Leon

After what seemed like ages of waiting, I finally left the hostel to meet Jan at the bus station. The kind "grandma" at the hostel got a taxi for me and negotiated a price. The taxis are shared so they warned me, ahead of time, that people may get in the taxi with me. Thankfully, it was only one older lady. When he finally pulled up to my stop, I didn't believe we were at the bus station. A median filled with vendors divided 2 roads. It appeared to be just a lot of confusion until I noticed small buses with signs stating where the buses were going. I found my bus to Leon and stood in line. It was hot, carrying my backpack, and standing in the heat of the day. But, I was soon able to adjust. I had to wait about 45 minutes before Jan showed up, and by then I was near the front of the line. I had to go all the way to the back, which was ok though, because it was nice to have a friend there. About an hour later we were on the minibus headed for Leon. Three of us sat in the front row, with our bags on our knees, and one sat in the row behind us. They like to fit as many people in as they can so one poor guy had to sit backwards, with his back against the front passenger seat. I fellt bad for him. The driver kept making eyes with me in the rear view and I just hoped for the drive to be over quickly. This vehicle was in front of us as we were driving, notice the dead chicken handing off the side!

 When we did arrive, the driver got a taxi for us, however I had been warned to only use taxis with red stripes on the top and bottom of their licence plates and this one did not have this. Mya, Jan's friend, urged us to take the taxi and we made it safely...thankfully. The hostel, when we arrived, didn't look like anything special but was clean enough. We had a 4 bed dorm booked, which was located right off the lobby. Before Jan and I could even get in there, Mya had claimed the bottom bunk, while their friend, Chris, had taken the othe. He'd been already waiting for us. The room was stifling hot and I was not looking forward to our sleep that night. Notice the fan, not quite at head level.... :(

Once we were all ready, about an hour later, we decided to head out. I needed to find a bank machine, Jan wanted to book volcano boarding, and we were all ready for dinner. It was easy to find our way around  Leon, with the help of a map from our hostel. After a failed attempt at the first ATM, we found one that accepted debit!!! Woo Hoo...this means no cashback charges on my visa. On our way to the other hostel to book volcano boarding, we passed the most amazing looking street food! Jan is not a street meat eater so I'll have to go back later. We booked our tour for the next day, got our free tour tank tops, and were off in search of food! About an hour later we finally agreed on a restaurant. As I was ready to gnaw my arm off and couldn't care less what kind of food we were going to eat, it was an exciting moment. We ordered our food and.......had to wait over an hour for it! It's was almost 8:30 by the time it arrived, and I was close to tears, sad for waiting so long, or happy to finally be eating, I'm not sure.  Afterwards, the gang was ready to party...me? I was ready for bed. Jan only wanted to go for one drink so we followed the others over to a bar where a friend was waiting. Jan and I decided to get some cereal as we had to be up early for our tour the next day. By the time we got to the bar, it was packed and there weren't any chairs. We  did a tour around and then headed home. It was stifling in the room when we returned. Thankfully, cold water is the only option in the shower so I felt refreshed before climbing into bed. This feeling didn't last long, on the top bunk. But, miraculously, I fell asleep, and slept quite good, considering the heat and intermittent blowing of the fan I was sharing. It was around 6 am when I was awoken by someone slamming a bathroom door. The door must have been slammed 3 times in the matter of 20 minutes. Jan looked and me and mouthed some curse words....We tried to go back to bed but the others were up and were opening the shades and chatting. Good thing we were close to needing to get up anyways!