First Adventure!

So It really doesn´t feel like i´ve only been here a couple days, I have experienced so much in the last couple days, it really is amazing!!

So last night we left Granada on a bus around 2pm for our adventure to Masaya! On the way to Masaya we stopped at Laguna de Apoylo (I think that´s what it´s called), its a beautiful lake that was created when the volcanoes were former, so it´s a big crater that´s filled with fresh water and it over looks Mombacho (which is the volcano in Granada). It was absolutely beautiful! We just stopped at the lookout, but we are going to go back to go swimming and kayaking very soon!!

We loaded back into the bus and headed towards the Masaya market, which is so much fun! It´s a market filled with arts and crafts from all over Nicaragua. Masaya is where I stayed before when I came to Nicaragua last year. So Chelcy and I had to wonder away from the market to find our favorite bakery to get some pico!! Pico is a sweet bread with some sugar on it and some really good stuff inside...it was just as good as I remember it being!!

Back on the bus again, now headed towards Volcano Masaya! We pulled up to the edge of the crater and you could see and smell all of the chemicals and stuff coming from the volcano! It looked like smoke coming out but I think it was more the chemicals which made the cloud! It was so awesome!! A long time ago the natives used to believe that the volcano was a god and would make human sacrifices into the volcano of madiens for the god that was the volcano. It was thought of as an honor to be chosen by the community to be sacrificed! When the Spanish came they believed that the volcano was the mouth of Hell and put up a big cross at the mouth of the crater to exorcise the volcano. This was when the natives were converting towards Catholicism and they no longer made human sacrifices to the volcano. Very very interesting stuff!

After when learned about the history and walked around the crater of the volcano, we hiked up a trail to the highest point of the park. It was a pretty intense hike especially because we were hiking on volcanic rock, so it was like trying to climb up a mountain cover in pebbles. We had to basically slide the whole way down!! Once we got to the top we could see all the volcanoes, lakes and neighboring cities. It was absolutely beautiful!! We stayed up on top to watch the sunset and then made the trek back down.

The Adventure was not over yet! Once we got back down we were handed a flashlight and a helmet and started hiking down a winding trail to the caves!! The first cave entrance we got to had bats flying out everywhere! It was so crazy you could feel them whizzing by your head! Inside the cave entrance there are boa constrictors that hang from the ceiling of the cave and catch the bats as they are leaving the cave for the night!! We didn´t go into this cave because it is an outlet for the active volcano, so too dangerous if it decided to wake up! So we hiked down to this other cave and hiked through it, bats and other animals and all! It was sooo dark in there! Such and awesome experience! Some of the bats let us get really close to them, while they were still hanging upside down from the tree roots that came through the top of the cave!!

We have definitely been very busy since we´ve been here and we are going to continue to see everything we can!

This morning we went to visit the clinic where I am going to be working! I have to take a 25-30 min bus ride from Granada towards Masaya, then get dropped off on the side of the highway. After I get dropped off I jump in the back of a motortaxi (which is like a motorcyle with 3wheels) for about 10-15mins to get to the clinic! The motortaxi ride is a rough one!! The streets are all dirt roads with cows and horses in the middle! It is the dry season here so the roads are really dry and dusty and VERY bumpy!! It´s going to definitely be an adventure! The clinic that I will be working at is mostly funded by Spain, and at the clinic they also have a pre-school, soup kitchen for the kids to eat and a computer lab to teach the kids how to use a computer! It really is an amazing facility and I can´t wait to actually start working this week!!

Well...I could probably write for hours about everything I have seen and experienced, but these internet cafe computers are really hard to type on!!!