Mindblowing weekend!

10.10.2014

Everything here is new, so of course, the first weekend I left town, I was blown away. It took a while to get moving in the morning again, but I made it to the bus by 9 a.m. and I was in Gracias by 10 ish.

I walked around till I found the botanical gardens and Lenca museum (which was quite empty).

The garden was really cute though. I actually managed to get locked in there for a bit, I guess the gardener closed the door accidentally while I was wandering around. He was profusely apologetic.

The really impressive fort was just up the hill, so I went there too. Gracias is supposedly named after an explorer who wrote back to his leader when he finally found a place to settle. "Thank God we finally found flat ground." I had the same feeling later on in the day when I finally arrived at the hot spring, just outside of town. The 4km road meandered back and forth and climbed up and down the whole way.

The churches in Gracias are definitely also worth seeing. There is actually grass in front of one of them, something I haven't seen for three years. Hand to God, not even in Canada because I only go there in the winter now. So, I promptly sat right down and did yoga on it. My hip is a little tight and weirding me out, so I actually needed a stretch by then.

The aforementioned hot springs were completely unbelievable. Everything you can imagine a Central American hot spring would be, this was it. Beautiful stone pools of varying temperatures were nestled right in the middle of an old growth rainforest. Just incredible.

I was really happy with this trip. I can't believe no one wanted to come, it was absolutely wondrous. They even played late 80s and early 90s soft rock alongside Spanish pop ballads at the hot springs. Score. Bryan Adams and Duran Duran were the soundtrack of the day.

After a few hours in the warm water, I was well rested, relaxed and ready to go home before the sun set. I hopped in a taxi and found the last bus home. I made friends with a lady from Spain and she followed me to Santa Rosa. I took her to a nice steak house for dinner when we got back and we stayed until closing time. She was really excited to meet another foreigner and I was really happy to meet her too, so we talked all night long about accounting and teaching mostly.

Juan Lindo