and it's actually really nice. So, we're going to head down to the border of Costa Rica today to a place called San Juan. It's not too long of a trip so I'm definitely glad about that. It's a real wear on your body traveling on the rickety buses and bad roads down here. I should be able to get to Puerto Viejo Costa Rica in plenty of time to meet my friend Kaytee there. I can't wait to see her!

Here are some pics from beautiful, historic Granada, Nicaragua:Municipal building near the park

The church in the central park of Granada...I love the color!

I got to climb the clock tower...it was a cool view!

Laura (Scotland) and Lincoln (New Zealand) borrowing my laptop to burn their photos to a DVD.

Laurie (Canada) resting on the hammock

So, I'm excited to get to Costa Rica and see what's cool there! It should be a great experience!

YMCA

Ok, so you're probably wondering why I named this post YMCA...that was the song I heard on the bus into Nicaragua! Yes, that's right, I'm in Nicaragua for the first time in my life!
A funny thing happened when I was in Managua (the capital city). I had been traveling from Honduras so I was pretty tired when I finally got to Managua. I thought about staying the night there and heading down to Granada (a colonial town popular among tourists) tomorrow. But when I got to the bus terminal I met a taxi driver who convinced me that I still had time to make it down to Granada so I decided to have him take me to the bus station. He was an interesting fellow who insisted that I should have him take me straight to Granada for $30 instead of taking the bus. I told him that I was a poor gringo and that I didn't have the money. He then ripped me a new one about how I was from "the world superpower" and how it was impossible that I couldn't pay $30 to have him take me. I told him that I preferred to pay the $1 to have the bus take me but he seemed angry and so I just dropped the conversation. He dropped me off at the bus station after all and immediately popped open the trunk to get my luggage out. I was so relieved to get out of that taxi! He was SSSOOOOO bitter!
Anyway, with the trunk open I went to get my luggage out only to realize that I was in the middle of another fight. Only this time it was a fight between two buses who wanted me to board their bus--both insisting that they were the first one to leave. The bad part was that one bus had my black suitcase and the other bus had my hiking pack. I have no idea how they moved so fast to get the bags into the buses but it was CRAZY! I decided which bus I would take but the bus driver of the "losing" party refused to release my black suitcase insisting that I would get there faster in his bus. I demanded (a bit forcefully) that he return my suitcase (the one with my laptop, digital camera, and pretty much everything valuable) immediately. He told me I could open the back door and get it myself because he refused to help me--RUDE! So, that's exactly what I did. I've never had anything like that happen to me so it was insane!
Anyway, I'm here in Granada and I met three nice travelers from New Zealand, Scotland, and Canada who offered to share a hostel room with me to save money. They're really nice folks and I'm glad I got to meet them!
I can't wait to see this city in the daylight. It looks really pretty. It's colonial (kind of like Antigua Guatemala) and it's by a huge lake with volcanoes all around. If the weather is good I'm going to try to hike one of them!

Oh, it's been a while since I've uploaded some pics so here are some more for you:Hanging out with Ulises and Gilda GonzalezJaqueline Gonzalez' new baby Limhi...I helped babysit him while Jaqueline worked.

Anyways, that's all for now. TTYL!

I've only got 4 minutes...

No, I'm not quoting Madonna and Justin Timberlake in my title...I seriously only have four minutes to blog at this internet cafe.
So, real quick...
I had an amazing weekend. Went dancing in Guatemala City Sat night. It was so much fun and everyone at the "disoteca" was so friendly. I hung out with my friend (Daniel) in San Salvador Sun evening (we went to a restaurant on the beach and it was beautiful!). Anyway, it was a good weekend.
I left Guatemala City on Sunday morning and got to San Salvador in the afternoon. Stayed there for the night and made my way to Honduras today (Monday). I'm just here for the night and then I'll head down to Nicaragua tomorrow morning. It will be my first time in Nicaragua so I'm kinda excited to see what it's like! I'll probably spend a couple days there before I head down the Costa Rica.
Anyway, so I'm here in a small town in Honduras and there's only one ATM and I don't have very much money. I just went to the ATM and it says it's "temporarily out of service." I hope it starts working soon because otherwise I might be sleeping on the streets! YIKES! Wish me luck!

Thanks, but no thanks...

So, I decided not to buy the land after all. I thought about it and I really need to conserve my money to go into the new business that I'm going to start. Also, I'm not down here enough to make it worth my while (although I wouldn't mind changing that).
Anyway, I'm in Barcenas with the Gonzalez family again--enjoying their company and working on a few things before I leave for Panama (via El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica). My friend Kaytee is house-sitting down there and there is plenty of room for me so I'm gonna go down there and relax a little. For now, I'm doing some research on different business ideas that have come to me and trying to decide the best route to take. I feel like my mind is flooded with possibilities and I have to make a choice. It's really cool to be in a situation like this where I am not distracted by "regular life" and I can really think clearly about what I want to do. I'm also going to contract my friend Ulises Gonzalez to do some drawing work on possible logos. He's a great artist and he seems excited to help me! I'll probably stay here until Saturday and then start heading south.
I miss you all in the States by the way! I hope you're all doing great!

I'm the "Donald Trump" of Guatemala...

Ok, so you all know how much I love Guatemala--sometimes a little too much! Anyway, I have a chance to get a little piece of property (about 1/4 acre) in a really sweet spot and I think I'm gonna do it! Check out this video and tell me what you think...

Don't forget to comment!

I can't get photos to upload!

Sorry guys, I can't seem to get photos to upload today. Real quick update:
I returned the rental car Thursday night (around 8:30 PM) and the cool guy at Thrifty charged me as if I had returned the car at noon instead of charging me an extra day. He said he wanted to help as much as he could since we're down here helping the kids in his country.
I stayed with the Gonzalez Rosales family Thurs night and got up early to catch a bus to the coast. A big group of teachers from the schools around Salamá went on an excursion and they invited me to come along. I managed to catch the bus at a bus stop on the way and we headed to a place called Xetulul (Shetoolool)--an amusement park. We had a great time and then we headed up to Panajachel/Lake Atitlán for the night and the next day. It was a blast! We even crossed Lake Atitlán to go to a beautiful little town called Santiago. Funny story: on our way back the boat driver stopped in the middle of the lake to explain to us that one of our travel companions forgot to pay him for the way there and he demanded payment. After a quick call to our friend, we confirmed that she forgot to pay and made sure he got his money. It was funny because he had us trapped in the middle of the lake to make sure he got his $3 and he wasn't about to let us off easy. We all had a good laugh about it when it was all over!
Anyway, we got back to Salama really late so I'm pretty tired today. It was a fun trip!

San Jose Espinero...aka "Middle of NOWHERE"

Sorry to leave you hanging for a while there! You've probably all moved on to bigger and better blogs by now ;-)
So, Thursday was amazing because I got to go to a little village (I don't know if it even qualifies for the title of village) called San Jose Espinero. When Mily told me about the school she tried to explain that it was far, far away but I had no idea! Since I still had the rental car I gave all the teachers a ride on the way. It was about 6:30 AM when we left so I made sure to have some good WAKE-UP music thumping in the car and we made our way up the hill.
I dropped all the teachers off along the way until we got to the last school which marked the entrance/trailhead to San Jose Espinero. The principal of the school quickly gathered 7 little rascals to help me carry the 45 lbs of books down the hill.
They were excited to help and even more excited to get out of school for the day! We started down the steep, muddy trail and I could immediately tell that these little guys had me beat on all levels. First, they all had rubber boots (like the kind you use to pour concrete) and second, they were well accustomed to these trails. I somehow managed to keep up with them without falling on my butt. One of the kids insisted that he was strong enough to carry an entire set of encyclopedias (about 20 lbs) in his backpack. I tried to convince him to divide the books between the kids but he seemed to be doing fine with the strap looped around his forehead.
After about an hour of hiking we got to the school and surprised the teacher. He rarely receives visitors due to the location of his school. It was thrilling to see his excitement when I announced the reason for our visit. This school was in serious need of books. It was a one-room school house with grades K-6 all in one room. There was no electricity or running water but there they were nonetheless. They were in the middle of a simple English lesson when we arrived so they took advantage of my presence to work on their pronunciation. All of the kids (and the teacher) are fluent in Spanish and a local dialect so when they learn English they'll be tri-lingual. The kids who know dialect usually have an easier time pronouncing English words because they have a wider range of sounds in their language.
We read a few stories and then let the kids have a recess to play a game of soccer. The two schools are basically rivals and they play each other every chance they can. The funny part is that the traveling team always loses because they have to hike an hour to get to the soccer field...lol! It was fun to watch them have so much fun! We had to head back right after the soccer game so I stopped by a little store and got the kids some "gasoline" (aka CocaCola and Doritos) for the trip back up the hill. The hike back was even harder because it was like climbing stairs nearly the entire hike (kinda like Camelback Mtn.). The kids were tired from playing soccer but we managed to make it back to the school with very few rests. It was an amazing hike! Oh, I almost forgot to mention that there were tons of little rivers and waterfalls all along the pathway and, in the distance, we could even see the largest waterfall in Central America (Chilascó). It was beautiful!