Nicaragua Part 2

Here's the second (and last) photo dump from our trip. We're moving this weekend though so stay tuned for some pics of that. 

This is Aj at Laguna de Apoyo. It's a lake that formed in the crater of a volcano. It's so cool! It was way too wavy, we tried to go kayaking but Aj fell out and we gave up. We swam a bit with tubes but I didn't last long. Too spooky. We stayed at a hostel at the Lagoon called the Monkey Hut. It was gorgeous. We had a nice little room that looked out onto the lake, and the room came with a bar tab which we used until about 8pm when we passed out. We realized that we're on kid sleep schedules (minus waking up a few times per night), as in we fall asleep at 8 and wake up at 6 now.

This is us back to normal. Our friends came over last night to hear about the trip and catch up with what they did over the break. It was fun.

Laguna de Apoyo

This is the morning we left Nicaragua. We're sad about it.

Masaya Volcano: you can only stand there for about 5 mins before you'll pass out, or feel sick because of the gases. It was so cool, and so deep. Apparently you can see lava there at night. Wicked! You also have to park facing away from the volcano in case it erupts to give you a chance to get away (yea right).

This is our room at the Monkey Hut in the evening. 

The car didn't fit all of us so we took turns sitting in the trunk. Pretty comfy actually.

This is a ton of coffee beans drying in the sun. We drove for ages to go to Matagalpa for a coffee farm tour, but we got lost and couldn't make it. So we started heading to Esteli for a cigar factory tour, and we came across this place and asked for a tour. So they showed us around and it was soooo cool. Fair trade, organic- and just so neat. Also never made it to the cigar factory. :(

This is me attempting to 'photo-bomb'

This is my crappy posture, and the shirt I bought at the market we went to on day 2.

Sam & John bought Everlea the cutest little straw hat that said Nicaragua on it. She refused to keep it on, but it was adorable anyways.

Tailgate party. This picture was sort of unattractive of everyone involved, so I put like 6 filters on it, so you couldn't tell we were stuffing our faces with fried chicken. (and I cropped Aj out. ha).

This is weird, but pretty. The government is putting these huge trees up on the main road in Managua. They look good, but I think there's some messed up things behind them- but Sam and John know more about that than I do.

Masaya Volcano, collecting some rock.

This is the Monkey Hut.

This is me and Aj partway through our hike on the Mombacho Volcano. There's a fissure that they call "the Tunnel" that formed naturally, and our guide Estela offered to take a photo for us. We learned a ton that day. It was a good, long hike, and we got to speak to a local in English (which was awesome), and got to see some pretty neat stuff.

This is a photo of one of the volcano craters. Kind of hard to tell. But you can see the trees get smaller and smaller, and deeper. 

After the hike.

This truck takes you up the volcano to where you start the hike. And it's like a 40 degree incline, and about a 40 minute drive. It was madness, and really coool.

This is the station where you get your guide and start your hike.

Another story: 

When we left the Monkey Hut our hotel guy called us a cab cause we were in the middle of nowhere. And the cab driver, Daniel took us to Mombacho and when we got there we asked how much the cab was. He was like "$20, but I can take you to where you need to go after you finish your hike for $35" so we were like, that's incredibly expensive, but okay cause we're in the middle of nowhere. And he waited at the bottom for 3 hours for us to drive us to Granada. Because $35 is about 6 days of wages for the majority of Nicaraguans.

This was in Granada. It was by far my favourite place. So beautiful. 

This was our hotel in Granada, specifically the hallway to our bedroom. It was a beautiful hotel, and they had a dalmation puppy that wandered around and he was so cute. That place was neat, we had complete access to their kitchens, ingredients, and we even had keys to the hotel. The staff left in the evenings and trusted the guests with the hotel and their dog. And everyone was so friendly, and actually hung out in the lobby and visited. We made KD for dinner there, haha.

Hotel from the outside.

In Granada, there's a touristy strip that most people hang out at. We went there on the first day and bought some souvenirs (little paintings, and annoying toys for Aj's little cousins), but decided we didn't need to go back. So we sought out the market that the locals shop at and walked around there the next day (the picture above).

This is Lake Nicaragua, but the beach was kind of gross so we just walked along the pier.

Here's Masaya again, this picture shows where it's erupted before- all the black.

This is our room at the Monkey Hut again.

This is me drinking a mojito with some strays. They were so cute, and everywhere. We couldn't decide if the hostel had adopted them or if they had just wandered in. The cat seemed to have a permanent place in that chair.

Also at the Monkey Hut.

Laguna de Apoyo

The Monkey Hut had a big pizza oven, so we had that for dinner, and it was AMAZING.

So yeah. That's the rest of the pictures (sort of), from Nicaragua. We would recommend going there, despite the craziness with our stolen stuff. I'd go back in a second! 

It was definitely an adventure, which I hope I can have more of in the future.

xoxo

HP

Nicaragua Part 1

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

First vacation ever! I realized other people go on vacation all the time, it's mostly me that doesn't. And if other people don't- most people have done it once or twice. This is my first vacation out of North America (I've done small family vacations to BC, Washington, camping, etc). And it's my first vacation on my own (with Aj). I feel like it makes us a real couple that does big things together.

Our vacation has been super awesome so far, and I have a whole bunch of hilarious, and crappy (literally) stories. My tummy has been upset since day two, but we're powering on together me and my stomach.

We're staying with Sam & John Butler (www.littlebandofcharacters.com) and their two little kiddos. They are the sweetest things. I'll post some pictures, and then interject some stories. The pictures are totally out of order of how things happened, but that's ok.

If you click a photo it will come up larger, and you can look through it like a slideshow.

On day two, Aj and I decided we could try to get to a market in Managua on our own, with our really poor Spanish. We took a mototaxi for the first part of the way (which was so fun), and then took a taxi the rest of the way to Mercato Huembas. We bought a cool wooden salad bowl for $9, and I got a shirt, and we got some beer. On the way back we made the mistake of approaching 10 taxi drivers in uniforms, and saying we wanted a ride back. They all said the price we were naming was too low (cause we're white), so we said ok, we'll go somewhere else. Then one of them was like- ok I'll do it! and then they were all fighting over who got to take us. When we got in the car and gave him the exact address, he was like no the price is too low, and pulled over. We threatened to get out til he gave us a semi-decent price. It was so hard cause we can't speak Spanish. The guy picked up two other people before he took us home. Crazy!

On our drive to San Juan del Sur (a beach), we pulled over at Lake Nicaragua to look at the volcanoes. The next bunch of photos are from our trip to San Juan del Sur. We were planning on camping but had a crazy adventure instead. We got there and set up our tent and our hammock and stuff and napped until we pretty much had heat stroke. Then we were too tired to move so we just stayed put. And then this local named Marvin came up and was swearing and pointing to a nearby hostel and motioning that he got punched in the face. He was super drunk and just sat outside our tent. So Aj went out and offered him some water, and a banana. He couldn't eat the banana cause his jaw hurt too much. Then he made machine gun sounds and passed out. So we didn't know if we could leave the tent in case he woke up and stole all of our stuff. So we just stayed close to the tent. And I dipped my toes in the ocean (!!!), then we decided it was way too windy and we were too delirious to camp anyways, so we packed up and ended up staying at the nearby hostel. Marvin was still there when we were going to bed. We went for dinner at this bar right on the beach, and after we ate, this guy came up to us and pointed to this giant pig that was just walking around and said "Mañana," (tomorrow) and pretended to slit his throat. So the pig was gonna die tomorrow. And these girls were taking pictures of it, and the guy said, "they take pictures now... but tomorrow!" So we went to bed at like 7 cause we were so tired. and at 4 in the morning we hear squealing and dogs barking right outside our window and Aj looks out and sees the pig hanging from the tree beside our window, and a pool of blood under it. By the time we woke up all that was left of this pig was like 6 garbage bags and some cooked meat on this bbq thing. Our window and door at the hostel blew open a few times from the wind too so it was altogether a creepy, crazy night. But really funny & we had a good time.

We also tried to make breakfast from those weird camp foods you can buy that are like somehow dehydrated and vacuum packed. Aj spilled half the dijon chicken and it didn't cook properly. So I made the strawberry cheesecake one, which ended up just being a paste. It was yummy but I felt like I had eaten cheesecake paste for breakfast after.

This one's from Canada! We took a bus from Woodbine & Queen to Woodbine station, and then the subway to Kipling, and then another bus to the airport. It was a long trip, but we were pretty excited so who cares!

This is Nicaragua from the sky. On the first day we got there, we went out for lunch on the way back to John and Sam's house. When we got back to the house, we were unloading our things and realized my carry-on was missing so John and Aj hopped back in the car and drove back to the restaurant. John said, "I'm going to give that security guy crap," as he was leaving. So 3 hours later and we haven't heard from them, and Sam's like "those security guards have shotguns!" and we start freaking out. So Sam sends the neighbours to the restaurant to see if they're still there. Then we get a call from Aj and John, and they've been at the police station for 3 hours filing a police report. The restaurant has on video a car pulling up beside our car. One guy gets out and distracts the security guard, another stands guard for anyone leaving the restaurant, and one forces the lock of the car and slides in, decides our bag has the best goodies in it, and they all hop in the car and drive away. 

We lost my laptop, both of our ipods, my visa was maxed and my chequing account was emptied. Other not important things were a water bottle (bright orange and really cool!), all the makeup I own, deoderant (so we smell pretty horrible lately- especially since it's 40 beautiful degrees!) and my health card, and driver's license. It's purely luck that we had our passports on us. 

Anywho, it's not wrecking the trip. We'll worry about it when we get home and find out if I'll get my money back or not. (I think it's pretty obvious the things were stolen. I wouldn't buy $1700 worth of computers and gas...) and my computer lasted 6 years anywho. I've lost all my notes for school, but otherwise I had just recently backed it up. The ipods are a bummer cause I bought Aj a classic last year for Christmas and they don't make them anymore. But oh well right. Nothing we can do. 

Aj about the police station: 

When we first got there, they had done some undercover sting operation. Ten spanish guys dressed as gangsters with pistols tucked in the front of their pants came in and they ignored us for ages cause they don't like white people much. Then someone said the tourist police were coming with a translator, then they got here and the translator said she didn't speak english well and she called her husband who works in a call center and he helped us for like four hours cause we had no idea what anyone was saying. Whenever the translator left they would be pointing at us and saying stuff and we'd move benches or go from one room of the station to another, no idea what was going on. kids running around, stray cats, people burning garbage outside, 5000 dirt bikes parked everywhere. They took a statement from us, the guy didn't like us and kept answering his phone and disappearing, and the cabinet above him had a lock with no key so this other skinny guy is finding stuff to smash it with. stapler was his first choice, then he went outside and came back with a rock so there's crumbs landing on the other guys keyboard. It all got sorted out, we went to the restaurant to 'reenact' the situation, and then our tire went flat, and the super nice call centre guy changed it for us, we bought him a coke, and the night restaurant security guard had a pump action shotgun. They ENHANCED the image to take pictures of the guy. Also in the station they had a bin labelled "DRUGOS".

After San Juan del Sur we went to Leon and explored this beautiful cathedral, and the art gallery. They had a Picasso show on, and had a pretty amazing collection, and I found lots of cool artists that I want to check out when we get home. 

This is at the gated community we're staying at. It's so lovely. 

The whole trip has been a crazy amazing adventure, we're loving it. I'll post the rest of the photos and stories another day. But that's the first half of the trip. 

xoxo from Nicaragua!

HP