Hola a todos desde San Juan del Sur,
Our last blogger, the eloquent Sayaka Kikuchi, left off the blog on the mystical dual-volcano island of Ometepe (which means “two peaks” in the indigenous Nahuatl language). We spent our last afternoon on the island making jam from freshly picked starfruits and cayenne – Yum!
We took the ferry and a bus from Ometepe to the Mariposa Language School in La Concepción, outside of Masaya, where we spent our Saturday swimming and drinking smoothies at Laguna de Apoyo, a crystal clear crater lake. During the week, we divided our time between volunteering in the mornings and Spanish classes in the afternoons. The group split up to help out at three of the Mariposa School’s community projects: a day care center, a primary school, and La Reserva. I worked in La Reserva, which is a converted permaculture garden which provides fresh produce to the school. Mariposa has combatted deforestation and environmental degradation around La Concepción by purchasing monoculture land and reforesting it or applying permaculture design principles to it. One afternoon after Spanish class, Kelsey, Saya, Mason, Kate, and I rode horses up to a lookout where we surveyed Managua, Nicaragua’s capital city; Lake Nicaragua; Volcán Masaya (currently active!); and the land that Mariposa has purchased and conserved.
From Mariposa we came to the town of San Juan del Sur, AKA Gringo Central, where we are renting an awesome beach house for our week of Student Directed Travel. Our house and its infinity pool (!) looks out over the town and the beach. Our first night here, we got some bomb gelato and celebrated Peyton’s birthday at a salsa club. We’ve been cooking breakfast and dinner as a group (egg curry, pancakes, and a lot of fried rice) and eating lunch out. My favorite lunch spot is Republika, which has bomb falafel burgers. El Gato Negro is the coffeehouse to go to for a coffee/smoothie fix. On Sunday we rented some boards and all took a shuttle to Playa Maderas up the coast to go surfing! The waves were the perfect size for us and we caught some awesome ones.
We were going to go to Costa Rica on Monday, but we decided with less than 12 hours from our departure that we wanted to stay in San Juan del Sur for the remainder of student directed travel, so here we are! We love the house and the town too much to leave so soon. We’ll make it to CR eventually…
We’re about to all meet as a group to get some gelato and watch the sunset on the beach, so ciao for now!
Michael
(Photos from Mariposa and San Juan coming soon!)