There is a serious need for editing down here...

Do you see anything wrong with this sign?
It doesn't make any sense!!! It was a sign that was in our hotel, encouraging visitors to book any excursions with them because they would allow a full refund if you would like to cancel due to rain, unlike other tour operators in town. A very good thing to have, as it really pours here during the rainy season!

Adrian and I have a great idea for a new business...Contracting Sign Editors for businesses all over Central America. We've been seeing signs, all over the place, written in English for benefit of the non*Spanish speaking visitors. This is a very good idea, obviously, but noone seems to execute it very well. The translations turn out very bad, and often don't make much sense. If you were a business owner and had the good idea to make your signs in English, shouldn't you go to a little bit of trouble to find a native English speaker to give it a once over?! I'm not trying to make fun, as I myself am trying to get by in a country who's language I don't speak very well...But we do find it funny that noone takes that extra little step to make sure the signs make sense...Or that there are no spelling errors. Just a thought!

Costa Rica!

So we have made it to Costa Rica...Like I mentioned before, the rainy season is upon us, but it´s really not too bad. It rains for a bit in the afternoon, or just at night. For us it just means that we now bring our rain jackets with us all the time, and try to plan it so we are not stuck in a downpour with all our belongings on our backs.

After the tropical storm passed in Nicaragua, the next day was absolutely beautiful. So, of course we headed to the beach and took surfing lessons! It was great! I was able to stand up after a few tries, and by the end of the afternoon I could stand on almost every try. Granted, I still had help from the instructor turning the board around and getting into the wave at the right time. Next time I try I´m sure it will be so much harder, as you have to do so much crazy paddling! But it was fun, and we will definetly do some more. I wish Christen were there to learn with me!

Anyways, back to Costa Rica...We just spent the last three days driving up and down the Western coast of the Nicoya peninsula. We beach hopped and drove between all these hard-to-get-towns. We rented a car because it was easier than using the bus for where we wanted to go. I know, renting a car-so luxurious!!! It worked out well, though. We went to Tamarindo and Samara as our two major stops, and checked out most of the beaches in between. The beaches near Samara were pretty nice, and you could find yourself all alone on a beach. Very nice...We just headed back inland and into the mountains, we are on our way to Volcan Arenal and then Monteverde Cloud forest.

Rainy season?

So we are now in Southern Nicaragua on the coast, in a town called San Juan del Sur. We were aware that the rainy season was approaching, so I was wary about how much rain we would get and how crappy things would be. About 1 week ago we were in Granada, and it did rain a few days at night. I mean, torrential rain. But when it rains at night it´s not so bad, plus it cooled things off. But this past week since Sunday it has rained a lot. Everyday, and for the past couple of days, most of the day...And now we are in the middle of Tropical Storm Alma!!

What makes it worse is that our friends Gavin and Lilly are visiting...And it´s just raining and raining! Normally we would just chill and wait out the storm. We want to do things and show them around, but there´s not much to do besides surf here. And we can´t do that in a tropical storm! Our initial plan was to leave here this morning, but all the buses stopped running because the roads flooded. It might not even look good tomorrow for us to leave here, or take a surfing lesson...We shall see...

Country number 6!

So we have made it to Nicaragua, quite easily. When we got to southern Honduras to get a bus onwards, we found out that the bus strike is over. That made things ok for us to get around. Right now we are in Granada, an old colonial city. It's very cute, all these old buildings and churches painted in lively colors. We have heard great things about Nicaragua, so we are reviewing our plan of attack so we don't miss anything here. There are a bunch of volcanoes, crater lakes, and beautiful beaches to see. Our friend Gavin is flying into Costa Rica on Saturday, so I think we will have them come up to Nicaragua for a few days and then work our way back south with them. There are places we don't want to miss by going to Costa Rica to quickly, and things we think that they would also enjoy...

I think tomorrow we will head off to a place called the Monkey Hut, a cabin on a crater lake called Laguna de Apoyo, do some swimming and relax. It is hot here, so I need to get to some water to cool off!

More diving and good times in Utila

We have been here in Utila for the past 5 days...Besides the insane bugs and how hot it is here, we are enjoying ourselves. I have never had so many bug bites all at once that are so itchy!

We did some cool dives here, including a night dive! I have to admit, I was pretty nervous the whole time. It was hard, because it was dark, everyone kinda clustered together underwater, not wanting to get to far away from the dive leader. The clustering led to a lot of bumping into each other and kicking each other, which was kinda annoying...Because of that I couldn't exactly calm down and relax the whole time. We did see a crazy Bat Fish, which basically looks like an ugly underwater frog with a tail. It even hopped along the ocean floor...I will give night diving another shot sometime, and maybe I will be more relaxed if I try it again.

Yesterday we did another set of cool dives during the day and we were able to borrow a good underwater digital camera. We got some really good pictures, better than with the disposable underwater camera! We should have done our advanced open water certification while we here (currently with our open water certification you can only dive to 60ft, so with the next level I think you can dive to 130ft.) but it was an extra $100 that we didn't really want to spend. Adrian has a friend here who is a dive instructor and has been great showing us around and helping us with the dives....

Today is our last day here and we will probably ride around on some bikes to see more of this tiny island. We are going next to Nicaragua, or Costa Rica. Apparently there is a transportation strike in Nicaragua which will make traveling within the country much more of a hassle and expense. International buses are running, so our other option is to skip the country and just go to Costa Rica, which would be a shame because we here great things about Nicaragua...I will keep you posted on what we end up doing. We have another visitor next week! Adrian's buddy Gavin and his girlfriend Lilly are coming to Costa Rica....Should be fun!

I miss my friends!

Yes, it's true. I wish I could see them and talk to them more then I can while traveling. I was thinking of this especially yesterday...We took a 4 hour catamaran sail boat ride to get from one island of Honduras to the other (Roatan to Utila), and with us on the boat were 10 girls that were living in Roatan, working there as dive masters. They arranged this boat ride as a "girls trip", and they were having fun just hanging out and lounging on the boat. I was very jealous, wishing I could transport all my girlfriends to that sailboat ride in that very instant. It would have been great to have them there, so I dozed into a nice little daydream about them all being here and sharing in the fun times...

So....Just to catch you up on what we've been doing-like I said, we are in Honduras. It's been a busy couple of weeks, and simultaneously without very good internet connections. Right now we are in Utila, and last week we were in Roatan. My mom and her friend Lynne were here visiting us for the week, so we had a great time with them! We picked them up in San Pedro Sula after blazing through El Salvador in three days. From there we took them to see the Mayan ruins of Copan, and then back across the country to the coast, and off to Roatan. They were up for backpacking around Honduras, which kicks butt, cause not many people might want to travel the way we are. But they were up for it! We stayed for the last 4 days in Roatan and enjoyed the beautiful island. The weather was amazing, and the beaches were gorgeous. You could even just swim right off the beach and snorkel on the reefs there. After they left on Wednesday we did a couple of dives, which were also amazing!

So we are now in Utila and we will be here for 3 or 4 more days. We will do some more dives, definetly a night dive!! From here we will get ourselves to Nicaragua...

Market time in Chichicastenango

Today I went to a market in a town about 2 hours from here in San Pedro on Lake Atitlan, called Chichicastenango. It's apparently a very world renowned market place so I thought it would be a good thing to check out. It certainly was huge! There were a ton of people there, shopping, as well as hocking all their goods. It was crowded, so I had to be extra vigilant about my purse and a couple of times I evenn got pushed over by little Mayan women! It is funny when you see stall after stall of the same items....So much of the stuff is so beautiful, with all these vibrant colors. I would just love to buy blankets, table coverings, and other cool Guatemalan knick-knacks that I know would look great in my future residence- but since I don't have one, and can't fit all that stuff in my backpack- I settled for some nice jewelry....

I don't like bargaining much, but I turned out to be a pretty good haggler, of course accidently. I wanted a jade necklace, but didn't want to pay 200 quetzales. When they didn't like my offering price, I just said no thanks and started to walk away, really just preparing not to buy anything. That really was my plan, but that always worked for them to agree to my price :) So I ended up with a great necklace, a pair of wooden earrings, 2 headbands, a belt...and my meal... for about $30 USD. After thinking about bargaining later on, I started to wonder if I should feel guilty about the final price I paid. Does the bargaining really cheat these people of money they need to live on? You always expect that they mark up the price expecting to be bargained with, but is what they end up with just not enough?

There were so many kids trying to sell things, and more just begging for money. That is always difficult to see. I did buy one headband from a little girl just really to see a huge smile on her face after we made a deal. If you buy something, or give money to one little kid it's like an alarm goes off on every kid in a 40 foot radius (which is alot in this crowded market). Suddenly they all swarm around you...It's hard to even help one little kid because then all the others expect money from you as well. I know this is a problem everywhere that I know many of you have experienced during your travels as well, but it is always hard.

Tomorrow we are heading out of our blissful chill time at the Zoola hostel. It has been one of our favorite places so far. It is so easy to just pass your whole day lounging around reading and relaxing (and not at all feeling guilty about it!). And the food is absolutely delicious here, too! The place was started by an Israeli couple, and they made a menu that caters more than to just the Guatemalan native tastes. I stocked up on eating yummy salads and veggies, because I feel like that has been a little lacking in my diet.

So we are headed to El Salvador tomorrow...We only have 4 days to get over to Honduras to pick up my mom and her friend Lynne who are visiting us!!! Very exciting!!!