Ometepe Slideshow

Slideshow of our Ometepe trip. Not including our night of debauchery with the help of Flor de Caña.

Ometepe part 2

The last day we were on the island we took a tour to see some interesting things. We saw a tree full of cute little monkeys. Here is one of them.



We also saw several petroglyphs. I'm not sure how old they are but they are from the original inhabitants of the island.



We saw the volcano from a few different vantage points.

And some more farm animals...



Then we watched a beautiful sunset at the port...





The next day we headed home. It was another exhausting day of travel. Ferries, taxis, and buses for another 8 hours. Here is a shot of a guy on the ferry pumping water out of the engine room (and onto our feet).


At least the border wasn't as crowded on the way back. Here is a pic of the border town. They all look a lot like this in Central America.

Isla de Ometepe part 1

Last weekend we took a trip to Nicaragua. We went to the beautiful island of Ometepe which is a small island with two big volcanoes (one active, one not) in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua (lake Nicaragua). The 8 hours of bus travel and the chaotic border crossing was NO fun but it was worth it. It was an amazing place!


We stayed at Hotel Playa Venecia which was right on the beach next to a nature preserve. It was very relaxing and beautiful. There are all kinds of farm animals running around the island. Here Sam is making friends with a local pig (probably to be someone's breakfast someday).



We went for a walk in the preserve, it was great! There is a big lagoon on the trail and we were checking it out when we noticed hundreds of little things hopping around. At first we thought they were bugs, yuck! But we looked closer and discovered that they were tiny little frogs. The smallest frogs we've ever seen...

Festival

There was an agricultural festival in Coronado this weekend. It was interesting. There were a lot of cows and animals along with the usual gigantic farmer's market that they typically have every weekend. There was a band called mascarada that had a bunch of people in costumes and masks. The music was good too.




I was invited to play a set at the festivities. The sound system wasn't perfect but the show went well.

Moving time

We've moved! Sam got the job teaching Englsh in San Isidro de Coronado. She's teaching at a small English school that works with the a local agricultural co-op. It's a nice job and she really likes the students.



So, we found a nice little house outside of town, it's nice and it has a
big yard. There are lots of birds and our neighbors are really cool. The town that we live in is about a half hour out of San Jose in the mountains. It's dairy and farm country and is fairly laid back. Of course everyone tells us not to walk around at night, but it really doesn't seem any scarier than Portland was (probably less scary really).



There is a small farm on the side of our house and a small (at least in the dry season) river behind our house. Here are some pics of the side and back of our house.





There a bunches of these pretty birds, called bobo's by the locals. I believe they are actually mot-mots though. Either way, cute bird, cute name.

Worst trip ever.... well, not really but.....

We took a trip back to Bocas del Toro, Panama, with my (Sam's)parents, who are visiting for a few months. Our first stop was Puerto Veijo. When we went last year it was a sunny Caribbean paradise,but this time it was gloomy and rainy the whole time. The funny thing about this town is that instead of the usual ragtag assortment of stray dogs handing around everywhere, there were cats. Whenever we'd be kicking back to eat in a restaurant there would be some cute little kitty under the table and begging for food.





Here is a vulture drying his wings during a brief respite from the rain.





We narrowly missed being able to cross the border into Panama. Turns out that we were about the last people that made it. Because of the heavy rains the border town flooded and the border closed down for a few days. We made it to Isle Bastimentos and settled in at the Hostel Bastimentos. It was rainy and nasty for almost a week and all the roads were closed so we were stuck. It was so wet and muddy that there wasn't much we could do but sit and read.
We did manage to get out one day for a short tour. It was cloudy but we didn't get rained on. We went to dolphin bay and saw some dolphins, then we went snorkeling. We saw some amazing squids that changed color several times as we watched them. I wish I could have gotten some pictures.

Here is a pick of the tiny little frogs on the island. The most popular beach "Red Frog Beach" is named after these little guys.






On the morning that we were finally going to be able to leave, we all got sick. Food poisoning. Luckily we were only down for one day, but the most irritating thing was that it was sunny and beautiful for the first day of the whole trip and we were stuck in bed.






So, we stayed one extra day to recover and did manage a nice sunny trip to the beach before we left. Then it was back to San Jose where I had an interview for a teaching job in Coronado, Costa Rica.

Fiesta!

As always it's been an interesting couple of weeks...

Willie had his first date:) He was the companion of Katrina at Karina's 15th birthday party. At first we thought it was a simple date but when we got there it turned out that he was there to take part in a ceremonial dance. Luckily it wasn't too complicated. They all lined up with their partners and stood in two lines across from each other, then Karina and here date went from person to person dancing with them. It's hard to describe, but it was very interesting. Anyway, the 15th year is an important event and it was great to be a part of it and check out some local culture.




















Mike has been working on his music and has put together a new version of his song "The Wind"
Check it out....



We've been seeing a lot of birds lately, we saw toucans twice last week. We've also seen some woodpeckers and various other birds. And as always there have been some other interested beasties around... Mojo went chasing after something the other night and when Mike went to get him he heard a loud and scary growl coming from the darkness. We think it was a cat of some kind, maybe a jaguar or jaguarundi.






















This week has been the end of school, prep for the holiday week. We took Kaileah to a secret santa party on Friday and spent most of the day at an all day graduation party. We finally got a chance to get down with the locals. In the past we've gone to their parties and everyone was standing around, nobody dancing. We discovered last night that if you just stay late enough people start loosening up and dancing. We were also tricked into participating in a dance contest. Carlos came running up to us looking very serious, telling us that we HAD to go dance because they needed one more couple to dance. We didn't really understand why it was so urgent but we went ahead and danced. Everyone else was sitting/standing and watching us dance, but that's usually what happens so we didn't think anything of it. Then when the music stopped we started to walk away and they stopped us and had us line up in front of everyone. Then they started announcing everyone's names and having the audience cheer for everyone. It finally occurred to us that we'd just competed in a contest! The funniest thing about it was that we won the contest. It was definitely a pity win, as we were the worst dancers on the floor. Funny stuff!

Willie and Josh have been really sick for the last several days. They've been feverish and feeling pretty nasty. So, they've missed out on all the fun. Willlie seems to be feeling better so we're hoping he'll be all better ASAP. It stinks that he's missed out on all the events going on.

As always, we're keeping track of the more farm related activities on our other blog http://verdenergiablog.blogspot.com/

A harrowing experience....

We've had a fun week.

On Saturday Mike and Yemaya had a gig in Salitrales, a nearby community. By the time we had to leave it was dark and had been raining pretty heavily. It was a harrowing adventure. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or scream in fear, so I did both:) It was dark, so luckily we couldn't see the scary cliffs or landslide areas, but the road was crazy and we were expecting a hill to fall on us at any moment. At one point there was a waterfall into the road. And to top it off the headlights kept going out. It was like a ride at Disneyland only minus the feeling of security of knowing it's all staged. But we got to the show in one piece and it went great! It's always an adventure out here and we wouldn't trade it for anything, even if it's scary sometimes.

Right now we're house-sitting at our friend Dominic's. He has a nice open air place with a great view. I wanted to do some walking around the property but I don't have safe shoes. I was startled by a small snake while I was walking around and decided to be safe. Supposedly there are a lot of baby Fur de Lances in the area right now, and these snakes are extra dangerous as the babies don't know how to control how much venom they put out when they bite. So, I'm not taking any chances. But it's nice and tranquilo here, Pura Vida.

Other than that we've been up to our usual things, mostly working on the farm, teaching at the school, hanging out with the various folks who stop by, and living our lives. Good stuff!

Good Times

This is the campesino version of a wi-fi cafe, a one room schoolhouse in the jungle...

It's been a very busy couple of weeks. We've been working, brewing, and have done a bit of traveling as well. We had our first English class at the school, which went well, now they want us to teach at both the primary and secondary schools.

Our good friend Brent came to visit, which was totally awesome...... good times!
We have a ton of pictures and a couple of videos, I hope I can get it all posted today, we'll see...

When we went to Alajuela to pic up Brent we ran into our friend (Adian) who we met back in April at an art festival. He's an amazing artist from Cuba as well as a really friendly, cool guy. We went to his apartment to see his art collection. It was very impressive. Here are a few pics, there are tons more.....We can't fit them all on here.



































We had a great time with Brent while he was here..... We hung out at the farm for a few days and then headed off to the beach, Manual Antonio. We decided to combine our anniversary (which was Nov 11) and scouting for music venues for Mike with the trip, justifying the expense of the travel and leaving Willie behind (he'll get a chance to go when his grandparents visit) . It was absolutely beautiful!









Mike had an impromptu jam session at the Bueno Nota with Jonathan, a very talented musician. Eventually we'll post a video (right now we're having technical difficulties with our video compressor).

On our second day we took a walk in the national park. We saw two kinds of monkeys, a sloth, a raccoon, and some Agouti.






















Last night Jose Conde, a talented musician from Cuba, came by for dinner. He, Mike, and Josh joined in on a jam session in the studio. Here are some audio tracks......
http://www.mikemudd.net/moondanceconJose.mp3
http://www.mikemudd.net/obama.mp3




We're still working on various projects at the farm. To see more detail of the projects that have happened over the last couple of weeks at the farm check out our sister blog at http://verdenergiablog.blogspot.com/

Until next time....

Back in Paradise

Well it's been a while since we've posted anything here. We'd gotten pretty wound up in various projects and work to get back to Costa Rica. In addition to the things we wanted to get going to help the folks down in Lanas we were doing whatever we could to scrape up the cash to get here. Mike did lots of gigs, I got my TEFL certificate to teach English, we worked at OMSI bubble wrapping dinosaur bones and putting up exhibits. In addition to that we did everything from taste tests to TV shows (we went on Family Court with Judge Penny) to avoid getting “real” jobs (working for the man).


Mike had another awesome going away show at Artichoke on October 30th. You can never go wrong with good music and good company!

And now we're back in paradise..... We left on election night in a flurry of good vibes due to the fact that the US won't have four more years of rule by the organized criminals (we hope). It's nice not being embarrassed to be an American when we travel out of the country. But I think it's important that we not get lazy and assume that the democrats are going to do better.

Anyway, here we are.....back in paradise and loving it, bugs, rain, and all. So far we've been working mostly on construction projects. We are starting a new blog that is specific to the project that are happening here at the farm. Our goal is to document every day, we'll see how that gos..... Check it out and subscribe! Here's a link...
http://verdenergiablog.blogspot.com/


Here is Homar giving Mike a haircut....


These are our rooms, they are new since we were here last.....









Pura Vida!