Nicaragua!

HELLO EVERYONE!
We made it back to the world of technology and we now sitting in a sweltering hot Internet cafe in the city of Rivas, in NICARAGUA! When
i say back to the world of technology, thats a joke, this place is
from the middle ages as pollo would say, so the photos from the past
few days are now on this link, which seems to upload faster then to
the blog at this moment. Check them out at

http://picasaweb.google.com/juodaspaulius/VaizdaiIsCentrinesAmerikos

Last week we did in fact see the Dr. as I am sure you all could tell from the Ultrasound pictures. He was very funny and likable, and more importantly the baby is doing great! He is upwards of 5lbs now and big for his age. The ultrasound showed he has lots of hair, and all his fingers and toes- a good start to life I suppose :) We didn't find out the gender yet, even though the Dr really wanted to tell us- we will save some surprise! So everything for the birth is set up, the hospital, Dr, house rental, and we are now on the road again until the 1st of Aug when we have to be back in San Jose.

SOOOOOO, we hopped on a bus to the Nicaraguan border, got there just in time in the middle of a huge rain storm and in the dark. When we arrived at the border it was a little sketchy, but a lovely man who was on our bus guided us through, I guess he was doing his mitzva for the day! So he got us the forms, and on the lines, and to the places we needed to get to, and soon we were on our way in a taxi at the LOCAL price, very nice indeed. He even told us the name of a nice cheap place to stay in Rivas, our next stop and transitory bus town. with the best Pizza on the mainland.

After our night in Rivas we headed out to Ometepe Island, on a lovely little ferry boat. The island is made up of two Volcano's that are still active, in the middle of a huge fresh water lake. The early morning view was spectacular, and the cool breeze felt nice. Getting off the ferry we grabbed our first Nicaraguan tacos, two fried tortillas with some chicken inside and salad ontop. They cost us 26 cordobas for the meal, or about $1.25 USD, not to bad for the price, although they did leave us feeling a little hungry.

Everyone on the island was so friendly, always smiling and saying hello as they passed us in the streets. Its all dirt roads, and the main transport is retired USA school buses, painted and covered in stickers. Much of the roads aren't actually roads at all, but rocky paths that most people would even try to drive their truck on, but these buses seem to make it just fine, even if we never went above 10 miles per hour. In any case its slow going out there, and we stayed our first nights in a midway point called Chico-largo. It was right on the lake side, our room was feet from the short. With a cool breeze, monkeys over head, fresh fruit juice, and a amazing all you can eat buffet at night (including pesto pasta, whole lake fish, salads, chicken, beans, rice, tortellini, plantains, and fresh lemonade) I didn't think things could get much better! But wait, there more! Pollo (the in-house genius) brought with him, all the way from Lithuania, two inflatable rafts! So we blew them up and floated away in the cool waters of the lake. We took turns being tug boat and pulling each other back upwind of our hotel, and shared our shore with white horses, local kids swimming, and several women doing their laundry. Heavenly!

We took a day trip up to a nearby attraction, the eye of water, which is a volcanic spring, and famous fountain of youth, at least localy. The water was clear as any I've ever seen and COLD which was just what i wanted after such hot days here. POllo translated WELCOME into Lithuanian so that they could put it on their gate with all the other languages who had visited, he is always a novelty here, as it seems no other Lithuanians have ever visited Nicaragua, or at least not as long as anyone can remember!

The next day we headed out further, to the more remote island, for the base camp of Pollos volcanic trek. As we were walking along the way we met a nice guy who recommended to us a place to stay http://www.ometepezopilote.com/ which turned out to be just the thing we were looking for. An all organic, earthy crunchy, hippy place, we arrived to find several Spanish and Italian's bead working, while listening to songs of the revolution under a thatched roof. The toilets are composting, the water safe to drink, and the entire places looks a little bit like a fairy garden, with winding paths and tropical flowers as far as you can see. Staying in our cottage were a couple of Irish guys, and pollo the they arranged for a guide for the next day to do the trek. Meal while i ordered pizza for the evening, to be cooked in a huge earthen wood stove under the stars. We sat round a table laughing and chatting with the others staying there, and watched an amazing fire spinning show, done to classical, Spanish, and techno music. BRAVO!

Pollo left early the next day for his trek, with his hiking crocks on. As the group marched off into the distance i went back to bed, and lay watching the flycatchers and hummingbirds outside my window. I got up, did some yoga, and took a long walk to the nearby town, 2 hours away, but worth the ice cream and the python sighting along the way. I even met a nice man with a pig on his bike, he stopped to talk with me for a while, but eventually had to go, as the pig was getting hot and angry.

When i got home pollo and his crew had made it down, all safe and sound, he was covered in red clay and seemingly not at all tired, only a few thousands meters later :) They took a dip in the top, in the crater pool, sounds like a great time, one girl with high tek German hiking boots fell and cut her leg, needed stitches that night, but pollos crocks proved just the right shoe- easy to clean at the end of the day too! Pollo made me a nice dinner, of organic pasta sauce and pasta, and we lay together in the hammock reading for a while, and went to bed early- but only after an exploratory pond search. We could hear what seemed to be a small army of star wars fighter jets in the lotus plants, but it turned out to be just a group of tiny yellow frogs all filled with air like little balloon's singing to the moon light.

We woke up this morning and took a walk to a nearby farm (1 hour away) where we had a great breakfast of fruit salad, beans, and sour cream, and then made our way back to the port, the ferry, the bus, the taxi, and now Rivas. We are back in the same hotel, and will leave early for the Northern city of Leon.

So that's the update of our recent movements. Everyone is still feeling great, pollo says chicolini is getting bigger, i have seen a mirror in over a week. Its been hot hot hot, four showers a day, or one per bus ride seems to do the trick. We saw a motor cycle show today and thought of all our motor cycle riders at home. Things here always remind us of our friends and family. Wish we could share them with you all. Much love, until next time- Chicolini and Company