Earthquake in Upala

We got to La Fortuna late on the 10th, checked out Volcan Arenal the next day. Was hoping to see some national geographic lava like the videos on youtube but it didn't work out for us. Apparently its been pretty quiet since last October or November. It's nice out there in the national park though and was cool to see the recent streaks on the volcano from the lava. We got poured on on our way out and luckily one of the tour bus drivers gave us to free ride back to town. On that ride we met a phd student from france doing her studies in costa rica and went out that night to watch Costa Rica get destroyed by Argentina. You could call it a bad decision or not, but we stayed out, karaoked and hung out with our hostal owners. I told greg we'd miss the bus and probably get screwed out of going to San Juan del Sur, he didnt believe me and well.. we didn't make it haha. It's good he learned that lesson early, because he never would have trusted me til it actually happened.

Got out of La Fortuna a little late on the 12th, and started bus hopping hoping to make it across the border in time. When we arrived in a town called Upala to catch the border bus, we found out the next one wasn't leaving until 5 so we just hung around and eventually made it up to La Cruz (pretty close to the border) for the night. At our little stop over in Upala, we were sitting around eating, getting checked out by 13 year old girls and the ground started moving. People were freaking out running around for safety and making phone calls. Was a 5.1 with 2 aftershocks. They said the volcano nearby started smoking. Turns out the only person that fainted was one of those girls haha. Here's an article on the temblor

The CR/Nica border was pretty easy.. MUCH quicker than panama/CR. What was nuts though was how long the line was for trucks and buses. We're lucky to have cabbed over because we got dropped off right at the window.. if we had bussed we would have had to walk a few kms or more. Got through and bus hopped to Leon. We're staying with a woman I had met in Panama, Mercedes. She is the Cosecha Sostenible (agency I built stoves with) directora of central america. Signed up to volcano board Cerro Negro tomorrow morning. Theres a full moon hike set up for tomorrow night but I don't think we'll make it since the plan is to get to Estelí for a cigar factory tour and baseball game the next day.

I'm diggin the food all over. The plates are all pretty similar to a Panamanian fonda.. rice beans, a little salad and some kind of meat but now that we're getting further north we're starting to see tortillas too, and not the little fried corn hockeypuck of a tortilla from Panama. A meal that would be 2, maaybe 2.50 in Panama is 5, 6, could be 7 in Costa Rica :/. Nica's prices are back to normal. Didn't make it to Granada, but the two volcanos on Lake Nicaragua are a cool sight.

Out of the two CR beers I tried, Imperial and Pilsen.. both of us decided Pilsen was better. It is Panama's Panama, while Imperial is its Atlas. Update on Nicaraguan beer later (toña/victoria)

Some word differences I'm noticing.

Plastic bag which is cartucho in Panama is just a bolsa in Costa Rica. I asked for a cartucho and Sylvia our hostal owner was very confused. Also they say campo for space, or a seat on a bus. kept hearing "hay campo, hay campo". A Soda is a little restaurant or fonda in panamanian spanish. By the way, fonda is a bolsa/cartucho in Ecuador. A soda (the drink) is a fresco in CR and gaseosa here in Nica. A hostel is a hostal in panama, cabinas in CR and hotelito in Nica.

From Greg:

As far as my Spanish experience goes, I learned that using Spanglish is not always the best idea. Trying to tell the people in David's town that I was embarrassed as how I was speaking, I made up some word "embarazo." Turns out that it was not a made-up word at all, so what I ended up telling everybody was "I am a pregnancy". So.. that was fun!