wherever you are, there you are...

..and so here i am, in the town of San Juan del Sur, in the southwestern corner of Nicaragua, 11 degrees north of the equator, on this planet Earth. for a while now i´ve been wondering how i can remain in contact with friends and family back home and beyond, and so here i am making my first ever blog entry! i will be hopefully updating somewhat frequently, and so feel free to read, respond, or ignore. (i will, however, be administering a cumulative review once i return to the states to see just who my real friends are.)

much has happened since my arrival, here´s a short review of the past 12 days... i arrived at the airport in San Jose, Costa Rica after nearly missing my flight out of SFO (they decided, at the last minute, to send me to san jose in the middle of rush hour traffic so that i made my flight only by sheer luck. thank you karma!), then jumped on the bus for the eight hour journey to Nicaragua. by the time i arrived here in SJDS i had travelled for nearly 24 hours without sleeping or eating, but somehow was able to have a great time hanging out with Alexis, my friend and traveling companion for the first 10 days of this trip. We spent two nights (and too much money) here in town before moving up to the beach north of town where we spent the next 6 days. life then became a blur of sleeping, eating, drinking (mainly water), surfing, jellyfish, minor sunburns, sand (it gets everywhere), crabs (i found a decomposing one in my pile of clothes, not a flattering scent), beautiful sunsets, good books, and offshore winds (everyday, all day!). I was and continue to be very grateful for this return to all the simple and good things in this life.

the real world, however, beckons from far away, calling alexis back to the alternate dimension we know as the united states, and so we packed up our stuff and headed north along the shores of lake colcibolba squeezed into the back of the "chicken" bus next to old abuelitas and schoolchildren to the town of masaya. there we enjoyed the experience of staying in a genuine nicaraguan town, one that existed for other purposes other than catering to the ever growing flow of backpackers and tourists. while there we visited the rim of an active volcano and watched the plume of sulphur smoke puffing about and saw the flock of parakeets that somehow live in said crater, and then swam in la laguna de appoyo, an ancient lake formed in an even ancient-er volcanic crater. the water there is clear and thermally heated, and full of minerals too which i think helped heal the grotesque jellyfish wound across my belly. the caretaker of the lodge made the mistake of believing me when i said i could sail a hobie cat and we nearly sank the boat by filling one of the pontoons with water (always check to make sure the plug is in!) and then celebrated the fact that we were still alive be drinking our fair share of Flor de Cana, the national rum. not that we needed a respite from our idyllic beach life, but this was the perfect escape from the coast.

sadly though, alexis went on her way, back to NYC of all places and now here i am all on my own. i took my time getting home, stopping over in the city of grenada for a night before coming back to the beach. tomorrow i´ll leave this section of the coast to head north to the famed surf break called Popoyo and to las playas further north. I´ve met many fellow surf travellers along the way and so I am in good company, tomorrow i´ll travel with a german couple i met and then i´ll meet up with some other european and australian friends in popoyo. just now i met a couple from durham, NC who are driving to Chile! so even though i´m on my own, i´m not alone.

so this is getting a bit long, and i´m sure most of you have quit reading by now but i just wanted to say that i´m thinking of you friends and family as i make my way along on this journey of mine. i´d never be where i am now without the places that i´ve been along the way, and each one of you has helped make me the person i am today. and so know that you are loved, and appreciated. thanks for reading.

until next time,
ryan

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