A Week in Nicaragua!

We spent the past week in Nicaragua. I could write a book on all the things we did and saw, but I’ll try to keep it short!

We spent the first night in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, with our ecology professor. It was pretty boring to be honest, I am not the biggest fan of biological reserves after the first weekend we spent in one. I was surprised and angry the next morning to find out I had been bitten 33 times during the night by chiggers, which if you don’t know what that is, they leave the itchiest bites in the world! I am also allergic to all of the bugs here because every time I’ve been bitten the bites turn red and swell up all big and ugly. It’s embarrassing when you want to wear shorts but have 33 swollen and red bites covering your legs! My director of the program wanted to take me to the hospital to get a prescription strength itchy cream, but that option kind of scared me, so I just tried to stick it out until the itching got a little better.

Next we went to Managua, which is the capital of Nicaragua. The poverty was so extreme there I could hardly stand it. There were children in the streets trying to attach themselves to our legs and begging us to by their product. One night after dinner we were stopped at a red light and a girl and her little brother came and washed our windshield hoping for money. We decided to give them our leftover pizza from dinner, and once our director put it in their hands they high fived and jumped up and down for joy like it was Christmas morning. I’m pretty sure everyone in the bus was crying at that moment! Managua had Christmas lights and Christmas trees all over the city, and I was beginning to feel homesick. I’m so excited that I get to come home just in time for Christmas!

We stopped in this little town called San Juan de Oriente, which was one of my favorite experiences of the trip. We got to watch a demonstration of a young man making a ceramic bowl, and then he let us try. Everything they make is handmade and hand-painted. Ceramics are a huge part of the Nicaraguan culture and it’s how they make the majority of their money on tourists in San Juan de Oriente. We saw them all over, and they were so tempting, I wanted to buy them all!

Granada was our next stop and soo beautiful! We took a tour of the city and found out it was one of the first cities colonized by the Spanish so the entire city has major Spanish influence-especially in the architecture, I felt like I was in Spain! They have horse carriages as their taxis I really wish we would have had time to take one. During our tour we stopped in a little hammock factory, which we later found out is run by a family who works with children who have disabilities both physical and mental. It was such a cool organization, I really wish I could go back. They had a hammock that fits 17 people so we all climbed in for a quick photo-op, which is not as comfortable as it sounds! Both nights we went to the same restaurant because they had delicious Caesar salads, which we haven’t found anywhere in Costa Rica!

Our last night we stayed in a town called San Juan del Sur, and we had a free day! We were all pretty tired so we did some souvenir shopping (my specialty) and then laid out around the pool. It was nice to have some down time with friends after we had been go, go, going all week.

The boarder going both directions was awful! When we were trying to enter Nicaragua the passport guy decided to take his lunch so we had to wait an hour standing outside of our locked bus waiting for him to come look at the picture on our passport and let us on. Then on the way back, they all of a sudden had a new rule that you need your flight reservation ticket with you, and they weren’t going to let us back into Costa Rica. Thankfully one of the girls in our group had her iPhone and found the e-ticket in her email. We would have been stuck between Nicaragua and Costa Rica overnight if she hadn’t been there to rescue us!

Overall the trip was definitely my favorite of them all, and now we’re making up for it by having lots of papers and tests this week! I am currently avoiding a history paper that’s due tomorrow. I only have one paragraph left if anyone is feeling generous ;)

            On another note, my family got their first toaster oven last night and they were so excited they toasted the entire loaf of bread. It was really funny watching them trying to figure out how to use it, and I had to teach them how to pull the lever up to help get the toast out once it’s finished! We all sat around the table drinking hot chocolate and eating toast with butter and jam, yum!

Okay, better finish my essay! Sending my love!