Nicaragua

My trip to Nicaragua was great. I learned a lot and am ready to learn more. I can now see why a lot of the people have moved from Nicaragua to Costa Rica. It is a very poor country. Even the horses were starving. The homes were beautiful. All the homes were well built and fairly big even the ones in the poorer areas. I felt very safe while I was there. We spent most of our time in the town of Leon. It was very nice. We stayed in what they called a hostel but it was more of a bed and breakfast. It was amazing! You can't really tell much about the houses from the outside but if there is a door open you can see a sitting room and through the sitting room is a courtyard that is just awesome. We were able to go to the beach one day and it's definitely a surfer's beach. The tide was really rough but lots of good waves. We were able to walk around the town at night which is unusual. When we saw the school kids were still hanging out in the park you knew it had to be pretty safe. The guys did what was the equivalent of snow boarding down the side of a volcano. That was pretty cool. The whole trip was good and I can't wait to go back. The ladies in the precario were so excited that I had been there and they had lots of questions and things to share. I'm sure it helps them see that I truly am interested in them and where they came from.

Bus trip to Nicaragua

I took a trip to Nicaragua this week. The bus fare was only $7.00 one way. Now I know why! First we already had our tickets ahead of time but we still had to be at the bus station at 4:15 and the bus didn't leave until 5:00. By the way that's a.m.! We stand in line in a VERY scary neighborhood and wait and wait. We finally are able to get on the bus and we find out seats. The seats are so small that my knees are touching the back of the chair in front of me. They aren't just grazing the back of the chair, they are pushed into the back of the chair. The bus has no air conditioning, or bathroom. It's a 5 hour trip during the dry season in Latin America. What were we thinking?! The bus makes a lot of stops on the way. It not only lets people off at different places it picks people up! I had a strange man standing in the aisle next to my seat hanging over me for over an hour. The bus did make a pit stop, but the driver didn't tell anyone how long the stop would be so we just had to stay close to the bus and watch for him to get back on. We made it though I think it took a more than 5 hours but we made it.

The buses in Nicaragua are worse than that though. I didn't have the pleasure of riding one just watching them. The first bus we saw there was a guy hanging on the back of the bus standing on the ladder. What was that all about? Maybe he just didn't want to pay. Later we saw other buses that looked like those clown cars. You couldn't squeeze another person in there if you had to. When the bus stopped people jumped out the back door, the side door, I'm surprised I didn't see people climb through the windows!

When we got to the border to come back I made the comment that we should try to bring the Tica bus back. We were fortunate enough to be able to get on it there. We had to get on last because everyone else had gotten on in a city in Nicaragua. We weren't able to sit together but that was ok. The seats were much bigger. No knees in the back! The bus had air conditioning and a bathroom. It also had a movie. Things were going along smoothly for about two hours. People got off and we were able to move around a little bit. We were into our second movie when we in the mountain part of the trip and we felt the bus jerk and stop. We pulled over as far as we could considering we were on a mountain road in Latin America. The bus would roll back and then jerk as we tried to go forward. This happened several times. The driver got off the bus and got under it to look around. I'm not exactly sure what ended up being wrong but I did hear that we had lost some bolts and we were going to have to wait for them. We were stuck on the side of the road with big trucks squeezing past us. Scary! The wait turned out to be only about an hour. We drove up the road and changed buses. This but did make a few stops to let people off but none to get on. I take that back we did have one person get on. The police got on and checked everyone's passport. We left Nicaragua at 3:30p.m. and got to Costa Rica at 10:00p.m. The bus station was a little crazy too. There were lots of people crammed in this little building and there was a tiny counter where you had to pick up your bag and everyone thought they had to be right in front of it. So when your number was called you couldn't even get up to the counter to get your bag. I made it though. I'll write more about the trip later. It really was a good trip just not a good bus ride.

Survivor

Russ and Jen McElveen came to visit me this past week. We had a great time! Jen and I had an especially memorable day. In the past we have always had several sets of house keys and for some reason this house we don't. Well the whole point to that is Jen and I went to the grocery store, Russ told us he would be at the house so we didn't take any keys to get in. We got back and used the garage door opener to get in the gate. He was no where to be found. I also forgot to mention that Jen is pregnant so keep that in mind. So we can't get in the house, Jen is pregnant so what does that mean?! We all know the answer to that....she has to use the bathroom. Now!!! We tried to use a credit card to break in, we looked in all the windows, all of which have bars on them. I was able to see a set of keys on the coffee table. Jen was able to pry open a small window, so we figured we could use a broom to try and pick them up. Yeah not long enough. I did find a curtain rod though and it was long enough. Then I said to Jen, "too bad we don't have any duct tape to put on the end to make it sticky and you could just pick it up that way." I did find some electrical tape though. By this time she REALLY had to go so she's telling me to pretend that we're on Survivor and we only have a minute to get in the house. We made it!