Nicaragua – the land of lakes and volcanoes.  Our first tourist outing was to visit Volcan Masaya the weekend before we settled in to work.  The volcano was a beautiful sight.

This one was definitely alive, spewing out some very noxious gasses.

It shoots out boulders from time to time, and tourists are warned to back-in park in case you need to make a run for it!

Public transport doesn’t reach the volcano, so we hired a taxi for the day.  Our private tourmobile!

The FCAT is over, and what a whirlwind of an experience it was.  I’m staying on in Nicaragua for the next week to enjoy a little tourism and should have some time to reflect on this great adventure.

Saludos desde Nicaragua!

I have felt the rumbling for a post, so here are a few photos of my first few days in Nicaragua. I flew into the capital, Managua. It’s a pretty depressing town, having been devastated by an earthquake a few decades back.  “Ramshackle” describes it pretty well.

Tuesday I was an intern. Wednesday I was unemployed.  Today I’m headed off today to start a month long adventure as a Research Fellow in Nicaragua.  While there are chords of this trip that strike the same as the Great SAA, I think traveling for a month on business versus living two years abroad can be pretty much summed up in the packing.

SAA - Canoa, Ecuador

Off to Nicaragua!

Natalie Portman with members of a FINCA Uganda Village Banking group in Jinga, Uganda, in July 2007. 

Natalie Portman, FINCA’s Ambassador of Hope, gave a great interview to MSNBC this week about the importance of microfinance.  You can read the full interview here.

I have to admit, I get a little red faced when people talk about the iPhone. It gets all the cool new apps first. Poor lil Blackberry seems to always be playing catch-up, or just gets ignored. Imagine my surprise then to find out today that there’s a beta WordPress app for Blackberry. Woo hoo! Let the random postings about mundane moments in my life begin! Just in time to leave the country too, wouldn’t ya know?

Breaking news, hot off the press: I will be working in Nicaragua for the next month! I’m headed off on August 20 to do four weeks of field research, interviewing FINCA Nicaragua’s incredible clients.  If you couldn’t tell from the bold font and spunky punctuation, I couldn’t be more excited!

As the road racing season is wrapping up for most people, mine never really got started this year.  I made it out to a handful of early season races, but those all went pretty poorly from lack of preparation.  It’s been a tough season as moving to a new city, getting settled and looking for a job took over preseason training time…and then getting a job (and then a second job to support the first one) took over the actual season.

While I look back on the summer with a bit of regret that I couldn’t keep last year’s momentum going, working at FINCA has been an incredible opportunity that I wouldn’t trade for much of anything.

So here’s to 2010, and my fantastic teammates who have been super supportive even though I wasn’t able to ride with them.  I’m looking forward to getting back on the road soon.

Here y’all go folks – the obligatory “oh my, it’s been so long since I’ve posted” apology post. As it’s been over two months since my last one, I feel as though I can’t just jump back in…so here ya go. I’ve been busy.

I saw this guy speak at Bike to Work day 2009.

Also featured at Bike to Work day, the Tune Ups: DC’s premier (and only) bicycle choir.  Video is forthcoming…Heidi?

The Tune Ups - Bike to Work Day 2009