outrunning hurricanes

we escaped hurrican ida!! deciding that a tiny caribbean island was not where we wanted to be when a storm hit, tropical or otherwise, helen and i bought tickets for the 6:20 am boat off utila, along with about half the other tourists on the island (all 10 of us). the rain had been coming down in sheets since about 5:30, but they were loading up the ever trusty "utila princess" so on the boat we went. rocking and rolling and whatnot. it was almost like a ride...except for the fact that it wasn´t. the wind tossed us about for a fair bit, people were slipping and sliding and i put on my ipod hoping that listening to the who would calm my nerves--and my stomach. the thought crossed my mind that maybe, MAYBE, it wasn´t the greatest idea to take a small boat across an ocean during a tropical storm. but then i saw it--land ho!! hurrican ida ain´t got nothing on the utila princess!

uh-oh....

another two long days of traveling, where we literally went from one tip of honduras to the other, with a short stay in the capital, tegulcigalpa (say THAT one five times fast). a highlight was that instead of walking into nicaragua, we took a rickshaw-turned-bike taxi (not unlike the ones in downtown san diego...except a tad more rickity) over the border. once our microbus got to the honduran border, we were assaulted by a deluge of money changers clammering for our lempiras (along with the usual suspects of food peddlers...because of course during this whole chaotic scene, i would love a quick baleada and some fried plantains, thank you very much!). totally overwhelmed and not really understanding anything, i saw a quick glimpse of blue being carried overhead and thrown into a bike taxi. and where my backpack goes, i go. so onto the bike i went, where juan cycled me over the bridge and into nicaragua, stopping just once for a toña cerveza on the way (it was HOT, suprise suprise!).

favorite mode of transporation, thus far

now in leon, a small-ish colonial town in northwestern nicaraguan, that has, among other things, tons of history and volcano boarding. yes, apparently you hike up a volcano and then strap yourselve to a wooden board and slide down. ¿porque no?