Return From The 3rd World

Well we all made it out of Jalapa alive yesterday after our days of service. Between medical surveys, educating the locals on oral and vaginal health (haha... I'm too immature to not laugh at that combo), and construction work, we definitely stayed busy and gave back to the poor community of Jalapa in northern Nicaragua. Rather than write a ton about the service work and week I'll just post a bunch of pictures so you can get a better idea of some of the things we did.

Yesterday we woke up and traveled by bus from Jalapa to Matagalpa to a coffee plantation/resort called Selva Negra. Coffee is one of Nicaragua's main exports and the valley definitely smelled of it as we drove in. Selva Negra is apparently a honeymoon destination for Nicaraguans, but when we arrived we were told that all the males that didn't have wives on the trip with them would be staying in a bungalo, aka "The Man Shack". There is quite the variety in terms of age on this trip. About 1/4 are students like us, while a majority of the rest are over the age of 60. We soon found ourselves in the loft of the bungalo with 6 other roommates of various ages. Don't get me wrong, each and every one of them is awesome, but the group dynamics have been very interesting. Playing drinking games with people older than your parents is always a great time.

After a night of drinking games with way too much Flor de Caña, the three of us woke up early and went to breakfast. After assessing our options for the day we came to the realization that our best bet would be to go back to sleep for 2.5 more hours until lunch. Besides, it was cold and rainy out and none of us were in the mood for a tour of the coffee farm on horseback. After the hugest lunch I've ever had in my life, we loaded up the bus and drove back to Managua.

We are now back at Las Mercedes hotel, and for the first time in about 10 days we worked out. Prez, Luke and I did an aqua jogging workout with Gina Collings in the hotel pool followed by some abs on the pool deck. Felt great to get the heart rate up and work out. I think we're all feelking like blobs right about now. Tomorrow we're back on our own again though so I think we'll all be eating a lot less (frequency and volume) since we're back on our own budget. We're going to try to catch a bus to San Juan del Sur which is a beach town on the Pacific in southern Nicaragua.

That's all for now...

See you soon!

-chris

6 Days Without a Shower

We apologize for the lack of pictures that this post will (not) contain. The three of us are currently in Jalapa, Nicaragua in an internet cafe owned by one of our interpreters, Lester. It is quite small, but is larger than all the other places in town which only have one computer. I guess its probably what you should expect from a town where the owners of the hotel shut off the water for over three straight days to save money. Not exactly the best way to please your guest but thats poverty at its finest. Needless to say we made it six days without a real shower. Maybe that doesn´t sound very impressive but given the hot weather and hard work that we´ve been doing, its a hell of an accomplishment that we didn´t die from our own stench or some disease growing on us. Prez got a really bad ear infection which had progressivly gotten worse since being in Tamarindo. The doctor on our trip gave him drugs (Vicodin) and antibiotics. I think he is finally feeling better.
The first two days here we spent out in rural communites doing medical surveys for the University of Minnesota. On average the homes were no bigger than our dorm rooms at school, housing anywhere from 8 to 14 people. Most had little or no access to food, much less a bathroom/outhouse because the soil is too sandy. More stories to come about the surveys later. In addition to going house to house and asking questions, we also put on a teaching clinic. Chris talked about dental hygiene while Prez and I demonstrated the proper brushing techniques with a large model of teeth. The three girls with us from Olaf had to talk about Cervical cancer. A topic we nearly escaped...I´ve had just about enough talk about PAP smears this week (one of the main reasons the medical team with us is here). Side note: one of the doctors with us surgically re-implanted a womans uterus yesterday. Apparently it was hanging down between her legs. Looser than a wizards sleeve.

Yesterday and today we were able to be manly and bang shit on the construction site with Don. In short we were able to put the roof on a 20 x 90 foot school. 24 rafters.. its more impressive to see than write about so I´ll save that for later. Don almost died four times yesterday by falling off the roof.

For those of you who can´t quite grasp the full picture of Jalapa, let me paint you a quick picture and the photos we put up later can help reiterate them:

-The hospital disposes of all their waste in a pile in the courtyard behind the hotel. This includes used open needles, bloodly gauze pads, and any body parts/fluids removed during surgical procedures. To top it all off they burn the pile daily so animals won´t eat it. Biohazardous wastes don´t sound particularily appetizing to me.
-Most people don´t have cars here so many get around on horse back or move their stuff with the help of two oxen and a cart. One has a hard time of stepping around the massive piles of poop all over the street.
-People have few appliances in their homes and therefore cook with open, wood fired stoves. The air is polluted and smoggy beyond belief.
-To buy liquor tonight Chris rode on a motorcycle to a builiding with a window. There he had to ask for the booze and the lady in the window gave it to him. Talk about not being able to window shop!


Thats all for now..
Gotta do the Jalupe Hustle

Adio,
Luke

When you take a whiff that big for $11, you know you got a good deal

Our journey in Tamarindo ended on a slow note. After passing up partying on Friday, we then also missed out on free drinks at the Discoteque Aqua on Saturday. Our livers will thank us later. On the other hand, we made enough rice to feed a family of 10 for dinner last night. The taquitos we cooked were awful- I suppose that´s what you get for buying your food from a store that smells like rotting, dead bodies. Before going to bed we downloaded an application for Truth or Dare on my Ipod. Best dare of the night, pour cold water into the belly button of the person to your right. We didn´t do it. Kissing was also brought up which lead to an app which taught us how to kiss appropriately. I think its safe to say we all learned a few new pointers (Chris didn´t learn anything). Watch out ladies.

After getting up at a quarter to five we left our hostel about 5:15 in search of a bus to bring us from Tamarindo to meet up with our 8:00 connection with Tica Bus in Liberia. All our sources, including another bum, insisted that it would take about two hours and that we should take the 3:30am bus if we wanted to be sure to arrive on time. Apparently this bus (the Tica Bus) is often on-time or even early- hard to believe. We decided to neglect that and try our luck with the 5:45 bus. We walked down the street to where we were instructed to find our ride. Wouldn't you know it a bus was there and already loading up passengers! But wait, this bus was not headed to Liberia but instead to San Jose. First bummer of the day. We asked the driver if there was even a bus that existed to Liberia at that hour. He pointed and rattled of something incomprehensible and off we went; hot on the trail off...something. A drunk driver rolled past sipping an Imperial. Must have been a hell of a night to be up at that hour. Another drunk greeted us on the next corner explaining that he was a student like us (what do students look like?). Extremely intoxicated, he became irritated that we wouldn't believe that there was no bus coming for us. His friend was a cabbie- he'd take us for $15 each. Clearly a better option but at second thought since the cab driver was barracho too. Choice #1 of the morning, would you rather: ride with a drunk driver for 73km or wait longer for the bus which still has yet to materialize (bearing in mind the two hour ride would now put us in only 5 minutes earlier than our designated pick up)? We opted for the bus-duh! Sure enough it came, only 20 minutes late. Our only hope to make the connection was that the driver would haul. Luckily for every conceivable abuela (for all you non Spanish speakers that means grandma) on board he stopped in every po-dunk town between Tamarindo and our destination. By 7:20 we has made it just slightly less than half way. We had to do something- our largest purchase of the trip this far, a $21 bus ticket was in jeopardy of going to waste. So, naturally we ran off the bus and got into a taxi. We had 10 miles to go in...7 minutes!? Oh no. Not sure I've cursed that much in a long time. 8:02 and the lottery ticket salesman shakes his head, "mas tarde". The bus hadn't been to our stop. Booya.

Not only was it not there but we were forced to sweat out 30 minutes more of waiting- time enough for Chris to eat some McDonalds. We should have known, Tico time= nothing is ever on time. We boarded the bus to find our reserved seats taken. No Lady Gaga party for now. We reached the boarder crossing and to our horror quickly realized a large quantity of our lives was about to be painstakingly removed. All passengers were instructed to form a line and wait. A half dozen or more people rushed us in hopes that they could exchange our money from Colones to Cordaba. They flaunted stacks of dough thicker than Prez's skull. Nearly two hours of standing provided us with a view of the door where we were supposed to get to. During this time we had moved all of about 3 bus lengths- more profanity. As I had forgotten from my last trip here, forming lines is not a part of pre-school teaching like it is elsewhere. Really what I'm saying is that any attempt for multiple people to achieve the same goal ultimately and inevitably ends in a clusterfuck- always. Success; a stamped passport and we now had permission to leave Costs Rica. But now we still had to enter Nicaragua. 45 minutes stationary in international waters (see The Book for similar procedures regarding bullshit or ask us because we´re well versed in its rules and regulations). The bus driver took all of our passports, plus $8 as an entrance fee for crossing/visiting Nicaruagua. Once again we were forced off the bus and told to take our bags from the undercarriage. Clusterfuck. Our bags, being the last ones to be loaded, should have been the first to get off but that makes way too much sense. Instead we found ourselves balls deep in Nicas, leaving the crowd with backpacks above our heads- elbows flying everywhere. We proceeded to have our bags searched by customs. This consisted of the guy looking at us, collecting our entry papers and telling us to go back on the bus. We didn´t even have to open our bags. I guess we could have smuggled drugs across (if we were into that sort of thing).


While eyeing some of the freshly prepared food one of the vendors started seizing and fell to the ground. Everyone looked at her and stood perplexed. What to do? Well, if you know Nica- you do nothing. Time to get back on the bus. In order to do so this time we had to stand and wait for the agent to call our name and get back our passport. Mistakenly I thought I heard my name called second. Turns out no. I got laughed at. Low and behold we were the last three. Stupid Americans. We had the privilege of watching our second bootlegged version of Ice Age. You could hear the audience laughing in the background- beautiful quality for Latin 'Merica. Following that they played some awful movie. Maybe it was intended to be romantic because the woman next to me groped my butt multiple times. I blame it on her overweight status, but I was quite uncomfortable by the whole ordeal (ironic that we learned how to kiss correctly the night before i think not). The lady next to Prez might have been worse. She kept propping her legs toward him and doused him with her perfume. Yummy burned nostrils.

The ride was quite pleasant and we got to see some cool wind farms and volcanoes. Finally we pulled into the Tica Bus station at 4:30 instead of the 3 o´clock scheduled time of arrival. After a short taxi ride we made it to our hostel which is actually in two separate locations. Burger King for dinner and then to the super market for what proved to be the most uplifting moment of the day. A 1.75 of the famed Flor de Caña rum for only 11 dollars. I forgot how cheap it was here! It would have been irresponsible not to buy it In all we got a liter of coke, the rum and two bags of chips for 14 u.s. money´s.. try and beat that with even ronny d. Once again, 12 hours of travel, four of which were spent at the border crossing but we are all still alive. Just as I remembered it appears that everyone in Managua wants to rob us- this part of town actually looks pretty nice. Tomorrow holds the biggest upgrade of the entire trip- a hotel, not hostel which costs twice as much for one person per night than what we pay for all three of us. Then off to Jalapa on Tuesday.


We have to pay for internet up there so the stories may slowly start to shorten for the next few days. Just remember- don´t come to Managua unless you have a reason, or just want some cheap, high quality rum (will someone price check it at firehouse for me, jiggy?)

Go Vikings, Brett Favre

Peace and love to all,
Luke

The rockstar lifestyle is catching up with us

So after Prez's post we played some drinking games with some Guaro and Fresca (surprise surprise). We played King's Cup with some Argentinan girls, which proves to be pretty challenging when you get the 'rhyme' category and don't speak the same language. I don't know what the hell rhymes with 'bicicleta'... Somewhere along the way one of the guys playing (from Colorado Springs, CO) decided it would be a good idea to get another bottle of Guaro. Since it seemed like a great idea at the time we threw some Colones his way and cashed yet another liter with him. As great of a time as we had, we were pretty dead to the world yesterday morning (or at least Prez and I were). After laying in bed for as long as possible, we headed out to the beach to get some more sun.

We constructed some awesome sand art, including a merman and 'Le Dick'. We also saw many people, both male and female in speedos and thongs. Prez and I are contemplating buying ourselves speedos to minimize our tan lines.

For dinner we were reeled in by a dude on the street corner who told us that we could get 2 pizzas for $10 and 2 for 1 beers. Not wanting to pass this deal up we followed our new friend (his name was Robinson - very Spanish, I know) to his restaurant on the fourth floor rooftop of a nearby building. Immediately we thought that this place was too classy for us, but the view of the sunset was incredible and the deal for food was just as awesome. After our romantic candle lit dinner we returned back to the hostel to watch Jurassic Park III, World's Craziest TV Commercials, Magic's Secrets Revealed, MTV Teen Cribs and the end of the Phoenix Suns and Atlanta Hawks NBA game. Since we still felt like shit from the night before we decided to turn in early... going to bed around 10:30pm (yeah, we're pretty cool).

This morning I woke up and went for a run at 8:20 and couldn't get Prez to get out of bed. I trucked it out alone and got my ass kicked by the heat and humidity yet again. Luke went out for a run when I returned. I also met a retired guy staying at our hostel that wants to get in to medical school. I wished him luck, but I'm not sure he will accomplish his goal since he's in his 60's and suckling at the unemployment teet.

Time for food...
Oh and we still haven't seen anybody drink out of the faucet here (or anywhere for that matter), something we do on a daily basis. I guess nothing phases us. Boom
Til next time
.chris

A Map for Your Enjoyment

Not sure how well this will work but I tried to create
a map that shows you where we have been thus far. Each color represents another leg of the journey. The lines are by far more direct than any path we have traveled. Oh well. Surf bums are waiting to use the computer. Gotta run. The other two bums are still asleep so I am going to go wake them up.

Missed it by THAT much...again

The remainder of our stay in Montezuma was relatively uneventful. We just chilled the first two nights as Rivers and I had some Imperial on the beach each night. The last night we each had a couple of liters and played cribbage. Here are some of the other highlights: We had a bum hang out by our hostel every night, drink of choice: Guaro and Imperial. One afternoon he was walking around with a noose around his neck looking for people to pull it. I hope I never have to resort to that. We ran every day in Montezuma, Chris and I went about six each day and Luke did his own thing. It was very difficult to do much more since it was extremely hot, humid, and hilly. Chris and I also raced the cops one day while they were on their motorcycle. They liked us. We also created our own drinking game for cribbage for all you cribbage enthusiasts such as ourselves:
When someone plays to 31 the other players drink
The losers of each hand drink the difference between the highest hand and the next highest hand
If someone pegs more than two points in a row during play the other players drink that many drinks over two (if someone pegs six, thats four drinks for the others)
If the crib is over 5 pts, the other players drink the difference. If it is below, the player with the crib drinks the difference.
We also ran into a girl staying at our hostel that also made the waterfall jump. She said, ¨I jumped and I forgot I was wearing a tampon, it felt like I was just railed by a black man. Then I threw up.¨ boom.

Fortunately the atm was fixed on Tuesday so we were able to get money and make our way to Tamarindo. We were about bankrupt at that point.

Now for our travel day from hell (Wednesday):
Our goal was to end up in Tamarindo, also on the Nicoya Peninsula and really not that far away. Upon asking around, we could have payed $35 each for a shuttle to take us there in about 3 hours or take the bus. Our little buddy who looks like he was no older than 14, but apparently ran the hostel told us we would have to take the bus to Paquera, ferry to Puntarenas, bus to Liberia, and a bus to Tamarindo. shit. But seeing as this would be cheaper we decided to do it. We love adventures, and riding the winds of fate.

6:00 am - wake up and go for a run. Ending a run in the ocean is about the best thing ever.
8:00 am - bus arrives to take us to the ferry in Paquera, when we were told it leaves.
8:25 am - the bus finally leaves, because they decided they had to clean every square inch of it only to see it turn into a pile of dust after our ride. The road into Montezuma is maybe the hilliest and dustiest road in Costa Rica. Only to be rivaled by our later ride into Tamarindo.
10:15 - arrive in Paquera for the ferry
11:00 - ferry leaves for Puntarenas. Highlight: Listening to ¨I'm on a boat¨ while actually being on a boat! Take a picture trick, I'm on a boat bi$%h! And we ate some tasty ham pastries of some sort.
12:15 - arrive in the shithole that is Puntarenas. The only reason to be here is to be taking the ferry or a bus out of town. So we got off the bus and took a short taxi ride to the bus stop in hopes of catching a bus to Liberia.
12:35 - arrive at bus stop. Last bus left at 12:20. Next one isn't until 3:00 pm. fml. So after standing around in complete dismay for a few minutes we decided to make the best of the time. The bus stop was right next to the worst beach in Costa Rica. So we wraped our towels around us, got naked, and put our suits on. Hung out on the beach and played ¨Cliff 'em¨ for and hour or so. If you are wondering, ladies, you were probably involved. But our answers shall never be revealed. And if you don't know what that is, don't worry about it.... We wandered for a bit, had some ice cream, and were serenaded by Mario the bum and his harmonica. ¨Me llamo Mario. I play nice song for you. I have 62 years. Merry Christmas and happy new year.¨ We gave about 40 cents to gtfo.
2:40 pm - taxi driver comes up to us and chats. He tells us not to go to Liberia because it is like a 4 hour drive as it makes lots of stops. So he convinces us to let him drive us the an intersection on the pan american highway and wait for a bus going to Santa Cruz (near Tamarindo). What the heck, we might as well. So we did. I was able to chat with him in Spanish for a bit, surprising myself.
3:00 - arrive at intersection, he tells us a bus will be there at 3:30.
3:24 - sure enough, a bus shows up. One lady gets on with no trouble, then we try and board and the driver tells us there is no room. f that. we're gettin on this b. So he told us we could stand. We later discovered that was not a scheduled stop and we were on a charter bus from San Jose to Santa Cruz. The lady he picked up was his wife. We might still be at that corner if not for her...So we stand for the next two hours. Luke counted 19 people standing and couldn't see everyone. The limit on the front of the bus said 10 standing only. We got radar gunned by the po-pos and pulled over, so the driver got out with his cash bag, exchanged a few words with the cop, and it was all good.
5:25 - arrive in Santa Cruz and catch the Tamarindo bus as it was leaving. Stand for another 30 min. We wonder if we are actually going there because this bus is weaving in and out of towns making stops everywhere, and it's dark. We thought the Ticos were gonna take us to a back alley somewhere and kill us. I believe we were the only gringos on the bus.
6:30 - arrive in Tamarindo after about 10.5 hours of travel. Followed a bum to a hostel, which actually worked out well. We have ac, a big screen tv, free internet, kitchen, and hookers (not really) for only $12 a night. We didn't give him any money. We've given our fair share to the bum population.
7:45 - got a deal. Cheeseburger, fries, and a coke for $7. Came back to our hostel and went to our drink of choice: Guaro y Fresca...yumm. We also realized our hostel owner is a womanizer.
He was cuddling on the couch with a girl that is about 15 years younger than him and claimed not to drink. What a skeeze. Then we just went to bed after riding the bus a couple times each.

So was the bus adventure worth it?
yays:
We each saved about $17 on travel fare.
We got to listen to ¨I'm on a boat¨ while on a boat.
Serenaded by a bum.
Got some beach time.
Saw two big cruise ships. Why a cruise ship would dock in Puntarenas is beyond me.
We know we can stand for over two hours.
We rode the winds.
Nays:
About 7.5 hours of our lives we will never get back.

Shout out to SB '08 Panama City, there is a Sharkys less than a block from our hostel. Maybe we can dream up some tasty shots, Mike D.

Today we booked our tickets on Tica Bus for our trip to Nicaragua on Sunday. Then we headed to the beach to tan our beautiful bodies. Luke and I made a dike just in time for high tide. It held out pretty well, but eventually was overpowered by the water. We made some exotic marinara hot dog sauce to go with our spaghetti for dinner. More Guaro and Fresca tonight? There is a Bob Marley party tonight down the street, we'll probably go and get a second-hand high.

Until next time. Stay classy, cuz we aren't.

Sand Blasts and Waterfalls

So after last night's long journey to Montezuma, we woke up fairly early and all of us headed out for a run. I ran with Dave south along the dirt road. It was really hilly and humid. Luckily there was some relief with some patches of shade. We heard some howler monkeys in the trees along the road as we ran. Pretty awesome. Montezuma is a really small town with a small cluster of shops and restaurants on the main drag. It feels like we're pretty far removed from the rest of the world. Way different than the other locations we've been to here.

When we got back we made some lunch and headed out to the beach to get tanner. Unfortunately the wind was blowing pretty hard, making it pretty uncomfortable to lay out as we kept getting sand blasted every other minute. Luckily there's more than just a beach here. We hiked south a bit and into the jungle a little ways to find Las Cascadas de Montezuma (the waterfalls). After hiking up a riverbed over some rocks for awhile we found the waterfall. We were able to swim in the freshwater pools at the bottoms and also jump/dive from some of the rocks. Luke and I even tried to free climb/scale to the top, but epically failed as we reached some ridiculously steep rocks. I think we could have made it, but coming down would have been another issue.
Just as we were thinking about heading back, some blokes from London told us that there was another waterfall at the top of this one and a spot where we could jump 40 feet into the pool below. Upon hearing this we definitely needed to check it out, so we hiked around the back and up the cliff to the next waterfall. We heard some more howler monkeys off in the distance and also encountered another couple hiking. The man was carrying a baby in a backpack...

We got to the falls and looked over the edge at the pool below. All of us were terrified until we saw a small blonde girl and a fat Brasilian guy do it. We then knew that if they could we could. Luke was the first to grow a pair and throw himself off the edge. After seeing that he didn't die, I jumped, followed by Dave. All of us lived to tell the tale. We also swung on a Tarzan swing into the shallower pool.

Well... now it's after dinner and we're all spent from the days adventures. The ATM in Montezuma is broken and we're all running out of Colones. Hopefully they get it fixed soon before we can't buy our way out of here. Ha.

Hasta luego
-chris