Its Saturday as I’m writing this but we arrived in Nicaragua on Wed. It was a long trip with a red eye SEA->ATL->MIA and then a short flight from Miami to Managua on Avianca. We were a little worried about possible flight cancellations due to Covid but everything went as planned. We had no trouble at all in customs in MGA and we were picked up by Estuardo’s brother in law Mauricio. Its a little over 2 hours to ride from there to El Transito where we are staying. We arrived pretty tired. Went to bed early and actually slept better than in months. That’s a good start to any trip.
On Thursday we mostly hung out around the hotel. I spent a lot of time working with Mauricio on getting some phones that I brought working on the local network. Its easy to get a sim card for a couple dollars in Tiendas all over the place but we had some trouble adding data packages etc using my US credit card. You can also go back to the store once the phone is activated and give them cash to buy a package. They take the money and enter some stuff into their phone and bam! you have data. It was nice to just have a day to sit around and relax and we took advantage. Besides walking to the store down the road a bit we didn’t leave the hotel all day.
Friday we went into Leon with some of the workers to do a small project where they set the concrete for a well they had drilled the other day. It didn’t take very long but we got to meet the owner and talk to him about his garden which was pretty nice. He gave Mel a flower she liked.
After the project was done we drove into the center of Leon for lunch and then later dinner with Ice cream in between. Both meals were really good the first was at El Sesteo on the corner by the cathedral and dinner was at a steak place called Carnivore. It was alot of fun hanging out with Estuardo, Joni, Elton, and Rodolfo. Sometimes the conversation was all English and some people could follow, other times it was Spanish and a different set of people were involved but we also did a good job of interacting as a group w/o stopping to explain everything. It was pretty fun and we stayed out pretty late. We didn’t get back to the hotel till maybe 11pm.
Today is looking like another lazy day so far. In the background I’m trying to reset a phone, we went on a long walk on the beach and maybe I’ll try surfing when the tide comes back in.
