This post will be brief, simply because the internet access where I am is very limited (see expensive), as it is only available through satelite. But, there's so much to tell!

I arrived last night on the Island of Ometepe on Lake Nicaragua. I crossed the border with two other travelers, a young woman from England and a young man from Belgium, that morning and we proceeded to the island as fast as we could. I had a couple of mishaps along the way: First of all, I lost my Nalgene water bottle at Nicaraguan Customs. I suppose it was bound to happen eventually, as I was always carrying it by hand and really didn't have a place for it in my bag. It's sad to lose it, but I'll live.

Secondly, and more annoyingly, I accidently withdrew around 300 US dollars, because I misunderstood the exchange rate! What makes this even worse, is that Nicaragua is an extremely poor country, and money goes an extremely long way here. While that's good, it also means that I'm carrying around half a year's salary for plenty of people, I'm sure, which makes me nervous. Additionally, I'm surely going to lose a lot of money in changing the money to dollars at the border.

But other than that I'm doing fine. We are staying at a hostel on the far side of the island, which is full service and quite cheap. A meal is 1-2 dollars, my dorm bed is 2 dollars a night. The most expensive thing is internet, which is 4 dollars an hour. In this half an hour I'm spending online, I could pay for another night here at the hostel.

The island here is absolutely beautiful and I'm seriously wishing that I could extend my plane ticket so that I could spend more time in Nicaragua (I'll look into it). After Costa Rica, and its controlled, tourist-centered environment, I had forgotten that places like this existed. This place seems so alive in every sense.

If you're curious about where I am, go look it up on a map. Find Nicaragua, and then find the biggest body of water there. There's an island in the middle, and we're on the Southeastern side of it.

I'll send more updates as I'm able, but I'm loathe to use the internet, considering the relative expense.