Three more weeks and Back in NICA

Hello Friends! Right now David and I are back in Nicaragua in San Juan Del Sur, we have women sandals, I now have a bright green bag full with clothes and a swollen eye let me fill you in on what has happened to us for the past couple weeks...
Last time I wrote we were in Panama city I had no bag and we were staying at an insane hostel that was huge. On the way to that hostel we met some Israely girls who ended up cooking us an amazing meal that night and we hung out with them for a couple of days. In the travel book that we have it told us that we could go roller skating along the panama canal so we said duh why would we do anything else. I misunderstood it and it happened that we could only roller skate along this cause way which looked alot like Miami so it wasnt that interesting, also we ended up not roller skating but biking instead, a dissapointment and we also had a bigger group now, some from Israel a guy from south Carolina two girls from French Canada and a guy from england. It was a fun day we watched the world cup and what not and had a great time. Also the day before this we were walking down the street to look for a world cup game to watch at a restraunt of some sort and then some constuction workers started to talk to us asked us who we were rooting for in the game, we said Brazil, and they invited us up to there place. It was an apartment complex kind of like a housing project in the states, they showed us there tv which was as big as their place and we sat down and watched it with their family. It was awesome and funny becasue the construction workers had to go back to their jobs and left us in their place. The next day we did the biking thing and on our drive back we saw the ghetto of the part of town we were in and David of course wanted to go there so we went. On our walk out to it some cops stopped us and asked us where we were going we said to that area and after a long conversation of him telling us that we should not go there because it is too dangerous we kept walking towards it and went into the first street after like 50 yards of walking I got punched in the face... not really, haha, but we did come across this Jamaican Woman who told us we were allowed to be here and that it was a red zone and we should leave right now. So we of course started talking to her and made friends with her and found that she was a cook and had all the preperations to make an amazing meal so we got one from her. She fried a whole fish for us with shrimp and friend plantains for 3 dollars... awesome. the best food we had so far, we also met this other guy there that was real nice and from Bocas del Torro which is a place we visited later. He walked us home so we wouldnt get jumped and the next day we brought back some of the people that we met in the hostel back to the same place, we got stopped by the cops again and the other guys were freaked out but we eventually, after getting lost in the ghetto haha, found the same place and had the same meal again. Also while in Panama City we restocked my clothing. We bought me a little kids bright green bag with all kinds of designs on it and the people we bought it from were laughing at us for buying it. We also bought some siccors for shaving of course and a white t shirt from a street vendor. After being fully restocked with cloths (one white tshirt, my tank i was wearing, my bandana, light blue shorts, and a pair of shoes) we were once set again to conquer the world.
The English guy that we met at the hostel was one of our favorites so far and we hung out with him and he ended up giving me a shirt a bottle of hot sauce and some cordoba change that he still had from Nica. he gave me a shirt that said in spanish on the front nothing is exaggerated when you love your automobile, hahaha... I just laughed after david translated it for me. There also we got to have some good conversations with some people about what we are doing next year and about Christ in a clear loving way. Awesome. Also after that we went to El Valle which is a town in a volcanic crater.
We get there meet two people right away, the first of which was an old man who lives there and is from Oregon, who was just simply happy to talk and it was great giving him that pleasure. Also we met another guy who was an artist and was doing a project in the town and he told us about the place that he was staying which was very cheap. So we went with him and there we stayed at a hippy gathering spot. All of them were artisans and traveling off the money that they make from selling things they make. While there we were told after walking a while to the hotsprings that we needed bathing suits to go i the hot springs, we werent allowed to go in with normal shorts or with athletic shorts we had to have shorts specifically made for swimming and they didnt know my situation of having three shirts and one pair of shorts so they didnt really understand why we would want to swim in normal cloths. So that night we went on a hike to a lookout spot that was supposed to only be an hour which it was but we got lost even though it was only one road haha. So we got to the end of this path and did not have a great view like we were supposed to so we just trekked it straight up this grassy hill, it was small so not that big of a deal and then took some pictures and went back down. On our trek down it started to rain and then it started to poor. It was the hardest rain we had ever seen hahaha it was amazing. Then the path that we came up on turned into a river hahaha, I fell of course got my only pair of clothes super muddy then after we got down we went into a super market and bought dinner and everybody was looking at us and laughing and after making the whole supermarket dirty we left and went home made food. The next day we bought sandals, for a dollar but these werent any ordinary sandals they could possibly be womens sandals. So now David and I a rollin around Central America in foot wear made for women. We didnt really like el Valle so we moved on after a couple days.
Next we caught a bus to the highway. Once we got to the highway all we really knew is that we wanted to go north. So after sitting at the bus stop for a while we just jumped on a bus and were off. we eventually got to a cross roads between two highways and got off. We then got amazing fruit drinks wfrom this lady and started simply walking down the street and tried hitch hiking. We had no luck and ended up flagging down a bus after some truckers told us not to do that because it was dangerous. So then on we went. We ended up at David which was the town we eventually wanted to get to anyway but our hopes for an adveturous hiking experience were shot. We stayed at this place called the purple house and met the most ridiuculous people. I also bought some pants. Blue jeans, now these werent any normal blue heans these were blue blue Jeans real blue, like if you think of the color blue and mixed it with more blue that is what you would get. They are also alittle big, but either way I needed pants because we were going to an ecolodge and another town in the mountains where is supposedly gets cold.
We then got to Boquete there we stayed at a hostel with the most hilarious man alive. His name was Poncho, which speaks for itself. Poncho was the owner of the hostel and was a skinny dude alittle over six foot and wired out of his mind all of the time. We arrive hes excited, he says hello hola bueno dias, nuenos noches, good day, how are you doing, como estas, and others in five seconds. He shows us our room it was nice and we actually got real nice sleeps there. Then the best part after he had been talking to us in mixed english and spanish for a while with his eyes wide open and extremely fast he drew us a map. Now imagine a man that is more excited then any person I have ever met explaining the terrain, milage, and where everything is in the town with simply a pen and a peice of paper... He knew I didnt speak spanish so he was mainly directed towards david... First he draws central park and draws a line to his hostel which was on the border of central part he says here central part here poncho, good location haha... then he proceeds to draw a scale in kilometers he says 5 kilometers draws a line and marks off one two three for five, then he draws a map to the water falls and says north, he points north, west, he points west then immediately he points northwest and says that about three times north, west, northwest haha! During this whole time remember he is talking to david I am sitting next to him and holding my mouth as tears are running down my cheeks while im trying not to laugh. It was amazing. There is so much more that he did that was amazing but this blog is already too long to onward.
In that hostel we met some cool people two of which from New Zealand started traveling with us. They are a couple about thirty named Emma and Jacob, First off they are great and we are still with them now, we didnt know at the beginning but Jacob is hilarious and Emma is one of the sweetests people I have ever met. They decide to come with us to this eco lodge. This is a hostel in the middle of a cloud forest in the mountains of Panama it was the coolest place that we have stayed so far. It had many different tours and stuff that we ended up going on a coffee and wine tour and did a treasure hunt the day before with the New Zealand couple and a couple from holland. This was a great day we walked around the cloud forest trying to figure out clues at different land marks and eventually won a bottle of rum. The six of us split it and had a drink each then it was gone. Also there were foosball tournaments everynight one of which both david and I with our partners that were randomly selected got to the finals and davids team won. In This hostel there were an enormous amount of bugs and my ankles got destroyed. And I found out that I was allergic to these bugs that were biting me and I woke up the next morning with real fat feet. I had enormous kankles which is a calf ankle meaning you cant distinguish between your calf and your ankle. But to the extreme if you just looked at my feet and ankles you would have thought that I was 300 pounds. So my ankles were fat and off to the beach where I just had to embrace them and couldnt wear pants. We went to Bastementos Island in Bocas Del Toro with the New Zealand couple and the second day a couple one from South Africa and one from Australia met us there. The second day we went on a fishing trip for ten bones, and this wasnt any ordinary fishing trip where you would get to fish this was a fishing trip where we went on a boat they took us to the other side of the island and they fished and gave us hand lines and basically said have at it. So I snorkeled for a bit and tried to troll my bait behind me while I was swimming... didnt work, then we after getting alittle frustrated told the main guy who was crazy and always hung out at our hostel to show us how we are supposed to catch fish. So he brought us over to these rocks and we all tried for a couple hours Aisha the Australian girl caught a little snapper and I ended up catching a pretty big fish it was called a trigger fish and may have been a pompano but what ever I caught a fish and they filleted it and later that night the crazy guy cooked us all the fish that the other guys caught so we actually won out a bit. This meal was phenomanal tuna albacore, my fish, a red snapper and some octopus that the guys caught. And it was over coconut rice and with a side of some stirfry of lobster and octopus, so good. Then we all moved on and went to Costa Rica
In Costa Rica we stayed at this hostel with the two couples and that was it. It was basically a house, and from there the guy who owned it made us Civiche the next day for five bones and he was a shef so that was good. Then the next day we were all hang out on the beach david and I decided to go and try to get some coconuts out of the tree which was a common occurance any time we were on teh beach. And then after I lunged a stick at a coconut and it didnt come down out of no where a massive wasp came down and nailed me right in the forehead and naturally I sprinted yelled like a drunk and dove into the water. It felt like a kid just chucked a rock and nialed me in the head, needless to say it hurt bad. But it didnt really swell and I was fine that night and we had cubans and watched a sunset, not a bad night. Then the next morning the poison from the killer wasp ran down through my face focusing on my eye and left me a present for the next morning. I woke up and it looked like I got in a fight with a howler money and lost. my eye was almost swollen shut. hahaha, bummer. Then the next day I went spear fishing for free with Greg the guy from Australia and the guy who owned the hostel. The next day we rode all day on buses and eventually found ourselves all in San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua. WE are still with the two couple and this is probably our last day, but they have been amazing to hangout with and travel together with. They are great and we are probably parting ways tomorrow so Peace friends and have great travels when ever you read this.
So Now we are chillin I have no shirt on naturally and my girl sandals and david and I just ate a fudgcicle on a Nicaraguan roof deck. Also the Lord has been moving with us we have grown in our relationship together and have had many great conversations with the couple about what we do and believe. Also Friends and family... PEACE OUT SUCKAS and see you in three weeks.

Whats up Panama

Hello World sorry it has been so long since my last post but we didnt have internet then didnt have time because we were running around a bit with people we met and scheduling our days around world cup which is always in the early morning here so we had to get up early blah blah blah. I just got bored. Right now we are in Panama! hurray but I dont have a back pack anymore, boooo. Let me tell you the extent of what we have been through.
After El Castillo which is still my favorite place that we have ever been we went all the way down the Rio San Juan, this was a six hour boat ride, beautiful but six hours on an over crowded boat. We saw Crocodiles wassup they were huge and make me not want to swim here, but still really really want to so we shall see. So after the six hour bus ride down the river we finally get to a place where there are no tourists, but it was probably one of the most depressing towns we have been to. It literally had the nic name "Grey Town" because it gets the most rain in central America and is always cloudy. So that night we tried to get a boat to Bluefields which was north of us along the Carribean Coast and we found out that the only boat that gets you there is 30 bones so we decided against it. It was a huge bummer but we had to back track back up the river. 24 dollars later and an early morning wake up we were on our way after staying in the town for probably 12 hours.
Side note... We came down to Nicaragua to originally get to know the locals and love them and be missionaries to the communities without an organization but we realized that we loved the guys that we hung out with in the last blog and decided that since we didnt meet any Christians in the back packing community we would go into it and simply love people and hopefully have great coversations and break peoples perceptions of what a Christian is. As we said before the trip as we see a need we will try to fill it. The need is in the back packing community and we are trying to fill it.
So we back tracked up the river and had the plan to go back up to Managua go to Church meet up with Mandy Rocamontes, suprise her, then start our new found mission. So we were there a few nights, stayed with Anne again and went to church to find Mandy the next day. We found her she was pumped and hopefully we lightened her mood. We also met a guy named Cobren. This guy is nuts. He is on fire for the lord and is the most exciting most annimated person I have ever met. We went to Mandy's orphanage with him and when we got there we were talking with him after Mandy showed us around, he encouaged us then we went to this school that he set up the next morning with him. We hung out at the school played some sports with some kids then the next day we planned on a trip for San Juan Del Sur. After much encouragment for Cobren and from the sharpes (Who are so nice that they let us stay at their house for free haha, so we had a nice house to ourselves for the night, Woot woot) we were on our way.
San Juan Del Sur is the most touristy spot in Nicaragua and where alot of backpackers go along with Surfers looking to truely shred the Gnar. So we stay at a really nice hostel which has free pancakes for breakfast and meet some people and this guy named Bubba who tells us about this place that is right off of the surfing beach where he is going to stay the next couple nights. The next day we decide to go there and stay for two nights. There were five people staying at this hostel, and we stayed in these little hobit sized rooms. Literally maybe four feet high concrete box with a fan, night light, and a matress. You literally had to crawl into the room. it was awesome. Also, we went delux because the other lower class hobit homes didnt have a fan, so hm the snobs of the hobits. Any way that day we were just hanging out on the beach and we met some locals who had just gone out to get oysters, clams and mussels and had loads of them. After eating the best oysters I had ever had for free and literally the size of your face, the biggest oysters I had ever seen. We cut one in half for both of us to try it and each half was the size of a normal oyster. HUGE. So we bought six but they gave us seven and we also tried clams and mussels and bought four mussels but they gave us five. So five dollars later we had a feast of shell fish awaiting us. After alittle swim and showing everybody what we were going to eat for dinner we decided to start shucking these oysters and feasting before it got dark. So we go get two big rocks eat and two knives from the hostel and had at it. We were Neanderthawls (cant spell sorry) we were sitting there trying to beat up these oysters with rocks and trying to open them with knives and after about an hour and thousands of suggestions later we had two oysters our slopped on a plate sitting in the sand and we wanted to try something new. Bubba suggested putting them over a fire and maybe they will open. After 20 minutes it got a fire going, Im a woman, and then we started to roast them and see what we could do. After aout an hour and a half to two hours nothing happened. These friggin rock looking animals would not friggin open. One of the most glorious tastes I have ever tasted was locked inside this impenatrible force of shell and rock-like demenour of these friggin oysters. So pissed, we did eat the mussels though, they were amazing. Either way after defeate we hungout with the others in our hostel and left after two nights.
Back in San Juan Del Sur for what we thought would be only one night, but after the US failed we were too late to get to Costa Rica in Time to not be stranded at the border with a bunch of crazy people and border control. So we stayed another night but couldnt get back into this pretty cool hostel that we stayed in but we saw one of the girls that we met earlier in the trip and she was working in the town and told us to come and stay at the same hostel that she did. So we did and that night turned out awesome. We hung out with this guy named Josh who happened to be from Virginia, lived in Chesterfield but now goes to school at VCU. So that was fun to be with another Virginian, So we made dinner together then hung out with our Irish friend who invited us to stay at the hostel. She had some friends for work coming over and so we all hung out with theme. As the night progressed I realized the lady who I was talking to was adimate (cant spell) about the fact that men are the problem with the world. After agreeing with her yet talking about the depravity of mankind and explaining what a man should be in the the Christian faith many interesting conversations arrose. After her liking me for my take on what a man and womens role in the world was she proceed to tell me that because I was a Christian I am telling her that she is going to Hell. Intense didnt do that wouldnt do that and after a long while of her telling me that I was wrong and that she is a good person and does good things, the conversation ended. Tried to talk about Jesus, but she wasnt havin it, bummer but we move on. But it did start a great conversation with Josh who we hung out with for the rest of the night and talked to him about Christ and our new mission started to see reality. We had a great conversation and he considering himself a Nihilist listened to us respectibly and through in his own thoughts on the matter but really thought about the stuff we were talking about. We were pumped and the next day we went down and visited Josh and Brandon.
After an entire day of riding five different busses and getting saved by many people that we met who showed us where exactly to stand to catch the right bus to get to the right place to eventually get to Jaco. So we get to Jaco and I want to make this clear that locals in most towns dont know where anything is and give the worst directions ever. So after walking about ten blocks in the wrong direction we turn around get better directions from two different sources telling us the same thing, and after meeting about four drug dealers we start our treck down a dark street with our back packs on and drug dealers rolling around on their bikes right by us. We get to the Christian Surfers Hostel where brandon Duke and Josh Poe are staying and the gate is locked. After writing and angry note the two gentlemen roll up out of the darkness from dinner. Pumped, hugs, Rad broski talk, and much use of the gnar later they tell us that we can sleep in hammocks for five bones, so we do... The next couple days we chill with these guys and have a great time meet some locals, mandy's cousin, and other missionaries in the area then we catch a buss to San Jose. On the three hour bus ride to San Jose without falling asleep and my bag was stolen... It was right over my head I have no clue how one he did that and secondly how nobody behind me said anything. After getting to San Jose I wasnt really bummed other then the fact that my favorite board shorts and my favorite soccer shorts were stolen all he got was two shirts two other pairs of shorts and my favorite flanel and my bible and my ATM card. I cancled it and so he really got nothing. So right now I have my Gnar shreddin tank light blue shorts, bandana, and my trusty Toms Chillin in a ridiculous hostel in Panama City. Less stuff to carry and it will take only about 20 bones to replace my stuff so onward we go and hope that guy is happy with some of my favorite clothing. I dont really know what he can do with a flanel though. So no back pack super dirty but Ive got my tank and that is all that matters. Oh yeah and by the way woot woot and PEACE!