Fun with Mom and Dad

I hosted my first visitors...a couple named Hazel and Russell from Canada. They took a chance with a novice tour guide, but I think they went home happy!

Mom and Dad arrived in Managua on March 19 and stayed until the 27th. We had a great time! I loved having them here...and now they know where I'm living and working.

I rented a car for the week. I was nervous about driving...it would be my first time driving; Managua is a busy city with lots of large, intimidating roundabouts; there are speed bumps all over the place and not always well marked; and I didn't know my way around that well. But we survived! The closest thing to an accident was when I backed into a parked motorcycle at the Masaya National Park. The worker who owned it assured me it was no problem and the rental car already had enough scratches on it that one more wasn't an issue...so it was all good! Our only other driving incident was getting stopped by the police because Dad wasn't wearing his seatbelt. I was told later that we were fined too much. Oh well, that officer had a nicer meal that night, I guess.

Anyhow, our first stop was Masaya. We visited the market and later drove up to the Masaya Volcano. We joined a tour that included a walk through bat caves and peering over the volcano's edge to see burning lava (gas mask was mandatory).

Our next stop was Granada. We stayed overnight here in a beautiful little hotel called Casa San Fransisco. It's owned by 2 American sisters. We enjoyed walking around the city, climbing a cathedral bell tower for a nice view and a visit to the market. We also took a boat tour of Las Isletas--a bunch of small islands formed by a volcanic eruption a long time ago. Many of the islands have been built up and have mansions on them. One island is inhabited by monkeys. Apparently if we would have had bananas, they would have jumped right onto the boat. Our only snack was plaintain chips which didn't tempt them.

We drove to San Juan Del Sur next. We rented a nice villa to enjoy for 3 days. Fun in San Juan included a canopy tour with a company called 'Da Flying Frog. For those of you who aren't familiar with this, they harness you up and hook you to a cable where you swing from tree to tree. It's also known as zip trekking. It was fun, but we were told it's much nicer to do in the wet season when everything is lush and green. Nicaragua is very dry now. Rain will start in May. Still, we had fun!

Another highlight was an all-day sail on a 42-foot yacht to a secluded beach. Along the way we spotted the large Olive Ridley turtles in the ocean. From July to December, tens of thousands of these female turtles nest and lay eggs on nearby beaches. At the beach we relaxed, swam in the ocean, and enjoyed a superb lunch. The sailboat had fishing poles rigged up at the back, and on the sail back they reeled in a bunch of large jackfish. We returned at sunset...it was wonderful!