I'll start this weeks blog off with a few random witnessing shots etc from Rivas and San Juan and then I'll let you know about our 3 day trip to the island of Ometepe.

A humble local home, complete with a mobile phone dish.

The bike shop boys.

Porl thought his Mum would like this shot of the lady in curlers downtown in Rivas.

Yorlenis and I, the dogs wanted to join in on the study that day.

July 4th was our 26th wedding anniversary and we had a lovely meal at a local restaurant Colibrí - which means humming bird.

Yorlenis on the right is the top chef there and Laura on the left, the kitchen assistant, is another lovely girl that I study with.

Then came the day for our Ometepe trip.

Ometepe is an island that was formed by two volcanoes rising out of Lake Nicaragua, the name comes from the Nahuatl words, ome (two) and tepetl (mountain).  It has an area of 276km2 and is the largest volcanic island inside a freshwater lake in the world.

The two volcanoes are called Concepción and Maderas.

Most of us went on the bus to San Jorge and from there we took the ferry (about an hours trip on the bus and another hour on the ferry)

The bus was aptly named :).

Some of the boys took bikes, Paul Danger Henry would end up wishing he didn't as not far into the trip it broke down and he spent half of his time over there getting it sorted :(

Here we all are waiting for the ferry at San Jorge.

Obviously the no parking sign doesnt apply to the icecream man.

Chase was obviously excited about the trip :)

For those who have been keeping up with the blog you may remember me mentioning a lovely lady called Arlene that I study with.  She is from America but lives in a rather remote location called Cardenas - she is an older lady but travels in to the meetings on the crowded chicken buses to our meetings twice a week (about a 5 hour round trip) - such a legend.

Anyway, speaking of legends these girls all live in the same town as Arlene.  The live in a house that costs them $50 per month, we havent seen it yet but you can imagine what kind of a house it would be.  They have no refrigerator and there are so many bugs, snakes and scorpions that they live in tents inside their house. They have to haul their water up from a deep well in the back garden, not easy! We hope to visit them one day soon and if so Ill post some pics but let me tell you, these girls do it hard and theyre loving it!  

Boys being boys we werent even out of the harbour before they needed a snack, this man was selling a kind of puffed wheat square covered I think in malt.  Not my favourite but interesting anyways.

Well I still have much to share about Ometepe but thats going to have to wait.  Ive run out of time to post and we are off on our next adventure to the Carribean Coast of Nicaragua.  We are going to visit two English congregations where Porl is going to give a public talk in each.  The first place is called Bluefields, acceccible only by boat,  and then we are heading to Pearl Lagoon.  That side of Nicaragua was settled by the English instead of the Spanish so the people speak an

English Creole and it is said to be like the Jamaica of Nicaragua.  We will be away for two weeks but I promise to catch up with the blog when we get back.

!Hasta la vista!