After 6 rather rushed days back at home doing the rounds of family visits I headed down to North Carolina for another fun round of Broadreach Staff Training. I spent 10 days going over the logistics of the Sea Turtles Studies program I´m about to lead in Costa Rica, Broadreach rituals, risk management, etc etc. The highlight of staff training is always meeting all kinds of incredible, inspiring people from all over the world, and this year was no exception-- I made lots of great new friends and got lots of information and new ideas for future adventures.

From there I headed down to Costa Rica with about 10 days to explore on my own before my group arrived. After a night in Alajuela, a suburb of San Jose (C.R.´s capital city) with fellow Broadreach co-leads Lucy and Kate, we hopped on a bus to La Fortuna, where we did an incredible night tour of Volcan Areneal, Central America´s most active volcano. After a refreshing dip in some hot springs (some pretty bootleg ones right underneath a bridge--the water was the runoff from the really expensive developed ones upstream a few hundred feet, but they were free!) we headed to the volcano. We were worried that the cone had been cloudy all afternoon and that we wouldn´t get to see anything, but we were in luck! As we approached in our ridiculously overcrowded 4x4, the clouds began to clear. I noticed the glow of orange in the distance, and as we approached the lava flow began to show more clearly. It was really unbelievable-- A steady stream of lava just flowing down the side of the volcano as casually as water flowing down a mountain stream. We stopped and got out at a viewpoint about 1-2 miles away, and could see enormous boulders falling down the slope like embers in a fire place. If you listened very closely you could just hear the crackling and churning. At one point there was a larger explosion of rock, lava and smoke, and after a few seconds delay an enormous BOOOM. The only disappointment for the night was our inability to photograph the incredible sight--what to our eye appeared so spectacular and vivid translated on camera merely to an impossibly tiny, barely distinguishable faint orange glow.

The following morning I parted ways with Lucy and Kate and hopped on a bus North. Many hours and about 4 buses later I arrived at the Nicaraguan border in the late afternoon. After crossing the border, I decided on principle to not get in a taxi with any of the guys that seemed to swarm around my like flies, despite having no guidebook or any real information of how to get where I was going, or, for that matter, any definite idea of where I was going. I hopped on a bus going north towards Managua--a really awesome vintage 70s recycled American schoolbus. Within a few minutes I looked out the window and saw a big brown expanse which I though at first was a field, but then realized was Lake Nicaragua, the 5th largest freshwater lake in the world. I ended up spending the night in a small town called Rivas not far from the border. I met up eiyh a Dutch girl named Nicole in an internet cafe and we decided to travel to Olmetepe Island together the next morning.

We took a short taxi ride to the San Jorge ferry dock on Lake Nicaragua and got on the first boat of the morning. The boat ride was simply amazing! Lake Nicaragua is apparently the only lake in the world with freshwater sharks (bullsharks to be exact) but despite our best efforts we couldn´t spot any. We could, however, see the two massive cones of the island´s 2 volcanos -Concepcion and Maderas- rising in front of us as we approached! At the risk of sounding a bit vulgar, the best description of what the volcanos look like is two enormous breasts rising up out of the water.

OK I´m getting sleepy so I´m going to speed write the rest. We made our way to a beautiful hotel on a quiet beach called Charco Verde on the lake and talked our way into getting a nice private room for only $20 a night. We walked around the area, checked out this green lagoon, saw all sorts of birds and other animals, and killer views of the lake and volcanos from above the cliffs. The next day we rented a motorcycle--I had an interesting time riding it since I´d never ridden a full sized, completely manual bike before, but I eventually got the hang of it. We went to a waterful--had quite an adventure getting there on this windy dirt-rock road, but made it and it was well worth the effort. Visited some petroglyphs after and had lunch at the beach (tons of sandflies, awesome rainbow after rainstorm) and went swimming in a crystal clear water hole surrounded by enormous tropical trees. On the way back I got the bike up to 90 km/hr on the main road--partly for me, and partly to impress Nicole (she seemed impressed I think). It was an unforgetable day.

The next morning we hung out on the beach and took the ferry back in the afternoon, the mhopped on a bus to Granada, an old colonial city which is the second largest in Nicaragua. I spent 3 nights at a cool, chill hostel called the Bearded Monkey, pretty much being lazy--hanging out and meeting other travelers, lounging on the hammocks, and taking advantage of the yummy food and dangerous happy hour (¨Nica libres¨--double rum and cokes--for $1). I got sick one day but not too bad, and also spent a day being even lazier on a day trip to the Laguna de Apoyo, a spectacular volcanic crater lake 20 minutes from Granada.

I took another painfully long, painfully uncomfortable (standing most of the time) series of bus rides back to San Jose yesterday, and have spent today preparing for the arrival of my first group tomorrow. I´m getting excited, and am actually getting worried that I´m not feeling more worried by this point, as I´m usually very nervous before beginning a long group trip like this (does that make any sense?) I should probably get some rest (since I´ll be getting very little from here on out) so I´ll finish here. Oh one other thing--if you want to read updates and see pics from my trip in Costa Rica you can click the following link, which we´ll update as much as possible throughout the summer: http://www.academictreks.com/whatsup/update.asp?id=7456