Visitors

My friend Kyle, from Oregon, had told me that he would be traveling through Central America starting in January and would hopefully make it to Nicaragua to visit. He emailed me telling me he would probably stop by in a week or so (last Monday) and then showed up in Boaco last Thursday (only a few days later…). I hadn’t gone to a cyber in awhile so I didn’t get his last email telling me that he was actually in Managua heading to Boaco. As I was sitting in a cyber, I checked my email and saw a message from him saying he was going to try to be in Boaco that day. I immediately wrote back hoping that he would check his email soon. I then got a message back just a few minutes later saying he was in Coabo. Coabo? I had no idea if that was a city or maybe a cyber in town. I asked Jasser and he had no idea. I sent him my phone number & told him to ask to borrow a phone so he could call me. I got a call and he told me he was in a cyber which happened to be down the street from the one I was sitting in. He apparently mixed up the letters and said Coabo instead of Boaco haha He said it scared him to read my message “Where’s Coabo?” I bet! Anyway, I ran down to the other cyber & found him and his friend Jackson. It’s crazy seeing friends from home here in Nicaragua! It was great :)





Ice cream with the boys :)

I brought them back to my house to put their stuff down and then we headed out so I could show them Boaco (not Coabo). We visited my sitemate Steve, and his family happened to be making buñuelos, which are this amazing deep fried treat with simple syrup on top. It was delicious!! We walked around a little and then came back to the house. I did a load of laundry—their first for the trip! My host mom & sis came back from the finca so they got to meet my family. We went out to dinner and Jasser joined us. Steve was planning on leaving Boaco the next morning for a meeting in Managua and Kyle and Jackson had wanted to visit Leon, so we decided that we would head out super early to ride the bus and catch a taxi with Steve.

We left Boaco after their short visit—they were tempted by my family’s invitation to their finca (farm/ranch), but they wouldn’t have enough time for the travel. Instead, we headed toward Leon and met up with my friend (PCV) Monica. She showed us around and we got lunch there. Unfortunately, the power and water was out in the entire city, which is extremely uncommon for Leon. This is a very large city and the power hasn’t gone out in 2 years I guess. What luck! So, we decided that the beach was the best way to spend our time. It was spontaneous, but proved to be worth the trip! It was so beautiful there & it was very relaxing.

The next day we went volcano surfing/boarding on Cerro Negro which is a black sand volcano. This is what originally lured the boys to Leon. Monica didn’t join us because she had already gone and she had a meeting that day. We had some great guides and there was an Indian family in our group with two sweet little girls. It was a long day and an awesome experience since we hiked down into the volcano’s crater—and yes, it’s a live volcano—hot and sulfery inside! The most amazing thing that happened that day though, was that the water miraculously came back and we were able to take showers after sweating all day and being covered in black sand/dust. It was by far the best shower ever and it was only lukewarm. I was also able to wash out the rest of the sand from my hair from the day before.

We headed to Granada after that, which was fun because I haven’t been there since our first 3 days in Nicaragua for orientation. We walked around and explored the town and ran into a guy selling tours. We weren’t planning on going on any tours, but then decided to take the canopy tour which is zip-lining through the jungle/forest. We had a great time and it was nice to get out of the sun a little. We hung out with other PCVs later and watched some football.

The next day we went to the Laguna de Apoyo. I went there with my training family back in September and it wasn’t very fun because only my host brother knew how to swim so the others just stayed on the beach. This time was much better being with other volunteers and friends. We headed straight to the water and spent several hours down there. It was awesome! However, we all realized later that we had some pretty impressive sunburns…Yikes! We did wear sunscreen, but reapplying is what we forgot.
Although I wished I could continue on with Kyle and Jackson as they traveled the rest of Central America and headed on to South America, I entered back into reality and decided that my days of travel would come soon. The boys are now on Ometepe Island, which I hope to make it to soon because I’ve heard it’s beautiful.

For now, I’m in Boaco and waiting for more visitors to come my way…School will be starting soon though and I am excited for that. Did I mention in my last blog that the ministry of education moved the start date for schools from January 31st to February 15th. I’ll keep you updated!