Don't eat my friend, we still have some karaoke to do. Thanks!

It's time to say good-bye to Nicaragua today. We drive 8 hours through Honduras and over to El Cuco, El Salvador.


Nicaragua really surprised me, I really like this place. In the beginning, i was told that it's the 2nd poorest country in all of Central America and that I would be seeing a lot of things i may be uncomfortable with. The history in the towns, the warmth of the people...I didn't see an unfortunate country at all.


We get into our beach side hotel at El Cuco and it sure is "rustic". I'm not the type to complain about hotel rooms but the stench in our little cement hut was pungent. The bed had little ants crawling on them. It just didn't feel clean. I dropped my bags and immediately headed for the beach. At least I could try and stay fresh out there by the sea. Soon, the others had followed behind me in their swim gear. I was easily tempted and rushed back to my room to change into swimmers. When i got back to the shore, it looked like Deborah, Otto, and Roger were playing some kind of water game. Mereki was heading towards me and so i figured she wasn't into the reindeer games. As she gets closer, i notice there's a look of panic and worry in her face. That's when i realized that Deborah, Otto, and Roger weren't playing any kind of game - someone was being saved from the ocean. As it turns out, Deborah had got caught in a riptide which pulled her farther and farther from the shore. She was getting tired in her attempts to get to the sand and was starting to drown. Mereki tried to help get her out but wasn't able to and that's when Roger had gone in to pull her out.

Mereki admits to me that she's never been so close to dying. Once Deborah hit the shore, i notice how opaque she was. She swallowed a lot of the sea. The two girls sat on the shore and shared some tears at their near-death experience. I didn't know how to handle it...i was still in shock. The sea is so much larger than us and it almost ate one of our travel friends. It's a scary yet realistic thought. For the remainder of sunset, i chose to sit along the shore and watch the power of the waves crashing knowing that I am but a spec on this earth. Something as simple as water can destroy me; that could've been me in that riptide.

We went into town for dinner. El Cuco is a very small place, and I'm afraid that by the afternoon the next day, we will be on our way to Suchitoto. With the poor hotel conditions, the group made an executive decision to go to the next town a day early. Aside from the powerful beach, I will not be getting a chance to understand this town or the people who inhabit it. For dinner, we went to a place that also had a karaoke machine which was begging to be used...or so the travel leader thought so. He was very much into it and he tried to lighten the mood using song. I tried as well. For those who know me, you know that i refuse a microphone at all costs. I picked it up in spirit of challenging myself and getting out of my comfort zone. I sang Bob Marley - Could you be Love. The tour leader and I seemed to be the only ones not too worn out from the day to give our go on the microphone. Shortly after paying for dinner, the spontaneous dancing started. It was entertaining to say the least.
In all honesty, i think i found the energy to stay up and keep going because i was dreading having to go back to our little cement cage cells (otherwise known as, 'our hotel'). I would have rather past out from exhaustion on the dance floor than sleep in that room. However, nobody else seemed to have shared this enthusiasm and we headed back to the hotel to face an uncomfortable night's sleep.