Friday the 20th marked our last day of Spanish Language school. I tried to have my last awkward, more charades than speaking conversation with my wonderful teacher Veronica and the rest of the gang learned a lot of grammar. We finished off with Salsa classes for April and I and a visit to the cigar factory for Kamal and Kristine. (yes...think back to your anatomy and those black tarry lungs!) It was fun to dance despite the stiff legs from the hike. That evening we met up with Andrew and Dhruti (who got to Granada the night before) and had pizza and drinks with the whole gang! We got to hear about Andrew being called a chinito by a little kid (making Andrew rather mad since he was CLEARLY bigger than the kid!...I believe his exact words were..."I'm 2x your size!") Being the typical medical students, we ended our night and the late late hour of 10:30 and went back to get our beauty rest!
Saturday the 21st, April, Kristine, Kamal met up with Mia and Alicia in the central park at Granada. After picking up our luggage and giving presents/saying bye to our host families (which was so sad because they were awesome!) we had a DELICIOUS lunch by the islands formed by Mombacho volcano. I gotta say, I was surprised that my cooked fish still had a head! During dinner, we had a surprise guest...the BEE trying to STEAL my coke! I would have gotten mad, but it got stuck in the bottle so that was it for my 'better than States by far' coke! We then took a boat ride tour of the islands, followed by Alicia doing some master driving to San Juan del Sur, a little down on the coast of the Pacific. In addition to passing about 50 cars, we stopped by a roadside stand and got fresh coconuts! (They had mangoes too, but I figured that may get a little messy!) At San Jaan del Sur, we saw the little villa Alicia had reserved and it was AMAZING! The place was a secluded gated community with a private indoor and outdoor pool, beautiful 2 story floor plan, and very nice staff. We ended the night by taking a trip to the beach, followed by dinner and a dip in the pool under the stars. Mia and Kamal tried to teach me how to swim...and yea, we'll just leave the rest of that out =P
Sunday, we relaxed more at the beautiful villa and in the afternoon, got a neon orange bikini for me since I wasn't smart enough to pack a bathing suit, visited the pool and finally, drove to catch the ferry to Ometepe Island. Alicia showed off more of her driving skills trying to drive our car onto the already too full ferry! Despite some sea sickness and rain, we got there safe and sound. After finding a hostel, we met up with Dhruti and Andrew for dinner at their hostel. After some good convo, sippie cup drinks, avoidance of bugs and full tummies, we headed back to our place.
Monday was the day of physical activity. Just so we've established this, I've done more physical activity on this trip than the last 23 years of my life...COMBINED!! We started the morning with kayaking about 4 Km, starting at lake Nicaragua and going into Rio Istiam. (Yes, I don't know how to swim...let's get past this point ppl) On the way, we saw beautiful birds and... MONKEYS in a MANGO tree! The cutest family of Mono Congo (Howler Monkey). I was ready for the monkeys to throw mangoes at us but apparently Nicaraguan monkeys are more well behaved than indian monkeys. The little babies just stared at us as we stared at them (although the papa monkey was getting a little agitated with us). After coming back from this nice little exercise expedition, we all realized that we had managed to get sun burns on our legs...all except April and Alicia. Kristine is definitely the most red, but all of us are not too happy with our sunblock lotioning skills! After eating a nice lunch to recuperate, we decided to follow the advice of Andrew and Dhruti's hostel guide and take the and I QUOTE " EASY walk to the Mirador" So, all of us got geared and ready to take this easy walk which ended up being more like a tortuous hike to about 700 m of Volcano Maderas. As we got to the view point, it started raining and we realized our path was now just very slippery mud with intermittent volcanic rock. For all those med students thinking this sounds like a dramatic ER episode waiting to happen, you are correct! Dhruti and Kamal took some mud to the gluteus maximus and I took a nasty fall onto my left hip (k 2nd yrs...name possible bone injuries...GO!) So, I hobbled down with the rest of the gang as we got soaked and muddy (on the upside, people lots of money for mud baths...we only paid $5 for ours!) Next time I'm in Nicaragua, I'm visiting that guide book with a Sharpie...easy walk my @$$!! haha, j/k ;)
Tuesday the 24th we packed a 5 seater car full of Alicia (our driver), Andrew and I in the front seat, Druthi, Mia, Kamal, April and Kristine in the backseat, luggage of all in the trunk and top of car and drove the 1.5 hrs to the ferry. On the way, we stopped and asked a bus driver how he managed to get a giant pig on the top of his bus (he was probably thinking about asking us how we got ourselves in that little car!) The ferry ride was full of rain and random 80's music videos (Grease lightning, Beatles, and so on). After leaving Andrew and Dhruti to catch the minibus for leon, the rest of us made the drive to Alicia's house in Managua. We've been running errands and just chilling here for the day. Tomorrow we go to see the market in Masaya and maybe volcano number 3 before heading to Leon!
wow...that was a lot of typing but we're all caught up! And as a reward for making it through this post...enjoy the pictures below!
Adios!
Neet
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