The last days of my first week were spent learning more Spanish and getting to know Esteli a bit better. It´s been so hot here recently that I think I´ve sweat out every bodily fluid I own. I have NEVER drank so much water.

Saturday we went to Miraflor, Nicaragua (type in Miraflor to Google or try http://vianica.com/sp/activity/27/reserva-natural-miraflor). This is the awe part. It was aboslutely amazing. We left Esteli on a 6 am bus and arrived at Miraflor about 8 am. We were greete with a misty, rolling fog that followed us as we climbed a steep hill to begin our day there. It was cool but refreshing. As we walked, all around us was green - trees, leaves, grass, shrubs. It was beautiful. Further along we came across the farming part of Miraflor. Brief background - Miraflor is a farming commune in which people own property of a larger commune. Every dollar earned goes towards a share fund. Everything is organically grown and brought into Managua and other cities and sold. It is a very simple, rustic way of life. The farming portion was breaktaking. Picture a giant hill, really high, lined with different rows of vegetables, plants, trees, etc. There was a huge field dedicated just for cabbage. We stopped for breakfast at Lindos Ojos, literally cute eyes or little eyes, which is owned and operated by a German-Spanish couple Gene and Katarina. They fed us a meal of fresh beans, rice, fresh mango and pineapple in addition to some of their organically grown coffee. Like I said before, it is a very rustic and simple way of life. There isn´t running water for toilets and thier house is surrounded by horses, coffee trees, banana trees and green foilage from the forests on the hillside. We spent 4 hours horseback riding around Miraflor, visiting an orchid farm, seeing what a coffee tree looks like. We even got to a see a giant parasite that had killed off a tree and literally left a shell behind that looks like a giant hollow tree. The locals climb to a certain point in the tree and look out a hole. We also visited a waterfall and got rained on a few times over the course of our adventure. We returned to a meal of potatoe and vegetable soup with some organic bread from a place called La Casita. In total, it cost us $13.00. Not bad for a day of fun and wonder. The girls and I plan on returning to Miraflor later in our trip to hike the trails and spend a girls weekend together.

Now the frustration. Today was especially hot and we were supposed to meet Sobay, a local Spanish woman, for Spanish classes at 1pm. Then it was 2pm. No one knew what time and my host mother told me 1pm. So from 10-30am I was out of my house. I was under the impression that class was at 1pm and I would be home for 2pm lunch. Boy was I wrong. Turns out class was at 2pm and I was supposed to be home for lunch at 12pm. Complete miscommunication. So I went into this lesson hot, tired and very hungry. Lunckily Jess brought me a protein bar and I gobbled that down in addition to my 3rd Nalgene bottle of water for the day. The lesson was ok but our teacher was frustrating and the other people in my group, aside from Jess and Megan can get so annoying. Adding that onto my already fantastic (not) mood was just the cherry on the cake. I left the lesson at 4-30pm after 2 hours of listening to debates over when to use a certain accent or pronoun vs. verb from two other BB students. Soooo annoying. So now I type my frustration. It doesn´t help either that I´m dying of heat.

One more week of Spanish lessons and then I begin my placement at Funarte. Hopefully it goes well. I would love to tell you more but I´m running out of time on my computer in the cybernet cafe.

Hasta luego for now muchachos.