Blogs from Las Penitas, Leon, Northern Pacific Coast, Nicaragua, Central America Caribbean

Our Arrival We took a taxi from Leon C$75 each which dropped us at the hostel. Where We Stayed Bigfoot Beach Hostel - $24 for a double room with shared bathroom with one other room. Right on the beach and we were the only people there. There is a free shuttle from the Bigfoot Hostel in Leon at about 3pm so it gets busy in the evening during the sunset. There is a fairly pricey menu and bar. What We Did Enjoyed the beach and the waves. Watched the sunset. Where We Ate At the other end of the beach to the Bigfoot hostel, near the bus stop, are a collection of cheaper bars/restaurants. Where We Went Next We went back to Leon. You can catch the bus from anywhere along the road (bus times are ... read more

First Volunteer Work - The Shed - Jeff While volunteering at Surfing Turtle, I was tasked to build a shed with Yairo, a local staff member of the hotel. I didn’t think much of it but it ended up being a great experience. We needed to build the shed to replace an old shed that as blown over in a storm during the off season. They use it to store the trash cans, tools, and horse equipment. Our first task was to break down the remains of the first shed and salvage any materials that could be reused. During that time, I was asked to clear out an area for our new building site. Yairo handed me his machete, gave me a 10 second crash course on how to use it, and had me go to ... read more

Well I wanted beach, hot, sun and all alone. Ask and you shall receive. I can't describe how beautiful this country is so far. Landed in Managua the capital city. Nicaragua is the safest country in central America. However they say the roads are dangerous. Yes I can see why, not because of speed and congestion like I thought. It was slow driving, dogs, bikes, cows, horse drawn wagons with loads of all sorts of thing, trucks with people piled up on top, and even horses roaming randomly about. I can't believe all the horses roaming everywhere like they belong to no one. So strange. Eden's mouth would drop open. Saw Mombotombo from the air as we came in as well as on the way to Poneloya, however you can't really not see it. It's huge ... read more

1/20/2012 & 1/21/2012 Jeff After narrowly making our connecting flight from Houston to Managua (we had to be taken by airport transportation to our gate and were the last to board the plane) we were finally bound for Nicaragua. We landed and got through immigration without a hitch; we hopped in a cab to take us to the bus station. The look on Erin's face was priceless as we drove through the capital city for about 20 minutes. It was obvious we were not in Kansas anymore. We both smiled and held it together for the cab ride until we arrived at our "bus station" which was nothing more than a back alley garage with a lemonade stand sized ticket counter. We were the only two nonlocal passengers crammed inside a microbus with 15 or 16 ... read more