Nifes

Too lazy to blog...must drag myself to the internet cafe...gah. So we´re at the beach in Nicaragua. We got here on Tuesday and hadn´t seen the sun until today (it had been about 2 and a half weeks), after "Tropical Storm Alma" (just call it a goddamned hurricane whydontcha) graced us with her presence yesterday afternoon with what I estimate to be about 600 inches of rain in about 5 hours. It was exciting - streets flooded with human feces, dead animals, more cockroaches than you can imagine...you know. The usual. The entire floor level of our hostel was in about 4 inches of water, and the rain was so loud we literally couldn´t talk to eachother without screaming. It was intense. It was supposed to hit us again last night, but apparently pulled some kind of super-tropical-storm trick out of its super-tropical-storm bag of tricks and did a little u-turn, missing us perfectly. So today it´s been beautifully sunny, and I´ve gotten a nice splotchy little sunburn on my thighs which at this point I welcome because I am just about more pale than when I left. I mean that´s just not right. I am determined to return at least one shade darker than printer paper. Maybe it´ll have to be one shade darker red, who knows.
That´s pretty much all there is now...oh, we also met a man (staying at our hostel) who has been walking for the past 18 years. He´s walked 75 countries, over 75,000 miles, across 6 continents, and is heading back up to San Diego to end his trip by 2012. His name is Hawk, and he will be 82 in August. We interviewed Hawk for about an hour the day we met him, all of us sitting in front of him with our jaws on the floor and rivers of drule running around our feet. Sorry, you´ve done what? And you´re how old? Well, any acomplishments I´ve ever completed seem to have just evaporated faster than I can say "prostate problems" (which yes, he does struggle with). When he told me he was 81 I just about choked on my tonsils (granted, not that hard to do if you´ve been blessed with tonsils my size) and then yelled at him in disbelief. "What do you do?!" I yelled, "What do you eat?!" "Why are you so with it, so conscious, so...vertical?!".
Hawk looked at me. "I walk". Well, no shit ya do. All he swears by is excercise, he says. He drinks milk, no alcohol, goes to bed at about 7:30 from what I can tell, and plays tennis. And he also carries a 6 foot tall wooden staff with sharpened steel at one end. And did I mention his name is Hawk? What a guy. He´s broken every walking record in the book, and is still going. He´s been enough to solidify my guilt in not excercising every day, so I´m determined to start up again when I get home. Jeez. What a guy. Hawk McGuinness. He also throws knives.
Ta ta for now! Costa Rica tomorrow...
Kate