As I dab at my never ending snuffles, I am thankful I didn´t get them last week. After spending a couple of days I should have just taken as vacation days, I left on the grandest adventure of my Peace Corps career. We got down to Granada by evening and escaped to the volcano Island of Ometepe be noon the next day. Contending for a position as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, our brief stay on the island was an important part of the Peace Corps Nicaragua experience.

We stayed with a friend and made a sprint attempt to the top of the smaller of two volcanoes, Maderas. Turning the four hour hike into a two hour jaunt, we all felt deserving of the five pounds of rice we brought to the top--we no where near finished it. Within fifteen minutes of reaching the crater lake at the summit, two of us were swimming across. We got to the other end to find one of the most spectacular views I´ve been privy to see. We slowly made our way back, tighting with every stroke. Turning to each other half way back we said what we had avoided admitting: our legs were starting to cramp up. We stopped talking and just kept trucking, using mostly our arms. Making it back to shore--ten yards of mud and partially decomposed detritus--was painful. But we did it alive. By the time I got back, though, my legs had cramped up so bad, I had to crawl through the mud in front of a group of twenty canadian super-hippy med students. They proved to be some odd-balls, but at the time it was embarassing.

The ultra-hippy vibe is marvellous, and I hadn´t been called Conservative in years. The narrow-minds of the extreme Left have found a haven on Ometepe. I´m happy they can find peace hiding away from the rest of the world: the literature, the research, the anecdotes that describe the world progressing because of capitalism. I´ve researched the etimology of words looking for a good combination. After already applying it to a scholarship application, I´m ready to say I support Regulated Capitalism. I believe in it, and I believe it works. Weather it come from the Left (opening and reforming socialist ideals to realities of free markets) or from the Right (responsible taxation and limited distribution of basic needs) I think it works.

The rest of the political discussion on the trip was dictated by a German companion whose uniquie view on Northern European Socialism was eye-opening. We were all interested and had our own swists on the story. We cruised in a private whip, a rare experience in Peace Corps, up North. We hiked around Estelí, and finally made it to Canyon Somoto. It was beautiful, filled with people because of Semana Santa (Holy Week) but Beautiful none the less. I got dropped of in Condega just in time to get my last bus back, and found myself home for a very late dinner.

Since then, I´ve been preparing for a training session my sector has with our teacher counterparts. We´ve also been inundated by a plague of large insects called the chicharra. If I hadn´t been convinced they were an annual epidemic, I would have sworn we harboring Jewish slaves in town. Their humming sound is so intense, it disrupts class in periodic bursts. They are beautiful in their all encompassing presence. I´ve never heald an exoskeletal creature of such girth. They are about two and half inches long, and longer in circumfrance. Their long, fine, paper-thin wings barely look like they are strong enough to support them in aerial transport. This could explain their frequent landings in inauspicious spots. Like my bed. It reminds me more of a mutant locust plague than a yearly occurance.

I´m also suffereing from some combination of allergies and a cold. They all tell me I´ve got gripe, which is a cover-all, non-specific set of symptoms I don´t believe in. I´ve spent more time in bed than I should have after a week of vacations. Cést la vie.

Happy Easter and Much Love