The Final Countdown!

Sorry to reference a really terrible eighties song, but the title says it all. We are merely hours away from going back to the States. This trip has been absolutely wonderful. It was a long trip, but we enjoyed every minute of it. We climbed two volcanoes, viewed tons of lagoons, traveled to many towns, and mets lots of wonderful people. I must admit that Nicaragua has grown on me. When we first arrived here I was a little overwhelmed. Who wouldn't be? The streets are crowded with people and life is at an extremely fast pace. The cities never sleep. I slowly learned to accept things as they are and just relaxed and enjoyed everything that came my way.
We took a lot of pictures. Most that made it on to the blog were pictures that covered our little misadventures. The rest of the time we just hung out around Tania's grandma's house eating really good food and meeting interesting people. SO this last post is pretty much a combination of pictures taken around the house while hangin out with the fam. We are anxious to be back in the States yet we are sad to leave because we will miss everyone here so very much.

a plethora of fruit in the back yard:

mangos

pritaya

noni

cacao


las animales:

chocoyo

perros

There was a lot of rain storms during the last week and as a result of that someone found a turtle in the back yard. And they also decided to place it in the sink.

So I ate it while it was still alive. No I am kidding (No I am serious. I ate it and it tasted damn good. Ain't nothin you can do about it PITA).

just hangin' out:

doing what I do best...


Lia dancing traditional Nicaragua dances


Vince and his true love Laura

Tania's grandma eating mangos

an Indian that Miguel painted on the wall out back

I fell in love with pritaya

Daniel cooked for us tons of deliciouses meals to eat. One of them was soup made from cow tail. Yes I said it, cow tail. And it was damn good. Sorry vegetarians.

This is Rosa. She helped around the house while we visited. She was absolutely wonderful and sweet. Tania and I thank her for all her hard work, in which she always did with a smile.


Tania's grandma sitting on the front porch jamming out to the radio. I really wish we had a better picture of this because this picture doesn't give it justice. She had the radio blasting and she was smiling and dancing in her seat while she greeted people in the street. I am going to miss her smile...

To Tania's loving family: Muchas gracias por todo. I have learned a lot from each and everyone of you. You each have hearts large enough to fill a house. I will miss you dearly. Next time I will know more Spanish so that I may speak with each of you in more depth. I promise.

To friends and family that read the blog: Love you all who stuck with us on this journey. Tania and I can't wait to see everyone back in the States and share some stories.

Nandainme and Mombacho

Three days before we head back to the States. These last days have gone by too fast for us to keep track of what we did each day. Since our last blog, we decided to take a trip down to Rivas. I don't know much about Rivas because we never made it there. While traveling south we hit a snag in the town of Nandaime. And when I say snag I mean there was a giant parade marching across the highway. We didn't know what exactly they were celebrating (we never really asked), but there were men, women, ad children dress in huge puffy flamboyantly colored costumes dancing everywhere. They were followed by a marching band and a group of people carrying a couple of religious idols (it looked like St. Anne with the young virgin along with St. Joachim, so possibly the holy virgin and her mother and father). Tons of onlookers came from out of the wood work to watch and/or participate in this thing. So there was absolutely no way to go around it. So we decided to stop, get out and partake in the festivities.

These masks mock/refer to the evil Spaniards that came across the Atlantic and treated the natives like garbage. They are only found in Nicaragua and the locals wear them in celebration.

After the parade we decided to not make the trip to Rivas because it would get too late in the evening on the return trip. So we went to the Mombacho volcano which was just a kilometer or so down the highway. Upon arrival we jumped into a truck (Daniel and I rode in the back while everyone else was inside) and took a steep, and I mean steep climb to the top. The volcano is simply gorgeous. Heaven on earth. Mombacho is covered all kinds of natural fruit along with coffee tree plantations. At the top of the volcano there is a reserve where one can take a hike around the craters. The weather changed from hot to frigid. The top of the volcano literally rests among the clouds. So we trekked around in the rain forest covered in clouds. A once in a lifetime experience...

Waiting to go up the steep hills!

Hiking around the volcano craters


Middle Earth once again

a bridge at the tip top... very cold


over 1000 meters above sea level looking down at the earth below through clouds

look there is a hobbit!

Wild monkeys in the trees (Tania saw one poop... ew)

A few more things

In an attempt to catch up on our blog, we have compiled the photos from places we have visited in the past week.

The countdown begins for going home to the States so we really have been trying to stay in town and sightsee what we can. The past few weeks have been eventful and it's amazing that we've been here for almost a month.

We went back to Masaya to check out the lagoon that we didn't get a chance to see a few weeks ago due to bad weather. The weather was perfect this time and the view of the Masaya volcano was spectacular. We stopped by the plaza to drink "atol" which is a warm cinnamon milk drink that is placed in cups that are personally made by the vendors from dried fruit.

two young lovers possibly skipping school to make out by the lagoon (they didn't think we noticed them I guess since they didn't stop sucking face while I took pictures of them)

Volcano Masaya, our first adventure here in Nicaragua if you remember... Here is a view from the other side of the lagoon.

Atol, yummy...

Tania's mom Elia and uncle Daniel also partook

A few days later we went to the Sandino monument at the Tiscapa Lagoon here in Managua. The monument is built on top of the ruins of the old Somoza mansion. For those of you who don't knowmuch about Nicaragua history (and being from the US you probably don't know much because our government likes to rewrite our history books for us), the Somoza family were dictators from the 1940's-1979. They tortured many people in dungeons underneath the mansion, especially students who were involved in the political movements against Somoza's reign. Sandino was a farmer who organized guerrilla movements in rebellion against the Somoza's in the 1920's until he was assassinated.

one of the many torture chambers below the ruins




Can you guess which lagoon this is?

Somoza had many allies. Among them was Mussolini, who gave him this tank as a gift.

Sandino was tricked by Somoza. Somoza had agreed to a peace treaty between them and asked Sandino to come to his compound to strike a deal. Upon arrival, Sandino was imprisoned by the national guards and then assassinated. The revolution in the 1970's was fashioned after Sandino's cause and ideals. The rebels called themselves non other than Sandanistas. After the war, this monument was erected on top of the old ruins of Somoza's dwellings as a tribute to Sandino and everyone who died fighting the Somoza dictatorship.

Sandino's silhouette on top of the ruins

The Sandino Exhibit; this is down below the silhouette underground

Here's something I'd like to rub in everyone's faces...it's not as important as Sandino and visiting the monument. But it's something that I enjoyed very much:) I got to see the Dark Knight, the new Batman movie, on the 17th while you assholes in the US had to wait 'till the 18th! Haa haa, why so serious? IT WAS AWESOME. ENOUGH SAID...

suck it bitches!

On July 19th, we headed over to the plaza here in Managua with Tania's uncles Chino and Miguel. The 19th is the day that the revolutionaries won against Somoza in 1979. It is a huge celebration here in Nicaragua, especially since the Sandinista party won again in 2007. We had to ride a crowded bus from the barrio where we are staying to the Plaza. These buses come from all over Managua to transport people for free during the celebration. As you can imagine, the streets are crowded with millions of people. Miguel and Chino wouldn't stop buying me beer so I got a little drunk. All fun in celebration.

that says it all...

The bus not quite crowded yet.

another bus alongside us

The Plaza was named after Jean Paul II after he was almost assassinated here
(you can thank Nicaragua for the pope-mobile).

The stage where Daniel Ortega (current prez and guy on all the billboards) and Hugo Chavez (prez of Venezuela) hung out during the celebration. They are close buds.

The guy in foreground is really thinking hard about how drunk he wants to be.

You see the sign way in the background in the pics before?

Yeah these guys climbed on top of that.

two lovers among chaos

Uncles Miguel and Chino celebrating their independence along with drunk me!

We've been lost for a while...

but we're back.

We made it back from Costa Rica but we haven't had internet connection for the past week and a half due to the heavy rains in Nicaragua. So we will try our best in replaying everything in retrospect.

The trip to Costa Rica was hectic. One thing I have learned to accept: (You have probably realized by now that I have had to accept a lot of things on this trip. This is by far the biggest and most important!) Tania's family does not plan for anything! So everything is willy nilly at the last minute. All of you know me well. I am very type-A when it comes to preparation and planning. I like to know what is going to happen and how it will come to be. So you can imagine my surprise when one afternoon we are driving around central Managua searching for Visas and bus companies.


We finally were on our way after Tania's uncle Daniel and his son Vince went through bureaucratic hoops to buy visas to Costa Rica because they have Nicaraguan passports (Costa Ricans, or Ticos, don't like Nicas and that sentiment is shared visa versa). To keep the story short because a lot happened on the way to the bus station and on the road to Costa Rica which would require that we spend about 4 hours updating the blog, we arrived safely and were picked up by relatives. (By the way, the bus ride was 9 hours long to San Jose, which included 1-2 hours of waiting for our passports to get stamped at the very crowded and chaotic Nicaraguan-Costa Rican border).

Tania and I were a bit upset about the following things:

1) Tania's uncle didn't notify his relatives that we were arriving until the morning we left which also meant that Tania and I had no idea that we were going to stay with relatives UNTIL we arrived in Costa Rica. Additionally, the relatives had no idea how many people were going to be staying with them (a total of 5 people).

2)When we arrived at the very humble home of Tania's great -uncle and great-aunt we quickly realized there was very little room for all of us to stay there.

3)The first night we were there, Tania's mom talked and talked and talked until very late (not taking into account that Daniel, Tania, Vince and I were exhausted from the trip). All we wanted to do was lie down and sleep.

4) The house was under renovation, as you will see in the pictures of the room we stayed in.

Costa Rica is a bit... different.

For one thing it is freezing and raining constantly there right now (so not so many pictures :( ). So of course we were not prepared for the drastic change in weather. Luckily I brought a pair of jeans to wear. The showers were the coldest I have taken in my life. In most of Central America there is no hot water. If you want hot water you need to be rich, or heat up a big pot of water on the stove and carry it into the bath with you. Since this takes a lot of time and is a burden on a family to do this for everyone we just jumped in.

One of the things that was revealing to us about the economic situation of people living in Central America, was the situation of Steven and Jenny (in the picture below). Steven is Tania's great-aunt's son, who is 21 and his wife Jenny is 20 years old. Steven goes to school during the day and studies mechanical engineering. Both him and his wife work at a cookie factory to make ends meet. They both are supervisors at the cookie factory and make about $200 each a month. Steven's tuition alone costs about $1000 a semester. You can do the math...

Jenny and Steven.

The cookie they make.

Tania and I felt really bad about imposing so much on her great-aunt's family. Like everyone in Tania's family they are purely genuine people, but they simply didn't have much room for us and we felt it was unfair to show up so spontaneously. We are deeply and utterly grateful for their generosity.

This is the room Tania and I slept in on the second floor.

The wooden plank (argh) we had to walk across because the house was under renovation.

Ok, so enough of the bitching. Despite the problems with the lack of planning and weather Costa is simply gorgeous. In every direction there are lush green hills and white water rapids. The views are enchanting (sorry we didn't get as many pictures as we would've liked, the weather was pretty bad).

Some interesting flowers found near a pond.

The "plan" was to travel to Poas Volcano, which is supposed to be beautiful and very near to where we were staying. We never made it to the volcano due to bad weather and overcrowding. Thats right, the volcano was overcrowded with tourists. So we decided to go back down the way we came to look for a restaurant at which to eat. The restaurant had a pond that was basically a fish hatchery. They stockpiled fish in the pond, and had people catch their own fish and then cook it for you.

Daniel catching the first fish of the day!

My first fish...which I caught with my mouth, like a bear!

We caught a total of 6 fish for about the price of $26.oo (Tania caught her first fish ever!) After an afternoon of fishing we headed back home and got ready for the trip back to Nicaragua (on the bus ride back, we watched "La Bamba", "Dance with me", "Shall we Dance" ....the J-lo version with Richard Geere :( ) There was also a horrible, and I mean, horrible accident on the road: a semi truck drove through a smaller truck at an intersection. After slamming through the truck, the semi drove off the road into a creek which was 30 feet down from the edge of the road.

Overall however, the best part of the trip was getting to know the family. They were simply very wonderful people who accommodated our every need and more.

Tania's great-aunt and her family.

We will update on the rest of the week when we get internet access again....