It's COMEBACK time!

So, while riding for fifteen hours on a bus between San Jose, Costa Rica and Panama City, Panama, I had this huge realization that I have not written on this blog in a really, REALLY long time! And upon further inspection, it turns out that it's been more then two months since any sort of update has made an appearance here. For that I am sorry, and I'm sure there are actually probably only one or two people (mom and dad) who take the time to check this, in the hopes that I've managed to string together a few coherent thoughts.

I think in the future, in order for this to be a blog that I can keep up with on a (hopefully) more regular basis, I'm going to change the format of how I make posts. Instead of including lengthy posts that give play by plays of all things exciting including pictures to show how much fun it is, I think I'd like to lean more towards just my general observations of life in Central America. Not that this means I WON'T include pictures, but that it won't be so focused on what specific activities I do on each day. I think that in this way, I won't become so overwhelmed when I fall behind. I can just pick up where I left off! Also, for a more general (or perhaps, more specific) idea of what I'm doing each day... check facebook

I don't want to leave you cold turkey though, so I will end this blog with a quick play-by-play of the last few months that have been sadly neglected by me.

The last blog ended with Dan and I somewhere in Honduras. Basically, for all intensive purposes, Honduras was a piece of shit country. With the exception of the Bay Islands, which you should definitely visit if you're interested in PADI diving certification or some amazing snorkel time. Other then that, it seemed that no matter where we went, there was someone waiting to take advantage of us, or rip us off, or in the most extreme, pull our backpacks off our backs to "help us" carry them.

After the less then savory experience in Honduras, I headed down to El Salvador to meet up with my best friend Medeha, who was flying in from the states for her Christmas vacation! Soooo excited were we to see each other! For any of you who know us, a few months apart is like an eternity! We spent the whole week talking, talking, talking, drinking, talking, laying in the waves, drinking, talking, talking. Dan showed up for the last bit of it, and I think he wished he'd given us a few more days to catch up! After Medeha left, Dan then decided to hightail it down to Colombia, because he was itching to get further south.

And me, well, we all know that when a beach is near, there's really no way I'm tearing myself away from that! I spent the next three weeks in Playa El Tunco on the Pacific Coast ofEl Salvador. I might actually still be there, but had the saving grace of planning on meeting my mom in Nicaragua! And not only did I meet my mom, but she surprised me by bringing me DAD!! We spent the next few days enjoying each others company, being pampered, exploring every single church and cathedral in Granada, being pampered, climbing volcan Mombacho, and getting a tour of Gran Pacifica resort (wow!!!) and still more pampering! Dad sadly had to leave after our time in the Granada area, but mom and I made our way down south to a small fishing town turned surfing village, San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. Now, I have to say for the time we spent in San Juan, we didn't get to know a whole lot of the town, because, gosh darnit that resort was soooooo nice!!! Who would really want to peel themselves away from the inifinity pools and the wonderful drink service (these are all FREE, right mom???). Alas, we did take a few day trips to some of the beaches in the area and loved them, after just a bit of a walk the beach was practially our own! All and all, the visit from my parents was absolutely amazing! It's so nice to have family around, and I hope that they enjoyed seeing at least for a bit what life has been like for me down here.

After saying good bye to my mama, I checked into Hostel Pachamama, which for the next three weeks were my adopted family. Never have I stayed in a hostel where literally EVERYONE got along with each other. No matter what time of day, who was around, there were always people to hang out with, and people who wanted to be friendly and friends. A few of us even managed to start a surf gang; we're known as the Surf Sistas!

Don't you worry! We are so good we only need ONE board!

It ended up being a long term living situation for most of us there, because I had managed to convince quite a few of my friends to hang around a few more weeks for the Pitaya Fest The festival was a HUGE success! And afterword, we all felt the need to split town in search of quiet hammocks to rest our brains and our livers. For me, that meant crossing the border down to Costa Rica in search of a quiet beach town. However, and unfortunately, what we came to can only be described as weird frankenstein combination of vegas meets miami meets shady beach town in central america :( Not exactly the ideal place to go dry ourselves out. We stayed there for a few days (apparently the waves were AWESOME! and Josh, the surfer of our group was excited to be there) While he was out catching waves, I spent my days rotating between sleeping on the couch and sleeping in bed. Eventually I had to call it quits, and booked a shuttle to San Jose, where I arrived last monday and then booked an overnight bus to Panama City- where I have just arrived!!!!

So, that is the last two months in a nutshell. This short description along with what ever information you can glean from the facebook pics should give you at least a rudimentary understanding of what been going on the last few months.

And now, I am making a promise (or perhaps, this should be called a quasi-promise!) to become better at including updates, of any kind just so this blog doesn't get re-categorized from dormant to extinct (are blogs like volcanoes? I think they might be!)