Frantic exploration of Nicaragua

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Nicaragua:
Ok, it’s been a really long time since I’ve updated my blog because we only had one day in between each country for the last three, which has given me no free time and lots of exhaustion. Anyway, here is Nicaragua:
The first day we went to the small city of Leon which is the stronghold of Daniel Ortega because it is very poor and has been ravaged by war and natural disasters, never fully recovering. We stayed at Big Foot Hostel on the recommendation of Seth’s sister who spent last semester in Nicaragua working at a women’s health clinic. It was 3.50 a night and had a swimming pool and a pool table. We walked around the city and saw the local market, and then came back to our hostel to hang out and party with random travelers from all over the world. The next morning we saw the biggest cathedral in Central America but I cannot for the life of me remember the name. That afternoon we climbed Cerro Negro, an active volcano, and road sleds 1500 feet to the bottom. Afterwards, we took a van to Managua where I met up with my friend Karina Delgadillo. She goes to school at UVA, but her family is from the capital of Nicaragua where she lives over the summer. We were supposed to meet up with her at a karaoke bar that night, but we were all exhausted and went home at 2 am, but Nicos don’t usually go to bars until around 4 am, which was too much for us. The next day we explored Managua and went to this amazing art museum in the old palace. A little boy made a bunch of flowers, animals, and hearts for us by weaving palm fronds. We bought him lunch and he showed us around the boardwalk of Lago Managua. Outside the restaurant, we met a man who used to be one of the heads of the Latin Kings, a prominent gang in Miami, who had been deported but desperately continued trying to get back in order to see his family. Talking to him was incredibly interesting, and it was certainly a fascinating perspective to encounter. After lunch we took a cab to Grenada on Lago Nicaragua, the biggest lake in Central America and the 10th largest in the world. We didn’t have much time to spend there but we got to see the town, which is gorgeous, and the boardwalk along the lake in a horsedrawn carriage. We returned by van with a large group of friends, stopping to see an enormous volcano and took lots of awesome pictures. We also stopped in Masaya and went to the biggest artisan market in Nicaragua. Finally, we returned to Corinto and our ship.
I saw a political slogan I liked:
ARRIBA LOS POBRES DEL MUNDO!

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