Julia ended her last post by telling you that we booked a 2nd night in the town of Matagalpa. This turned out to be a very good choice. The town is surrounded by hills and there is a well worn trail that leads you to the top of one of those hills. We paid a little bit (70 cents) to enter the property and quickly were surrounded by moss covered trees and flowing water. I greatly enjoyed this as it had been way too long since we last hiked in the woods. The payoff at the top is a spectacular view of the city below. We clumsily tried to take a photo with Julia on my shoulders but nothing came out worthy of showing on the blog.
Waterfalls
View of Matagalpa from lookout
The next day (Friday), we caught a bus to a town higher up in the hills, called Jinotega. A smaller settlement but it still had plenty of discount clothes stores to wander through. We are intrigued by the abundance of cheap clothes stores around Central America and here we got to see how the system works. Trucks unload tightly wrapped white bundles at stores. The stores then stock them in a back room and when the racks get low, they unwrap a bundle of mixed unwanted American clothes and put them in the appropriate place. Sometimes they just dump the clothes into a large bin and let people rummage through, charging around a dollar per item. We were able to find some good stuff, most notably some christmas pajamas for Julia and a high quality Kansas Jayhawks Paul Pierce jersey for Micah.
The rest of our time in Jinotega was spent walking through the hillside cemetery, eating street pizza and pupusas, looking at the holiday displays in the central park, and regrettably eating Chinese food for dinner. The last thing on that list would haunt Julia for a few days after, causing her to think she got the Zika and making the long travel day back to Gran Pacifica an arduous journey.
View of Jinotega from the cemetery
Central Park holiday display with cars driving by
Despite Julia's belly full of regret, we made it back to the resort on Saturday and successfully hitchhiked the last 11 km yet again. This time, all we had to do was step off the bus and Spencer (son of Angie's boss, Patrick) just happened to be driving by and slowed down when he saw some white people. We hopped in the backseat and after a quick stop at Burrito Bandidos for a drink, we were back "home". On our first night back, the resort was celebrating the opening of their new hangout spot called "Meatgrinders Beach Bar" (the name refers to the surf break it overlooks). Julia stayed home but I joined in for some of the fun. They had a local dance group come to perform and lead dancing, which was a success.
Dance party
Thankfully, Julia began to feel better on Sunday, and we could help them setup their Christmas tree and play with the kiddos for the last few days of our trip. Also, that meant we could fully enjoy the resort's staff Christmas party that took place all day Tuesday. The workers got their families bused in and the day began with some popcorn, cotton candy, face painting, balloon animals and a clever clown. We understood very little of what was said, but the locals were crying with laughter.
Other activities included 3 piñatas, a bounce house, sand volleyball, buffet food, pool time, and an oceanfront slip 'n slide. Not a bad way to spend our last full day at Gran Pacifica. I will let the pictures tell more of the day's story.
The setup for the staff party
Kaiden seems confused by Julia's face paint
Dominic enjoying the party
Kaiden hitting the piñata while the clown makes jokes
Notice the girl is jumping while she hits the Santa piñata
Even the clown played volleyball
Slippin' and sliding
Wednesday was the day after the Tuesday party, and that was the day Angie and Osman drove us into Managua in order to catch our flight the next morning. We accomplished a good amount that day; Julia saw a dentist to get a filling put in (for $35), we bought some final gifts from the market, and we got to see lava flowing in the crater of Volcano Masaya. It was a very cool sight, seeing the lava change colors as it sloshed around and crashed against the walls. The view was better than the pictures below make it seem.
Lava in Volcano Masaya
A closer look
We stayed our final night in a hotel near the airport, and braved a dark walk for our last taste of Nicaraguan street food. For the most part, our transport back to Portland was smooth. Our original flight home was from Atlanta - San Francisco - PDX, but as the Pacific NW was hit by a snow storm, flights became delayed. We luckily switched to a direct from ATL - PDX and made it home on time, but our bags did not. They would take the scenic route; Julia's arrived the next day, while mine took 4 days to land on our doorstep. We weren't too worried since the shorts and t-shirts they contained were not needed in the snow. Plus we received compensation from Delta for our troubles.
Jumping back into real life quickly, we enjoyed the beginning of the holiday festivities with a cocktail party that Friday and the church cookie walk on Sunday. Julia was back to work on Monday, but the busiest part of our first week back had to do with cars. Purchasing a new vehicle has been on our mind for a while and this seemed like the time to get it done. So, we decided to post Julia's 2003 Honda CR-V on craigslist at a dream price, just to see if it got interest. Surprisingly we got multiple inquiries right away and soon were scrambling to figure out the logistics of selling it that same day. Fortunately my brother Chris was in China for work and his car was available to use, and without it we wouldn't have been able to meet a man that afternoon who would give us a wad of cash in exchange for keys. It was then that we looked at each other and said "I guess we are buying a new car".
The next couple days were spent scouring the internet for mid-sized SUVs and walking around used car lots. One lot in particular left us with a story to tell, as a young woman helped us out despite knowing very little about cars. She had just recently gotten the job after she had bought a car from the company. She said her only requirement for her car was that it had an input for her phone so she could play music. We stopped asking her car questions after that revelation. She then proceeded to show us a car that was the dirtiest we have ever seen. Apparently there was a misunderstanding about whether it had been detailed, and clearly it hadn't. Dog hair filled every crevice and we didn't even want to sit on the seats. An Eastern European mechanic tried to sell us on it saying "We clean up for you, it will be like new when we are done" and "You drive this car you will love it, this is a great car". The whole scene was kind of entertaining but a little sad as we really thought this could be a good car that currently looked horrible. We refused to test drive it because of my dog allergies and we didn't want to stick to anything.
On the way back to the office, we talked about the holidays with the young sales lady, and she shared that her family had escaped war torn Kosovo when she was 3 and that they had spent 6 months in hiding. It was a random thing to hear and makes you wonder what other crazy stories seemingly regular people have.
After the car shopping on Wednesday morning in Portland, we luckily escaped town for Kelso to see Julia's parents before things got crazy in the metro area. The snow began to fall at 1pm as we were heading north, and by rush hour when we were peacefully watching the snow accumulate, the city streets became a mess and friends spent hours in their cars trying to travel a few miles. The next day, the main roads were good and we looked at more cars, but Julia's scheduled work for Friday had been cancelled. All of these events became important factors to us getting a great deal on a vehicle.
View of Julia's parent's house with the snow
We came across a posting on craigslist for a 2013 Honda CR-V for a price just slightly out of our range. After inquiring if the seller would come down a little, we met him in the parking lot of a QVC in Beaverton. The car looked and drove beautifully and the price seemed too good to be true. The man was from South Korea and just finished 18 months of work for Portland State University. His english was decent but not great, so some questions couldn't be really be answered. We had to trust our gut, and then when our gut told us to buy it, we had to determine if we could spend all of our savings, and then how we could get all of that cash in hand to give to the man by tomorrow. It was a good learning experience. We didn't plan the movement of money very well but got lucky that Julia's parents had just liquidated some assets and could lend us some cash. Plus our current landlords (Lucas & Tarah) were able to lend us a chuck of change as well. We spent a lot of time in banks the next 24 hours and somehow, when the final stack of bills was handed to our new friend from South Korea by the bank teller on Saturday afternoon, we were the proud owners of an expensive piece of machinery.
Our new ride
Well, that was the biggest news from our time back in Portland. The other notable events are as follows; Saturday night was our friends white elephant/ugly sweater party (I came home with some truck shaped taco holders and Julia scored some wine flavored gummy bears), we began registering for wedding items at REI and Macys, we went ice skating for Julia's work Christmas party, I babysat some nephews and took them to OMSI along with my Dad, we both had good friends in town causing us to stay up late 2 nights in a row, and finally... Julia has accepted another travel position, this time in Federal Way, WA starting at the end of January.
Currently, we are up in Kelso to celebrate Christmas with Julia's parents. Sunday, we will head down to my Dad's and celebrate with most of my family. Hopefully all of you are having a happy holiday season and thanks for checking in on us. (Please consider the comment above and the picture below as our Christmas card to you)
From our family to yours
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