hello everyone! this is our second day here in the small city of moyogalpa, on the island of ometepe in nicaragua. we spent a few nights in managua, where the diesel smell is overwhelming and my sense of direction is completely ineffective. we visited the famous sandino statue at parque tiscapa (very nice panoramic view of the city) and the lakeside restaurants at parque salvador allende (apparently thats the name of the park, though it doesnt say that anywhere), but at least five different cab drivers and our hostel owner told us that you need someone from managua to take you around the city if you´re going to go out at night. we decided not to go to any bars or clubs, even though managua is the dance-club capital of central america ... maybe next time we´ll be a little braver. as a result of this, of all the places in managua we became most familiar with the mall movie theater´s nightly features. oh well.

moyogalpa is a much smaller city, and i was told after we got here that i could walk down the street in my bra and underwear in the middle of the night and be totally safe. i´m not sure if thats true, but this is definitely a relaxed place and certainly caters to tourist-backpackers. we stayed at hospidaje central last night and tonight we´re staying at an american friend´s apartment (for free!). the two volcanoes on this island are huge, looming in the background of every view. we are planning to rent bikes today to ride around to some of the other little towns nearby, so i should probably get out of this internet cafe! i´ll post pictures when i can figure out how to do that on these big old computers (???)