So we just got back on the ship from our stop in Nicaragua…wow…what a country! Another one day crossing, so we will be in Guatemala tomorrow morning!
The one day crossing to Nicaragua was actually quite eventful! I am not sure if I had mentioned it yet on my blog, but I had since that day gone the entire voyage without seeing one bit of sea life…and well today made up for the whole trip! While we were at lunch I was sitting where I could see out te window when all of a sudden I see dolphins jumping like CRAZY…backflips, twists, front flips…it was SO cool…all I could do was slightly squeal a little till people figured out what I was pointing at! I have never seen dolphins that playful in the wild…it was so cool! SO I spent the afternoon on the top deck waiting for more dolphins, and I got them! I was even able to take a couple pictures…
OK…so we made it to Nicaragua…even before we got here we knew that this was going to be one of the poorest countries on our itinerary, but I had no idea how bad it would be till we got there. We docked in Corinto, Nicaragua which is nothing but a couple of little streets and a lot of run down and old buildings. When we exited the port we were accosted by bicycle taxis wanting to take us where we wanted. If you remember from the end of my last blog I had managed to rent a house in Las Penitas Nicaragua, so we needed to arrange a form of transportation that city which was about 1.5 hours away. Rasa worked on the transport while I worked on changing over some money at a local bank.
We got in a van that looked like it was held together with duct tape and was being driven by a really creepy driver, but alas that is all we could find to make the trip…there were 11 of us in the van, so obviously it was going to be safe. After asking directions a couple times we made it out to the house. Pedro and Carmen were the caretakers of the house and were very welcoming to our large group (we had about 12 people at the house at any given time, some people left while others joined during the 4 days we were there). The town, tiny, I mean tiny…of course we didn’t see much of it, we really did just stay at the house for 4 whole days! Mom, it was smaller then Boca de Uchire in Venezuela! Pedro took us that first night to the grocery store so we bought almost $300 in food and beer…that was a show of course, 5 Americans in a small grocery store in Leon with 3 overflowing carts full of food (we had each signed up to cook a meal or two). The grocery store was about 25 minutes from the house and we made it there and back by riding in the back of a pick-up truck J Love you Mom J
So the house was beautiful, it opened right onto the ocean…maybe 15 ft to where the waves were breaking, literally I could crawl from my bedroom to the beach and never walk. The house had 12 beds, a kitchen, dining room, outdoor living room, small pool, elevated palm covered hut, and an amazing few with a private beach…oh…ya…and at only $125 a night divided by 10 people…extremely CHEAP…
So the only complain I have about the house was the first morning I woke up sweating wondering what happen to the fan and the air conditioning that were on all night? Well turns out that there are rolling power outages every day in Nicaragua! So Las Penitas didn’t have power EVERY day from 7am-2pm…YIKES…luckily we only lost a little bit of meat, but for the most part everything was ok…it just meant we were up early cause the rooms got hot REAL quick.
So since everyday at the house was pretty much the same I am gonna note some highlights:
- Cooking empanadas and arepas for everyone and teaching Tania and Lisa to make them
- Boogie Boarding in the most amazing waves
- The Hut that became Ray’s house (he stayed there most of the time due to his broken foot)
- Playing cards – Progressive rummy is a bit addictive….get ready OSU!
- The pool where I was able to sit in water and read Harry Potter which was sitting on a floating boogie board
- Just a much needed relaxing time!
So we left around 11am on the last day and arranged a boat ride back from the house to the ship. We decided on this because it was much closer this way due to the lack of a direct route between Las Penitas and Corinto! While most of thought that the route would be a quick and easy way along the beaches we were surprised to learn that we would actually be navigating through a huge Nicaraguan Mangrove! It was AMAZING and one of my favorite parts of the weekend….at this point there were 8 of us and we managed to fit in a small boat and trusted that our driver knew his way through small mangroves. At time we had to duck and move out of the way of branches and at one point we all had to climb into the boat and lay down because a tree had fallen the night before and got in the way of the boat. Finally we made it out and could see the MV Explorer in the distance and we made the most amazing return to the ship I have ever heard of…we even got to pull up along side of the ship as we got to a smaller docking area.
All in all Nicaragua was an amazing time with my new friends and I loved it dearly! I would recommend this house and this country to anyone that just wants to get away and enjoy a relaxing beach!
The one day crossing to Nicaragua was actually quite eventful! I am not sure if I had mentioned it yet on my blog, but I had since that day gone the entire voyage without seeing one bit of sea life…and well today made up for the whole trip! While we were at lunch I was sitting where I could see out te window when all of a sudden I see dolphins jumping like CRAZY…backflips, twists, front flips…it was SO cool…all I could do was slightly squeal a little till people figured out what I was pointing at! I have never seen dolphins that playful in the wild…it was so cool! SO I spent the afternoon on the top deck waiting for more dolphins, and I got them! I was even able to take a couple pictures…
OK…so we made it to Nicaragua…even before we got here we knew that this was going to be one of the poorest countries on our itinerary, but I had no idea how bad it would be till we got there. We docked in Corinto, Nicaragua which is nothing but a couple of little streets and a lot of run down and old buildings. When we exited the port we were accosted by bicycle taxis wanting to take us where we wanted. If you remember from the end of my last blog I had managed to rent a house in Las Penitas Nicaragua, so we needed to arrange a form of transportation that city which was about 1.5 hours away. Rasa worked on the transport while I worked on changing over some money at a local bank.
We got in a van that looked like it was held together with duct tape and was being driven by a really creepy driver, but alas that is all we could find to make the trip…there were 11 of us in the van, so obviously it was going to be safe. After asking directions a couple times we made it out to the house. Pedro and Carmen were the caretakers of the house and were very welcoming to our large group (we had about 12 people at the house at any given time, some people left while others joined during the 4 days we were there). The town, tiny, I mean tiny…of course we didn’t see much of it, we really did just stay at the house for 4 whole days! Mom, it was smaller then Boca de Uchire in Venezuela! Pedro took us that first night to the grocery store so we bought almost $300 in food and beer…that was a show of course, 5 Americans in a small grocery store in Leon with 3 overflowing carts full of food (we had each signed up to cook a meal or two). The grocery store was about 25 minutes from the house and we made it there and back by riding in the back of a pick-up truck J Love you Mom J
So the house was beautiful, it opened right onto the ocean…maybe 15 ft to where the waves were breaking, literally I could crawl from my bedroom to the beach and never walk. The house had 12 beds, a kitchen, dining room, outdoor living room, small pool, elevated palm covered hut, and an amazing few with a private beach…oh…ya…and at only $125 a night divided by 10 people…extremely CHEAP…
So the only complain I have about the house was the first morning I woke up sweating wondering what happen to the fan and the air conditioning that were on all night? Well turns out that there are rolling power outages every day in Nicaragua! So Las Penitas didn’t have power EVERY day from 7am-2pm…YIKES…luckily we only lost a little bit of meat, but for the most part everything was ok…it just meant we were up early cause the rooms got hot REAL quick.
So since everyday at the house was pretty much the same I am gonna note some highlights:
- Cooking empanadas and arepas for everyone and teaching Tania and Lisa to make them
- Boogie Boarding in the most amazing waves
- The Hut that became Ray’s house (he stayed there most of the time due to his broken foot)
- Playing cards – Progressive rummy is a bit addictive….get ready OSU!
- The pool where I was able to sit in water and read Harry Potter which was sitting on a floating boogie board
- Just a much needed relaxing time!
So we left around 11am on the last day and arranged a boat ride back from the house to the ship. We decided on this because it was much closer this way due to the lack of a direct route between Las Penitas and Corinto! While most of thought that the route would be a quick and easy way along the beaches we were surprised to learn that we would actually be navigating through a huge Nicaraguan Mangrove! It was AMAZING and one of my favorite parts of the weekend….at this point there were 8 of us and we managed to fit in a small boat and trusted that our driver knew his way through small mangroves. At time we had to duck and move out of the way of branches and at one point we all had to climb into the boat and lay down because a tree had fallen the night before and got in the way of the boat. Finally we made it out and could see the MV Explorer in the distance and we made the most amazing return to the ship I have ever heard of…we even got to pull up along side of the ship as we got to a smaller docking area.
All in all Nicaragua was an amazing time with my new friends and I loved it dearly! I would recommend this house and this country to anyone that just wants to get away and enjoy a relaxing beach!
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