I was quite the lucky girl this Semana Santa! The World Traveler, Ms Jennifer Healy made her first and long awaited trip to Nicaragua.
After a half day of school on Friday, Jen and I joined Cezanne and her mom and aunt on a day trip to Mirador Catarina, zip lining at Volcan Mombacho and the city of Granada. The next morning we left early for Corn Island. It was a girls only trip, again with Cezanne's mom and aunt. After a long check-in at the airport we hopped into a little plane and we were off on a hour and 20 minute flight to Corn Island, an island off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. By 8:30am we were eating breakfast in front of the crystal clear turquoise waters of Corn Island. Although I put on sunscreen, I got a super bad burn while walking the beach with Jen on the first day. We dined each night on fresh seafood and had fruit and coconut bread for breakfast in the morning. Jen and I went to a baseball game with our cab driver, that we used the entire time we were there. The game was Managua vs the Atlantic Coast. It was an exciting game with lots of interesting plays and the Atlantic Coast came back to win the game in 6 innings (not sure why that many). The tickets cost $1.50, I bought a ticket for the taxi driver as well! There were tons of families there, babies, little kids, everyone enjoying popcorn and ice cream.
The next day we took a small boat over to Little Corn Island. We had hoped to go snorkeling there, but they were all booked. Instead we met up with some people we had met on the plane, Carmen and Theo. They were from Corn Island and owned a large piece of property on Little Corn Island. we hiked their property and ate fresh sugar mango and drank coconut juice. It was interesting to learn a little bit of the history, culture and politics of the Islands and the Atlantic Coast, which is far different than the rest of Nicaragua. The population is mainly black and the official language is English. The population is small, giving them little political representation, but the land area is huge and the natural resources rich.
The ride back to Big Corn Island was really rough, the waves we big and we were sitting in the front on the boat. Jen got some bruises :( We enjoyed our last morning in Corn Island and caught the afternoon flight back to Managua.
The next day we went on the night tour of Volcan Masaya, were we were able to climb the crater and have a great view of the surrounding cities by moonlight. We also went into a bat cave and saw lots of bats leaving for the night and the little babies they left behind. We were supposed to be able to see some lava too, but conditions werent right for it.
The next day Jen headed back to the States and Ivan and I prepared for another couple of days at the beach. We went back to Playa Hermosa, where we spent last Semana Santa. We arrived late Friday morning and the friends of Ivan's family who own the house (along with their kids who go to Lincoln) left on Saturday morning, so we had the place to ourselves for the rest of the weekend. The water was a little rough, but we were able to find some calm times each day to take a swim. We also spent hours exploring some really cool tide pools full of colorful ocean wonders.
Overall it was a relaxing week off, watching 9 beautiful sunsets over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Check out my album to the right ----->
