Christmas with Friends AND Our first robbery

So we are now in La Ceiba Honduras, preparing to head out to the Bay Islands to spend christmas amongst the color and brightly colored fishes. Last night we met good friends from home here - chrissy and kevin (who, by the way, are keeping an excellent blog about their post-wedding travels as well at www.blogspot.chrissyandkevin.com). We are very lucky to have connected with them and are looking forward to them helping us pass christmas with a bit more cherr than we otherwise might have. This is, after all, the first christmas that I will have passed without my family (sniff, sniff).

On to other exciting news. We made the two day trip from Rivas, Nicaragua to here in record time - just two days. The trip was punctuated by our first taxi scam and robbery in managua. We got into a taxi to make the short trip from one bust station to another and, as we travelled, the agreed upon price was slowly inflated. By the time we reached the station the price had gone from 1.50 each to $40 each that the driver was demanding. Additionally, the three other passengeres in the taxi were all shouting for us to pay the $40. After all, they lied, they had had to pay that amount as well (as they passed around fistfuls of cordobas to each other and the driver). They said ¨Gas is expensive in Nicaraugua, you know¨. As this incresingly heated conversation was happening the driver was moving farther and farther away from the bus station, so we finally negotiated a payment of $15 to get out of the taxi and her our luggage. A bit more debate followed, but he let us out and we made it to our bus with enough time to make our conneciton, healthy, and only a bit poorer than when we started. all told, it could have been much worse, and there will probably be more like it in the future.

Ï´ve posted a few photos to accompany christine´s blog, from monteverde.

Also, since we were travelling and in costa rica, where internet is ungodly expensive, i have been unable to call my sister, who celebrated her birthday on december 20th. So, again, i am hoping that all of you can joing me in sending her a late birthday wish to rachel_jo@hotmail.com. And, to accompany the video that was sent to her daughter Tian, she also gets a special video from some of our friends in Nicaragua. Because she is a language nerd, she gets the advanced version...

And finally, during our last week in school we met a family that lives in poulsbo, washington, just an hour from port angeles. theyh are taking a year to live in costa rica with their two kids, and i thought some of you might be interested in their blog. Find it here...http://web.mac.com/sarahberry/iWeb/TylersCostaRicaBlog/Bienvenidos.html

A very happy holiday wish to everyone!

ian