saturday

hello to all, thanks for checking in. costa rica is beautiful and the family we work for is getting ready to leave next weekend. it has been six weeks and seems like two days. my fave kundilini yoga teacher here just went back to los angeles she will be missed. the last set she did rocked my body and left me sore like a marathon runner. crazy. very empowering though. the waiting tables gig seems like it will be nice to have something to go to....aka not overdosing on law and order on central american cable. they do play fox news at the restaurant all the time which makes me nauseous to say the least. it is moving into the rainy season here which can leave you wet and wild. last october, it rained for ten days straight. i feel like a lot of movie watching and ping pong is going to be in order. we can still visit the beach and pool and just continue the reign of wetness. i am at the clinic typing and have an appointment at 1 oclock so i have to run and create some product and get set up. oh, to the new viewers, flickr is a photosharing program online through yahoo i think. i am registered as atarieyes there so find me there and i think you have to ask to connect or something like that. check it out and see if you can get it to work for ya. bye for now. david a

nica trip

so to end my travelling tale of nicaragua, we went out with another couple saturday night and lived it up in the luxurious night life of nicaragua. not so glamourous truth be known. bbuuuttt, i did eat some ice or a snack somewhere along the night that made me extremely sick so i puked my guts out for all of the night and all of sunday until about six when the owner of the b and b went to the pharmacy and got me something. monday i woke up feeling better but very weak. i was a trooper though, and hopped up and gobbled down a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, then to an incredible volcano which i have shown on flicker. it was huge and very high up. we shuffled through that and went to the grenada cemetary which was pretty incredible and grand. we got to the border, changed cars, did our passport stuff and headed home with only a bit of time to spare. we ended up being an hour and a half late to the rent a car place but our friend bob, stayed and waited for us ad even gave us a ride home in the rain. all is all it was an interesting trip with lots of cool and new sights to see. i am already looking forward to my next trip to either panama, belize, or hondurus. love to alllllll. dmob supreme

grenanda

i am currently at the clinic, sitting and typing up a storm on the computer. i am feeling a bit restless and glum at times. the esthetics thing has yet to take off at all. from what i have been told, you have to be here for a while before business picks up for ya. hoping for the best. i am not really in a groove here. i just hang out and watch television a bunch, swim in the pool which is beautiful and hang out with christopher. i am about to start reading the golden compass trilogy. cant remember the name. anyways, i think last i typed i was entering into grenada on our trip to nicaragua. grenada was packed together like sardines in a can. brightly colored facades with historical churches and parks.  we found our gay bed and breakfast with the help of a local named moses who wanted money for helping us and complained of the amount once i paid him. we got in and set our luggage in the room, got directions for an adventure and headed to mosaya which was about 20 minutes away. we drove around looking for the markets and a bank. two white non spanish speaking guys driving around a central american town trying to get directions. it was less than relaxing but quickly over. most of these places are so small you could just drive around and around and eventually you will find what you want. we got to an atm and then to the market. the old market was inside of old castle walls and was extremely touristy and clean and polished and not very remarkable. it was very myrtle beach. so we headed to the new market which is where we shopped. it was incredible crazy and people followed us around their little booths. they would ask what we were looking for, when we would say just looking they would try and hurry us out. very strange. stranger was the selection. everything in the arts and crafts forum from crazy piggy and bunny banks to jesus plaques to taxidermied iquanas and baby gators. one baby gator had a briefcase and cigarette both made of gator skin as well. loony. the seller called him the executive. he arts forum emptied into the rest of the market where raw meat was cut up and plentiful, there was all kinds of food and all kinds of shoes and belts, as well as plastic ware. anything plastic and american-ese was hot hot hot there. interesting that we were from the u.s. and searching for a piece of their culture to buy and take home where they were out buying up plastic walmart gear. weirdness. we ended up going back to the hotel after this experience and chilling out for a bit, showering from the third world market and resting. then we hit the streets again, drinking four mojitos and an appetizer for under five bucks, it was sweet. we found some good food which i eventually got really sick from, nonetheless, a delightful meal at the moment. lol. more to come later. the trip seems to go by so fast and yet so much to write. 

nicaragua

ok, so we left nosara, playa guiones on thursday afternoon, late and got to liberia where we stayed overnight. the hotel was like a best western and the restaurant was some weird chain costa rica place called lib or rib and it had interesting graphics everywhere but we were just happy to be able to sit and eat and drink and rest for a while. it was trying driving in the dark out of our area, into nicoya, and then to liberia. nicoya, there was a main street that had been ripped up and there were not visible signs to let you know where to go. the streets were full of life and we finally got help from a young man named david who spoke a bit of english and helped us out of the craziness of nicoya. we got up early on friday morning and headed out. we just started driving to the border of nicaragua and decided to head to the rancon volcano and national park on this side of the border. we walked the park and got the steam pockets and sulphur springs as well as a mini-volcano. it was all very beautiful and very harsh on my new pumas. oh well. rugger wearhouse 7.00 surprise. good spending. on the way into the trails, i saw a pissotie which was very photogenic and quite glamourous. the border scene into nicaragua was kind of crazy and very third world. there was the costa side, with passport stamping and such, but the really crazy part was just walking through and showing one policeman after another our papers, walking in between trucks and then the other side, where we slipped the imigration officer twenty dollars to get ours stamped by going through a side door in the building, it was totally wild. there were people coming out of every direction at that stop and pretty much through out our time in nicaragua begging for money or selling something. baskets of cashews, baskets of snacks and cigarettes, hammocks, all stacked and balanced on to the tops of their heads. little doe eyed children getting as close to you as they can and asking for one cordobo and then looking so sad or smiling really big, which ever they thought might get them a donation. if you turned them down for that, they would ask for your water or food. this is sitting down at a restaurant in grenada. after a while you just get used to it. the first stop in nicaragua was san juan del sur. we drove about thirty to forty minutes to the little beach community and stayed in the most third world hotel ever. thirteen dollars worth. kind of skanky but cheap. we walked all around the area, even through the sketchy parts, until dark and then stayed pretty close to the boardwalk. the beach was nice, pretty but developed all the way up to the sand. boats at a distance in the water, very little in the way of waves. we drank 1.50 rum and coke all night and got offered cocaine by our waiter at dinner. we saw a woman walking on the beach with a spider monkey on her shoulder as a pet. watched a bit of the olympics opening at one bar, and ate ceviche and shrimp. in the morning we hung out and realized that we pretty much did everything there was to do in san juan del sur in one night. we did some shopping, drank some coffee and headed for grenada. the ride was simple, a ton of shacks and shanties along the way, rivas was especially funkadelic and poverty stricken. once we got to grenada, the ride in was incredible with beautiful trees and a breathtaking cemetary. once we got into the city, it was thick and wall to wall colonial buildings. very pretty and interesting but also very poor. anyone who stops to help you, every time you stop for anything, they want to make a bit of change, we had people want to watch our car for safety, when we would say no, they would offer to wash our car, and so on, and so on. i think that is where i will stop for now. the grenada leg of the trip i will write about next time. if you are not aware, i am posting pictures of my trip and travelling on flickr.com, my id is atarieyes. check it out. more to come later and thanks for checking in. bye for now. david a

back from nicaragua

hello to all, just a quick note before my laptop battery dies, we are back from nicaragua and had lots of fun except for some sickness on sunday, all went well. a very poor country with lots to offer for the traveler. i will have a whole entry or two devoted to the trip but have no energy in the ol computer right now. i am well and alive. much love to all for reading my blog. more to come later. david a

travels

so on monday, our official day off, we took a long bike ride to playa osteonel which was actually about a fifteen mile bike ride. it was pretty and interesting of a drive we had no idea. we saw a carcus of an eat up armadillo, and on the beach, tons of white ping pong ball looking hatched sea turtle eggs and even a couple of non-hatched ones. i found a piece from a turtles shell as well. the beach was a black sand beach with beautiful rocks all over in ruby red, purples and mustards dropped onto a background of charcoal grey. so neat. the vulture like birds were out and about eating any bits of baby turtle that were left behind. in more travel news, christopher and i will be making our first trip away for our passport requirements and in a true streak of adventure, renting a car and driving to and all about nicaragua. we are going to visit san juan del sur, mosaray, i think, and grenada which edges lake nicaragua. i love guerillas. positive energy for the trip. i have had crazy dreams about indiana jones style exits that i envision myself doing in nicaragua. peace be with us. more to come later. 

subtle differences

so i have noticing interesting cultural differences between the states and here. the children are one of the greatest things to watch. they seem so much more independant than the north american children. on the beach, usually on sundays we will venture out for a day of sand castle building, or playing in the water, and i will notice large groups of family, i assume, together on the beach. they congregate and play soccor, and eat, and drink, and play in the water. all different ages and walks of life together. the children seem to be on a buddy system. the older ones, watch the younger ones. the adults seem to do their own thing. the children seem tougher and more able to be independantly entertained rather than constantly wanting something from target to pass another hour of horrible, boring and painful existence before their favorite program comes on their flat screen television. another thing seems to be the learning process of language here. there is a two year old on the property that we take care of that already speaks both english and spanish in the way any two year old would talk, but both languages with accent and new words/phrases coming up all the time. i was told that that part of the brain that allows ease of learning a second language is most fully accessed in the first four years of life. if used, the third or fourth language is more easily learned. if a child only learns one language, they have a harder time learning another one later. the women in this area seem to pour love over all the children whether they are theirs or not. it is very sweet and endearing.