Onward. Playa Santo Domingo. Isla de Ometepe.

Thus end my days at Finca Magdalena, at the base of Volcan Maderas, on la Isla de Ometepe, in Lago de Nicaragua, about an hour from the border of Costa Rica. The lodge itself is beautiful, and I´ve learned to live with the creepy crawly bathroom (by taknig showers in the afternoon as opposed to late at night) and the mosquitoes that attack me in the night, even despite my best attempts at prevention by spraying myself, the mosquitoe net, my clothes, and my bed down with¨"backwoods DEET" bug spray. I must be too tasty a morsel for the little buggers. My body is still suffering from the punishment it received yesterday, with surprising pain in unexpected places like the abdomen. Today, I´m heading down to Santo Domingo with a girl I met here at Finca Magdalena named Natalie. A Canadian, she´s quite a character and should prove fun to travel with until Saturday. I´m planning to arrive back on San Jose on Saturday evening and spend Sunday taking care of busines like laundry, groceries, ATM, etc. before Meels arrives on Monday. Then we´re off to the Osa. Though quite honestly, after yesterday´s hike, I may be all hiked out. The clothes here don´t seem to ever dry. Clothes I washed 2 days ago are still wet, so I had to pack them up with me. I hope they dont´mold. All in all, I´d say the long arduous bus ride and border crossing to Nicaragua was worth it so far. If I can stop itching, it´d be perfect.

Later.
I performed minor surgery on myself today. The blister on my heel from the hike yesterday started to collect sand. Sand on the skin is great, sand trapped in the skin is not so great. Considering how squeamish I am about even normal things like getting a splinter out, I was surprised I took out nail clippers to my heel as viciously as I did. I even doused it in rubbing alcohol without even flinching. All this in the beautiful setting of Santo Domingo. The beach here is just beautiful. Its isolated and we´re the only people here. I feel like its the ocean, even though its really just Lago de Nicaragua. The bottom of the lake is pure sand and the water is tepid warm. Natalie turned out to be quite the riot. Considering that our relationship started in Finca de Magdalena with ¨her innocuous question of "Do you think potatoes are vegetables?", we´ve come quite a long way. We missed the 11:30 AM bus from Magdalena (which came at 11:15, pulling away as we came down the trail). We managed to hitch a ride on the back of an Englishwoman´s truck. My tab at Magdalena for 2 nights including all meals, water, and one tour of Volcan Maderas came out to 495 cordobas. Approximately 30-some U.S. dollars.

We´re staying at Buena Vista hostel at Playa Santo Domingo. Natalie and I picked a coconut off a tree on the hostel property, and the owner cut it open for us with a machete. We drank right from the nut. An orange nut. It comes in green and orange. Funny, even the flies here dno´t bother me, and I´m normally extremely bug phobic. Even more funny is the fact that Natalie seem to be the Canadian versoni of me, down to our odd sense of humor and best friends named Ken. Santo Domingo is one of those places that´s great with the right peole, and just isolated enough to eb lonely if you´re alone. Lucky for me and Natalie, we´re each others perfect company. Flies and all.