Beginnings

So, I've been in Nicaragua for about two days now. In Grenada, a City that has survived with cathedrals and horse-pulled carriages intact since Spanish colonization, making it the oldest colonial city in the Americas. It's a fifteen minute walk from my hostel to the lake, and ten minutes to the bustling market where Emile or a shoe and I a dress fixed yesterday.

We've been cooking and grocery shopping, sleeping and reading and walking mostly. It's damn hot, so we kind of meander slowly down the street wherever we go. Unless we're sprinting, in which case we get lots of stares and comments in Spanish I can't understand!

My only real experience with traveling like this was in Uganda and Rwanda, so I'll probably make lots of comparisons between that trip and this. For one, Grenada has more resources at its disposal than Gulu - more cars, nicer buildings, fewer poor areas, greater variety of food and stores and amenities. That said, it has far fewer resources than Kampala or Kigali, which might be expected since Grenada is not the country's capital. There are almost NO men catcalling here, which is extremely refreshing, and way less attention from locals in general. It is much more normal to see gringos around here, I guess. Or maybe people here just don't automatically expect white people to be aid workers. Our hostel is full of people from all over - last night a group of 20ish French speakers had a giant dinner, taking over the whole kitchen when we first went in to cook. A nice couple from California stays in the room next to us; if we stay another night, we might go get a drink with them.

The plan is to leave for Ometepe tomorrow morning. We'll take a bus to Rivas, then a ferry across the lake to the island. I've heard only good things about it, so I'm excited!

More to come...