Man oh man

For those curious, no, I did not get kidnapped. My guide is one of the nicest guys ever, and when I was short the cash to pay him tonight he said "oh just come by tomorrow." (But I insisted we went to an ATM.) I'm probably going to borrow his bike to go down to the kayak rental place tomorrow anyway, actually. He insisted.

I am really tired now but I'll try to describe both what I did and what I will do.

Did:

- Went to a volcano. It was awesome. And active!
- Went to an old fort on a hill that has been used as a prison/torture center as recently as 1983, and is the creepiest place I hope to ever go to. Where the newer paint was chipping off you could see what was unmistakably blood spattered on the walls. It is an awful place. And dark, moist, and filled with bats. And don't ask how it was unmistakable.
- Went to Nicaragua's premier artisan market, or that's my translation anyway. I got Vishaka a cool present that I would tell you all about but don't want to spoil the surprise. And it's not a "ball in a cup" even though those tempted me.
- Went to a big ol' lagoon like a crater lake. It was pretty, and where all the pottery artists live for some reason, so we saw them too. If I wasn't currently limited to my little backpack some of you would have awesome presents coming your way that would probably cost 4 digits in Ann Arbor, but here they only cost a hundred or so bucks. These are some seriously awesome vases and pots that are stained, carved, stained again, and painted and possibly carved yet again to be very, very awesome looking. (For instance, think about an entire pot made with loosely arranged fancy woven leather belts, except it's all one piece of original pottery.) However, I was shy in the store (that was really the lead-artists living room, it seemed) so I don't have pictures of them.
- Went zip-lining in the jungle on the side of very large volcano. It was crazy, and pouring rain very very hard. 14 different zips. Or lines. Or whatever they're called. I came down from it covered inexplicably in mud. Apparently treetops are not very clean areas.
- Went to the top of some church, eating some neat food i've never heard of. I wrote to vishaka the recipe. will post here later.
- Went out to dinner and had the biggest, meatiest little fish that has ever existed. Think of a bass, less than a foot long, but its post-gutted height off my plate was probably 5 inches. It was very, very good and very, very fresh. But seriously, the size of the fillets was something I would expect on a tuna or a marlin or something, not a funny little fish only a foot long. I couldn't even get 3/4 the way through it and had to stop because I was so full. I DO have a picture of this (the fish, duh).
- That's that.

Will do:

- Go on some awesome-sounding, ultra-rural "site visit" with Nina (awesome-sounding if only because she sounded so excited about it on the phone). This'll be next Tuesday through... Friday! Which means I had to change my flight, which I did without much fuss. This "site" to "visit" takes about 7 hours to get to, apparently - and my understanding is that that's by 4x4. This is why there was the inflexibility with my previous flight time of 8am friday morning.

But, as I said, I'd love to talk more now but I am really, really tired. And I think all of my body's resources have been diverted to handling the enormous amount of fish I just gave it.