Thanks to all of you on the Great Corn Island who made us feel comfortable and at home. Our stay at the Hotel Best View was most pleasant. This was our second time stayiing at this hotel, only this time I arrived quite ill with measles. Thank goodness for Pearl who took good care of me when I was sick, and then when I was well took me dancing at Nicos; what fun we had! Thank you Myron Downs, owner of the Hotel Best View and the Internet Cafe, for your most generous hospitality. We loved Corn Island and look [View Full Entry]

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Hola Familia y Amigos, We have made it back to the Big Corn Island in the beautiful turquoise caribbean waters. We spent five days here last year and had such a great time we had to return. We got here on Thursday, the day of travel was real hard on me as I am still not feeling well. The good news (I think) is, it is not Malaria. I had my blood checked and the result was negative. I was able to stop at a clinic in San Juan del Sur, get immediate service, and in less than an hour had [View Full Entry]

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Hola Familia y amigos, Well we have completed another week of Spanish school in San Juan del Sur and we are still not speaking as well as we had hoped, however, our comprehension has improved greatly. With old minds like ours I guess it just takes longer. Actually I missed two days of school last week, home with a high fever. I had been battling some congestion in my lungs and sinuses for nearly two weeks and I think it developed into pneumonia or bronchitis. It has been extremely windy down here and the air is very very dusty, I have [View Full Entry]

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Hola once again, Well I know I just bored you all with a very long posting, so I will try to keep this short. We left city Leon for a beautiful beach not too far from the city called Las Penitas (there is a tilde over the n, I just can't find it on this keyboard). Of course as soon as we arrived at the beach I realized I forgot to email the school in San Juan del Sur to arrange more classes so I caught the bus back into the Leon this morning to find a computer. While on the [View Full Entry]

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Hola Familia y Amigos, We have been deep in the mountains of northern Nicaragua for the last week. Wow, what a great time we have had. We spent a few days in a small ranching and farming town called San Rafael del Norte. It is a very small town with a very grand cathedral. The church was beautiful inside with wonderful statuary and murals. It was quite impressive for a small town. Then above the town was another beautiful chapel and a retreat facility. The caretaker showed us around the grounds. The gardens were very lovely full of beautiful flowers, we [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Somoto, a sleepy little mountain town near the border of Honduras on Friday. We feel very comfortable in this town, the pace is much slower than it has been in many of the other cities and towns we have visited. The locals like to emphasize how safe the town is. Of course, we have felt safe everywhere we have been in Nicaragua. I think traveling the United States would be more frightening to a foreignor who did not know the language. The Nicaraguense people are very welcoming to tourists, at least that has been our experience. Somoto is [View Full Entry]

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Hola Familia y Amigos, We have been in the town of Esteli for the last week, again studying Spanish. The town is in the northern mountains at an elevation of around 4000 feet. The climate is much cooler and dryer than it is on the Southern Coast. We are wearing long pants and jackets in the evenings as the temperature dips into the 50´s. It has been very refreshing to us, of course not nearly as refreshing as the Colorado cold must me right now. Hope you all are enjoying your winter. We talked on the phone last week to a [View Full Entry]

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Hola familia and amigos, Yesterday was Terry´s birthday, and also the birthday of the woman of the house where we have been staying. Today is the 15th birthday of the daughter Karla, so as I wrote before, we stayed for the big Quinceaño party. The preparations, decorations and all were just like a big wedding. The party was great fun, music and dancing. About fifty people attended. The kids were great dancers, and the old people attending were dancing as well, keeping right up with the youngsters. Of course us old people took more breaks. We spent a couple of days [View Full Entry]

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Hello again from San Juan del Sur, We were able to watch the playoff games yesterday and Terry is watching again today. How about those Broncos, and how about the interception by Champ Bailey. I am not much of a football fan, however, that play was really fun to watch, and then we got to watch it over and over and over again. Everyone at Big Wave Daves, the gringo bar we watched from, is still talking about it today. It has been real interesting meeting other travelers at the bar and hearing their travel stories. San Juan del Sur is [View Full Entry]

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Well we finally have a break from our Spanish school. What a great time we have been having. we study each morning and have activities in the afternoon. Our knowledge of Spanish is progressing quite rapidly. For our afternoon activities we have been taken on several hikes, two excursions to some remote beaches, cooking lessons, and my personal favorite, dance classes. Me gusta bailar (I like to dance). We danced salsa, marenge (sp), and palo de mayo, which is the maypole dance from the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. Tonight we will go to the local disco and try out our new [View Full Entry]

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