Category Archives: Nicaragua
Nicaraguan Style Goat Cheese
Place Taken: Tisey Reserve, near Esteli Date Taken: October 27, 2008 During Nicaragua’s rainy season, the forests surrounding the city of Esteli get pretty wet. We were determined, however, not to let a little (or a lot) of rain keep us from seeing this beautiful part of the country. So we made two trips—one to the Miraflor Nature Preserve (which turned out to be a muddy disaster as we wrote about at the time) and one to the Tisey Reserve. …
Toothbrushes Galore!
Place Taken: Altagracia, Ometepe, Nicaragua Date Taken: Oct 15, 2008 While visiting the Si a la Vida kids to deliver the goods we brought from the US for them, we got the “grand tour” of their facility to see how they lived. They were amazing kids with such spirit, creativity and charm. Compared to their previous lives of glue sniffing and homelessness, they must’ve thought their shared rooms and single shared sink were fantastic, but two days out of the …
Nicaragua’s Karate Kids
Place Taken: Leon, Nicaragua Date Taken: October 31, 2008 We entered a cultural center in the university town of Leon, checking out the various artworks hanging on the wall, including a very anti-American depiction of Ronald Reagan from the Contra era. We browsed through the collection of craft items for sale and read a few fliers for music and poetry events. Then we walked out the backdoor into a courtyard. As we enjoyed the little oasis, local kids began to …
Nicaragua Summary and Photos
We’ve added a Nicaragua page to our Country Summaries page, which you can access in the navigation bar at the top of the page. Check it out to see a review of our time in Nicaragua as well as to link to a selection of our photos. Did you like this? Share it:
R and R
After a grueling 3 weeks in Nicaragua…okay, there really wasn’t that much that was grueling about it, except for maybe the cold showers and that rat that invaded our bedroom one night…we decided to end our stay in this beautiful Central American country with a few days at the beach. Appropriately enough in a country chock full of volcanoes, Las Penitas, the beach we went to near Leon, was a black sand beach, that burned the heck out of your …
“Volunteer Work”
At 4:15 AM we met, had breakfast, walked outside and promptly waited an hour for the bus (yes, this was the day we waited longer on the return trip). What, might you ask, would compel us to do such a silly thing? Well, the first thing being that since the sun usually rose around 5:30 AM and set around 5:30 PM, we were pretty used to going to bed early and getting up early. The second was that we had …
The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round…Except When They Don’t
In the 3+ weeks that we’ve been in Nicaragua, I’ve ridden more school buses than I think I have in the rest of my life combined. You see, I was a car rider when I was in school, so I only hopped aboard school buses for field trips. But in Nicaragua, the good ol’ Blue Bird school bus is the standard mode of transport. If you’ve ever wondered what happened to the bright yellow bus of your childhood, well, my …
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Goin’ Muddin’
As I understand it, “goin’ muddin’” means taking your truck and driving it off-road through really muddy land. Apparently, for some people, this is an exceptionally good time. I don’t happen to be one of those people. I just can’t figure out what about that experience is appealing. But on a trip to Miraflor Nature Reserve, I did it anyways. But I forgot the car part. I just took myself, sans car, muddin’. I slipped up and down muddy hills. …
Masaya: Not What I Was Bargaining For
Last Thursday, once class was over and we had consumed one of the always enormous lunches provided by our host family, Jeff and I hopped the bus to Masaya, a nearby town famed for its markets. Jeff had been before but he hadn’t really said much about them except that he’d bought his hammock there. From what the guidebooks said and what others had mentioned in passing, I was under the impression that the old market—the one most highly recommended—was …
Walking in the Clouds
Its not too often you can hop a bus into the clouds. But that’s exactly what we did last week as an easy day trip from Granada, riding the bus from the entrance to the Volcan Mombacho Reserve directly to the shrouded top. The top remains semi-permanently in a cloud from the moist air from Lake Nicaragua hitting the steep cliffs of the volcano. This results in what they call a “cloud forest.” I just call it neat and think …
5 responses to “Walking in the Clouds”
