Nicaragua!

Although I've been living in El Salvador for the past two years, I never really felt like a traveller...until now.

That's because I've mostly been living and working in the same village and only taking the occasional weekend trip to other places in the country, which are usually just my friends' places or San Salvador.

I forgot how much I loved hostel-hopping and sightseeing until this week, vacationing in Nicaragua with a friend.

So far we have spent one very sketchy night in Managua, toured the colonial cities of León and Granada, and have gone "volcano surfing" -- which is where you climb a volcano and ride a board down the steep gravelly slope. Fortunately we were sitting down. It's more like "volcano sledding."

Today we are on a beautiful island in Lake Managua and tomorrow we are climbing a really big volcano on this island...but we can't go all the way to the top because it's too active right now. Should I be scared?

The rest of our trip will involve a night hike on a volcano where you can actually see the lava and go through caves, and then a trip back to Managua where we might actually get the chance to do some sightseeing -- first priority is seeing the silhouette of Sandino where he was shot to death by a firing squad in 1956.

Can't do Nicaragua photos for you right now, and unfortunately both of us had our camera batteries die during volcano surfing, so there are no pics of that anyway. Watch this space!

Paz y amor.