Hola Familia y Amigos, We have been in Nicaragua a week now. We arrived in Managua then caught an early morning bus to San Juan del Sur, a small beach town on the Pacific coast near the Costa Rica border. It is a tourist town so there are many travelers from all over the world here. We have been taking Spanish lessons everyday, hence the reason for no postings until now. We have school each morning for 4 hours then activities each afternoon. We are staying with a local family that is just wonderful and very helpful with our Spanish. They [View Full Entry]

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We enjoyed our trip to Nicaragua so much last year that we are preparing to leave Colorado once again for the warmer climate of Nicaragua. Our departure date, January 3rd, won't get here soon enough. We will spend 72 days in Nicaragua touring the country on the public buses, ferries and taxis. Our first two weeks will be at a Spanish school in San Juan del Sur. Hopefully, that will help us learn some of the local dialect to help us on our journey. We have been listening to a CD Spanish course, however, when we speak with Spanish speaking people, [View Full Entry]

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Sadly, this is most likely my last posting until we return home. The month has gone by so quickly. We are not looking forward to the winter weather. We saw a report on CNN on the recent storms and thought about extending our stay another month. Then, of course, our sensible side took over and decided that we needed to come home and get back to work. Darn-it, sometimes I hate that sensible side. Let´s see, last time I posted to this site we were in Bluefields, preparing for our flight to Corn Island. I am happy to report that the [View Full Entry]

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We made it over to the Atlantic Coast on Monday, Jan. 3rd. We got up early in Rivas, caught a bus to Managua and then a plane to Bluefields. It is maybe 250-300 miles from Managua to Bluefields but to get here by land would take about a week. You would drive part way on a really bad road, then you would take a boat on a river the rest of the way. By plane it took an hour. They dropped us off then the plane took off for Corn Island, a tropical paradise off the coast. We will visit the [View Full Entry]

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Hey all: We made it off the island yesterday, after five beautiful days. We could have spent another week exploring the island, hiking more trails and such. We decided to travel on New Years Day which is a holiday here as well, so the buses on the island were not running. We hitch-hiked some walked a bunch and finally caught a taxi to the port od Moyogalpa. In hind sight a hike to the San Ramon waterfalls might have been a better way to spend the day. While in Moyogalpa waiting for our ferry, which luckily was running and, because of [View Full Entry]

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It is New Years Eve and I just found the first internet connection in awhile. We are on the island of Ometepe, in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. It is a beautiful place with beautiful people. The ride over was not so much fun though. The lake is huge so the waves are like that of an ocean. The boat that transported us was very old and dilapidated by US standards and it appeared to be overloaded with people and cargo to me, standing room only, thank goodness we got a seat. Many people got sick on the hour long ride, [View Full Entry]

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Hello All: ¡Feliz Navidad! We moved from Granada onto Laguna de Apoyo on Tuesday and darn the luck, we had reserved a standard room at the Norome Resort but when we got there the room we reserved was not available, so they upgraded us to a beautiful villa for the same price as a standard. So we got the $200 place for $65. The Narome Resort is a world class resort located on the water. The Laguna is one of the only bodies of water withing Nica that is not contaminated. It is a crater lake fed by natural springs. The [View Full Entry]

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Hello all: I tried to post a few days ago and must have done something wrong because I am not able to find the journal. So I will try again. We have been in Nicaragua for a week now. We flew into Managua and we could not believe all the people at the airport. We were relieved to find Oscar, the host of the guest house we were to stay at holding a sign saying "Kathy Briggs". He loaded us and our packs into his tiny Daiwoo car and off we went. Wow, driving in Managua is crazy. Sure am glad [View Full Entry]

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Molly you are our test pilot. Let me know how this works for you. Send me a message. Love Mom xxoo [View Full Entry]

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We are busy trying to figure out what to pack as we will be living out of our backpacks for a month. It will be interesting to see what we take that we won't need and, of course, what we will forget. At least it will be warm where we are going so we won't need all the bulky clothing we wear this time of year in Colorado. We leave Denver on Monday, December 13th. Fly to Houston then on to Managua. We will arrive at about 7:30 pm. From there we hope to have a vehicle waiting to take us [View Full Entry]

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