First-year Algonquin journalism student Dylan Copland accompanied Child and Youth Worker students on a two-week trip to Nicaragua that began in mid-March. Follow his chronicles here as he updates us on the country, its people and the effect it had on him and the students.

Day two of our journey was another long, grueling day of travel. My roommate Marcel and I got up bright and early at 7 a.m. and headed for the continental breakfast provided by the hotel. As we left our room I was struck again by the luxury of the place. Our room exited into an open-air, red-tiled hallway with connected lodgings lining either side. Exotic plants were placed in intermittent patches of grass between the rooms and you'd often see small reptiles suctioned to the walls.

"Haulover's going to be nothing like this," I commented profoundly. I would soon learn how true those words would become.

At 8 a.m. we gathered in the lobby to board the bus that would take us to the central town of Rama and from there we would go by speed boat to our destination, Haulover.

Before leaving Managua we stopped at a gas station where we first met Gonzalo Duarte and Delayna.

Gonzalo is the owner of Companeros, a volun-tourism company that specializes in trips to Nicaragua. His job was to create the itinerary and be our guide on our trip in the Central American country.

Delayna is another member of the Companeros team whose primary job was that of a translator for the times when we were in Spanish speaking areas.

The proceeding bus ride took six hours. In the beginning, people enthusiastically took pictures of the strange foreign landscape that our bus rolled through, but eventually, shutters stopped clicking as we began to succumb to the sweltering closeness of the heat.

We passed the outskirts of Managua where tiny shanties with thin metal roofs stood huddled close together. Outside, skinny families would stand and stare hauntingly, their faces expressionless as we drove by.

As we left the city the terrain began to vary and we found ourselves staring out at beautiful vistas with tall earth brown mountains reaching up to the sky in the distance. Our bus bounced over smaller foothills, the engine chugging and our speed slowing as we lurched up inclines, before coasting down the other side.

After another three hours of the hot bus, we arrived in Rama.

We had our first lunch in Nicaragua there. It was also our fist encounter with the soon-to-be dreaded plantain. I don't even know if it's a fruit or vegetable, but it's okay. It being our first lunch though, the food was regarded as a novelty and it was all arranged so nicely on our plates!

People were taking pictures.

After lunch we crammed onto a speed boat and jettisoned towards Haulover. The experience was both exhilarating and slightly ridiculous.

After two hours we arrived in Haulover to a warm dockside greeting from the locals. A group of smiling faces stood around as we climbed out of the boat and began to make our way to meet our host families at one of the two local churches. At the church, people were called forward in pairs and introduced to the locals they would be living with for the next week.

Both groups jovially greeted each other with handshakes and hugs before quickly walking off to settle into their homes.

Marcel and I were called and we met our host family. The parents had two sons with whom we would later play basketball and explore the town of Haulover.

After a short walk we arrived at our new place. It was blue with an iron gate protecting the property out front. The house was small and we learned that we would be sharing one bed as opposed to each having our own which we had expected.

At that night's meeting the unexpected condition were deemed unacceptable. "They're males, they should have their own beds!" So after some awkward goodbyes we moved to a much larger, two-story house located in the middle of the town by the water. My room was on the first floor while Marcel had to climb a steep and misshapen staircase to reach his.

I opened my door and surveyed my new room. Something brown and disturbingly large caught my eye on the center of my bed. It was a cockroach.

'I'm a long way from home,' I thought as I scraped it off my sheets and settled in for the night.