What a long time it's been since I've written! My apologies. Who knew keeping a blog up was so much work! This past weekend, I went to Granada Nicaragua for the weekend. I'm on a tourist visa while I'm in Costa Rica and that only allows for people to be in the country for 90 days, so I had to leave the country and then re-enter. In February I'll have to do it again, so I'm thinking I'll likely go to Panama. But, that's so long away! Here's how my weekend went.
On Friday morning, my bus left at 6 am, meaning I had to be up at about 4:30 to get ready and to the station on time. An early wake up call, but I took a nice bus with AC and movies, whereas some other people took Chicken Buses which are basically schol buses that are about to fall apart at any moment and pack as many people on as possible. Probably not doing that for a 9 hour bus ride. So we drove for about 5 hours before getting to the CR/Nica border. It was a really long process - we were at the border for about 3 1/2 hours standing in different lines and roasting in the 90 degree weather and there are people EVERYWHERE trying to sell you anything from food to pens to shoes. So finally we got back on the bus and drove about 2 more hours to Granada where we got off.
I met a girl named Patti on the bus to Nica and she was staying at the same hostel as me so we kind of stuck together. We met another girl named Victoria at the hostel and she joined us too, and then a named Hayden who was also at the hostel alone, we really just kind of became an amoeba attracting anyone traveling by themselves and formed a group. So Friday Patti and I just walked around the town but only had a couple hours before it got dark so we had a good dinner. The restaurant didn't have wine, so I walked to a liquor store nearby, bought a bottle of white wine, and brought it back to the restaurant. Gotta love the BYOB rules here!
Saturday Patti and I got up early and went kayaking on Lake Nicaragua at 7 am, lead by a guy named Ferdinand and his friend Chico. Ferdi was totally a hippy with long hair and hadn't showered for at least 2 weeks. It was super fun, and there are a ton of islands on Lake Nicaragua so we went around and in and out of those. We made a couple stops at an old war fort and stopped for coconut juice straight from the nut. Definitely a great morning! We were out there for about 4 hours. Saturday afternoon we explored the city and walked around, eating an amazing lunch at probably the best restaurant I've ever been to. Around sunset Patti, Victoria and I climbed up to the top of a bell tower (there were SO many churches in Granada) and got some sunset pics of the city. That night there was a festival for the Virgin Mary so we went to watch mass at one of the churches for a while before walking around and just people watching on the streets. I was completely shocked by how many people were at this church - I felt like I had just stepped into one of those Televangelist churches. But quite a sight to see! Not knowing exactly what was going on, we watched for a bit before deciding we'd rather eat dinner than wait around for the festival to start. We went and got dinner at a restaurant one of our new friends, Jeff, recommended. We spent our evening in the nice weather at an outside table of the restaurant, chatting and getting to know each other. We ended up going to this discoteca too, but were only there for like 1/2 hour before heading back to the hostel - we had an early morning on Sunday!
Sunday morning myself, Patti, Victoria and Hayden went hiking at a volcano, Volcan Mombacho. It was really fun but supes cloudy so we didn't get great views but I still had a really fun time hiking. Getting there was quite a process though; we rode a Chicken bus to the base of the volcano but the bus stopped part way through and changed the tire with all of us still on it. I was sweating profusely just sitting there and would have given anything for my Honda. But we finally got there and hiked for a couple hours before heading back down. Victoria, me and a friend we had met the night before, Maria, went to a huge market called Masaya Market about 45 minutes away via Chicken Bus again and spent the afternoon there. They have everything from food to clothes to souveniers and anything else you can imagine. There was a ton of raw meat there and the smell was legitiamtely like nothing I have ever smelled. I was gagging and extremely close to vomiting. I haven't eaten meat since then, and it may be a while until I do. It makes me sick just writing about it. Maria really wanted to get a hammock from some house that was known for having awesome hammocks but it took us SO long to find and I was pretty crabby by the end. So we took a cab back to Granada and met up with the others and went to dinner for the evening before heading back to the hostel and playing some games. Monday Victoria and I had a 6:30 am bus back to Costa so we were outta there pretty early and thankfully, borders was much shorter and easier. I was happy to be back home but now feel like I need a weekend after my weekend.
Today I had my first experience at a work site for Habitat for Humanity. We are building a house for someone that a lot of the Habitat employees know, so the whole office went for the groundbreaking ceremony and then a handful of us stayed after to start the process. I took a number of pictures for our office and will likely be going back to snap some more photos - hopefully to track the process. I am EXHAUSTED after a long day of sun and digging clay up - but happy to have a shorter work day! Sorry for the long post... I'll work on it, I swear! Much love to all of you during the holidays!
