Sarah's Wedding in Nicaragua

Central America Caribbean » Nicaragua » Northern Highlands » Selva Negra
December 13th 2009

Published: December 17th 2009

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swills82

Welcome to Nicaragua!

Walt's first trip out of Honduras!

Early Saturday morning (after a late night at our school's swanky staff Christmas party), we met our hired driver and our 12 seater minibus to head out for Nicaragua.

The trip there was relatively easy (took about 5-6 hours total including travel, border, and lunch) other than the border stop. SUCH drama to get over from Honduras to Nicaragua. First we had to pay a fee to exit Honduras but were told that the stamps in our passports were really good enough to let us go. Apparently the extension that the school got for us, while working on our residency cards, is only good to stay in Honduras - NOT to travel out of it. The guy said he would grant us this passing because he knew we were going to a wedding (a lot of others had passed through the same day and day before). So then we have to pay the entrance fee to enter Nicaragua. THEN we find out our bus driver's girlfriend (that he brought along for company) was not 18 yet and didn't have proper documentation to get over. After much discussion, he apparently paid someone off to let them go. THEN we are told

Group Shot

Some of us that attended

he have to pay some silly "community fee" - $1 per person to the community. Riiiight. Any way to make an extra buck. After showing all our passports AGAIN, we were off.

This was Walter's first time out of the country, so that was kind of exciting. He used his new passport for the first time! He didn't get it stamped though, as the 4 countries of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua have the agreement of being able to travel between those countries without visas.

Once we arrived at Selva Negra, we were surrounded by beautiful nature. It is a coffee plantation that grows their own food to serve at the restaurant, uses solar panels to heat the water, and has awesome hiking trails through the forest.

We arrived at the hotel around noon, checked in, settled our things in our rooms, looked around a bit, then Sarah K, Jimmy, Libby, Walter, and I decided to go hiking in the forest. We forgot to look at a map but knew that they curved around. We probably hiked for about an hour before returning to the rooms to enjoy a couple drinks before the wedding.

The

Reception Hall

wedding was BEAUTIFUL! The church was a small chapel with greenery growing from the roof and many openings in the windows and door frames. It was dusk when Sarah pulled up in a horse drawn carriage covered in boughs and lights. It was like something right out of a fairytale! Her father walked her down the aisle and she looked gorgeous. The entire ceremony was bi-lingual. Manu's little sister gave the sweetest speech. One weird thing was the reading of the ENTIRE marriage license. Apparently this is law in Honduras. They even read out the ages and professions of the bride and groom, plus the passport numbers of the witnesses. Strange. Afterwards, Manu and Sarah rode off in their carriage.

The reception was nice. Dinner was buffet style and delicioso! Dancing of course ensued and the night passed with good friends and good conversation.

The next morning we awoke to the crazy geese outside our rooms, then enjoyed breakfast listening to the howler monkey's in the forest. We were sad to leave but had to head home. The trip home was faster, as we didn't make any stops. The border was 20 minutes instead of an hour, but