La Laguna de Apoyo

Hola!! I just realized I forgot my camera again... So you´ll have to bear with my blabbering w-o pretty pictures. So I started Spanish classes yesterday. My teacher, Sergio, is the same age as me. He told me all about the gangs in his hometown of Tipitapa and how the first toys of children in this town are machetes. We also spoke a bit about the elections. Speaking of which, there is propaganda everywhere! Banners, painted signposts, commercials, trucks that drive around the city with huge speakers belting out messages from Montealegre, Rizo and Ortega. Sergio is pretty cynical about the whole thing. Today in class, we walked to the cemetary. It was a sea of mausaleums, bedecked with crosses, statues of Jesus on the cross, Mary and other saints. In the background was Mombacho, the volcano 10 km away. A few mausaleums were dedicated to fallen Sandinistas in the revolution of ´79, their tombs brightly painted with their names, little pictures of the FSLN flag and messages from loved ones.

This morning I went to the Laguna de Apoyo with another student at Casa Xalteva from Utah, Aldo. We took a bus at 7am from Granada, a yellow school bus. I watched out the window as we passed small towns, lush green valleys and homes with laundry hanging throught the slats of the windows. We then took a taxi over the mountain, fog settled into the vines of the trees and beds of underbrush. Everything was green and wet from the morning rain. The Laguna itself was formed from volcanos and is about 4 miles across. The water was warm, and the mountains unbelievably beautiful... I´ll send pictures tomorrow, I promise.