Different But The Same

A plane in mid-January took us back to Nicaragua, a place that regular readers of this blog may be tired of hearing about. Well... we did some different things and tried to take some different pictures to keep it interesting. We hope you enjoy.

To get you in the right mindset, below is a picture of one of the standard scenic sunsets.

For the 1st week of our trip, we overlapped with Julia's brother, Mike, and his wife Ashley, on their honeymoon. They appreciated the company at happy hour and on the various tours we did through Osman and Angie's travel company Tranquilo Tours and Travel.

Tour #1: A full day that included a stop at Catarina for the view and shopping, a canopy tour in the foothills of Mombacho Volcano, and finished off with lunch and swimming at Laguna de Apoyo.

Tour #2: Exploring the Flor de Caña factory and a history walk around León. We drank some really good rum and learned some interesting things about the history of the area.

Tour #3:  Another full day that included a mandarin orange farm, cigar factory, boat around the islands outside of Granada, tour of Fortaleza El Coyotepe, and then viewing the lava of Masaya Volcano at night. Some things we have done a few times before but we still managed to find new experiences. We stopped at a roadside stand to buy some oranges and Osman wasn't impressed with the display, the guy told us we could pick our own straight from the trees in their backyard if we wanted. So we walked around their large farm filled with fruit trees of multiple types and found the good stuff. At the cigar factory, Julia's brother Mike got to roll his own cigar. On the boat tour, we saw some Capuchin monkeys that we hadn't seen before, and learned more since Osman was our guide. Then toured an old fort/prison up on a hill called Fortaleza El Coyotepe and learned about it's dark past. Finally, when the sun set, we waited in line to see the lava of Volcano Masaya at night, it was very impressive.

 

That first week went fairly quickly, and we soon settled into a routine. We visited the resort pool, we played with the kids, and often did both at the same time. I played a lot of golf thanks to an unlimited pass for the month. I proudly played 234 holes, or 26 rounds of 9. It was kind of my dream month. The lone break from our schedule was a big party for Kaiden's 5th birthday. The pictures below should tell the whole story.

Here are some other pictures of the kids and activities we did with them.

(We messed around some toy lights and my camera settings, handwriting credit to Julia)

Alright, that is enough about the nephews. We were lucky this trip to have 2 visitors during the month of February. First off was Julia's former coworker and now good friend, Kelsea, from Juneau Alaska. She was seeking some sunshine and the timing worked out perfectly since my brother Peter was to arrive a few days after her.

Here is a quick description of how the busy but awesome 10 days went down:

• Picked Kelsea up from the airport, hopped a chicken bus up to León, did the usual things (cathedral rooftop, checking out the churches, outdoor grills for dinner, strolling the central park, perusing the market), bused down to Granada, again did the usual things (boat tour of the islettas, climbing up the La Merced bell tower, exploring the central park, visited the cemetery, meandering through the market).
• After Granada, it was to the airport to pickup Peter, all of us back to the Gran Pacifica resort where we did the usual things (played golf, happy hour drinks, swimming in the ocean, dinner at Burrito Bandidos), tried some new adventures with breakfast and sweat lodge at the hostel Mind The Gap (where 3 times we sat in a small hut with steaming rocks for 10 min before running into the ocean to cool off), did a day-tour with Osman (Volcano Masaya, Catarina, Laguna de Apoyo).
• We left the resort and said goodbye to Kelsea, hopped a chicken bus up to León with Peter, did the usual things (see above), bused down to Granada, repeated the usual activities (see above but with a few exceptions), early morning taxi to airport where we said goodbye to Peter and caught a ride back to the resort with Osman.

With that, the tour guide portion of our trip ended. Below are a few pictures.

(León Cathedral rooftop)

(Sweat lodge hut at Mind The Gap, man on the left is preparing the very hot stones)

The day after Peter left, Julia's parents arrived for their regular 6 week visit. We moved into an apartment that one of the property owners built behind his house for our final 4 nights at the resort. Golf was played and drinks were had by the pool.

Aside from the regular stuff you have all heard about, we were lucky to be able to witness first hand the turtle release program that Angie and Osman have been a part of. To protect the turtle population from poachers, they have locals who monitor the beaches and alert Osman when they see a turtle coming ashore to lay her eggs. The eggs are then collected and buried under the sand in an enclosure, and roughly 45 days later, they begin to hatch. All of the babies are then released at sunset into the ocean to protect them from predators.

During our first few days here, we got to watch a mother lay her eggs at night and it really was a phenomenal sight.

We then saw the last step in the process a few days before we left, when one of the previous nests began to hatch and over 100 tiny turtles were released into the ocean.

 Our last night in Nicaragua was spent with the whole family at a tobacco farm near Granada owned by one of the residents of the resort. We stayed in a beautiful old farm house with views of Volcano Mombacho and gigantic rooms.

(In Liberia, looking or a hostel during a parade) 

Our flight back to the States left out of Liberia, Costa Rica, so our final few nights of the trip were spent lounging on beaches and paying a little bit more for food and lodging. It was good to slip back into the backpacker lifestyle for a few days, punctuated by catching a local bus at 6 AM to get us to the airport for a fraction of the cost that everyone else pays.




We arrived back in Oregon in early March and had a busy month, but I will wait and tell you more about it on the next post. The post will also describe how we got to our current temporary home in southern Alabama, so you won't want to miss that.

Chasing Cars

We have only been back in Portland for 2 weeks, but so much has happened in that relatively small amount of time. In the next few paragraphs, I will take you along the ride as we made our way back onto American soil and got ready for the holiday season.

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

After the hike, we strolled around town doing some shopping. We bought gifts and found a liquor we have been wanting to stock up on for our wedding. Thus our packs became a little heavier. That night we ate some infamous jalapeño beef, fell asleep to the sound of fireworks (we assume as a prefunc before the "Feast of the Immaculate Conception" taking place the following week, or they just love fireworks).

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