A Glimpse into my Nica Adventure

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Excerpts from last year's trip to Nicaragua.

Operation: Nicaragua, Day 1

We made it! And we are completely giddy about it! We rolled into the airport in Managua with absolutely no idea how we were going to get to San Juan del Sur. Tammy was prepared to haggle with the taxi drivers, but we settled with a shuttle bus to take us directly to SJDS, but not without first buying a celebratory bottle of wine!

Paxeos, the bus company was the Best. Idea. EVER! we met a friendly young man, Louis, who was sharing the shuttle with us and he entertained us for a good while on the drive. The ride became even better when we dropped him off and picked up the driver's family in a gas station parking lot! His wife and 16yr old daughter joined us for the happy jaunt to SJDS. The daughter became our little spanish tour guide pointing out sights and trying to communicate with us in our broken spanish. (I must admit it my spanish has been coming back much quicker than I had imagined, but not necessarily fast enough.) This is the part of the trip where I saw my very first volcano! I can't tell you how mind boggling volcanoes are. She even pointed out two of them that are currently active and was so apathetic about that fact, it was unbelievable! Either way-I have now seen numerous volcanoes! To make our drive even better our new friends stopped along the way for photo ops and even made a pit stop at el Lago de Nicaragua (the lake where the two active volcanoes reside) for one of the most beautiful sights I have EVER seen! Not to mention lava rocks, my first jaunt in Nicaraguan waters, and lots of pictures! So friendly!

Our new friends took us directly to Villas de Palermo where I am pretty sure Tammy and I don't belong. This is luxury and real people live here. It has been quite difficult to wrap our heads around. The views are amazing and the mountains and Pacific Ocean are right through our terrace! The staff is very nice but seem a bit stiff considering the people that I am sure stay/live here. We checked in and nearly died once we made it into the villa! Two floors, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, full kitchen, terrace, and veranda. Tammy promptly broke open the celebratory bottle of wine and we toasted to our new adventure.

An adventure, which started right away at 2-1 Happy Hour at the bar by the pool. Did I forget to mention the free appetizers they have? Tammy and I made a pact to drink only foreign/national alcohol so we started out with some delightfully light refreshing beer, Tona. Tammy nearly immediately started making friends with everyone around us (including our friendly bartenders who we are going to practice our spanish with). We met some (apparently) famous Canadian musicians who are here planning a large fund raising music festival. They were all very nice and offered to take us to yet another happy hour in town. Yes, Please! So we were off with our new friends to The Pelican Eyes resort which offered an even more stunning view of SJDS at sunset. Unbelievable! We met more of the gang and started off with some of the popular local Flora de Cana rum, which is as smooth as they say it is!

I should probably mention that at this moment, Tammy decided we were going to eat our way through SJDS and ordered our second plate of appetizers for the evening. After a while we sat down and put our feet in the infinity pool and enjoyed the stars from Nicaragua. Once we got up we made friends with the table behind us-a mother/daughter duo from Madison, WI! Need I even mention that they are Packer fans and we've already made plans to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday while enjoying 2-1 drinks!? What makes it an even smaller world is that the daughter (who has been traveling throughout Central America since August) has been living in NYC (link to Tammy), went to college at the U of M in Minneapolis (link to me) and knew a few of our new Canadian Friends. Creepily linked together! So we enjoyed conversation with them for quite some time when the group decided to go off to yet another bar for a jam session with some friends! Off we went!

Once we got to the bar Tammy went running down the street to the corner. I was so confused but I followed her just to discover that she had found the ocean! This was my first time in the Pacific. We were the only ones on the beach and having a blast! Once we had our fill of awe and wonderment at the fact that we are indeed in Nicaragua, we went back to the bar. Met more people, ate more appetizers, tried more local beer, and danced. I have met and seen SO MANY non-locals I am beginning to believe actual native Nicaraguans are few and far in between! After spending quite some time at bar #3, we went to yet another place-that was not so exciting for us since we were getting to be quite sleepy at this point. We attempted to find a taxi to bring us back to the Villa-but not even the locals could find us one. So we had to wait for the Canadians-which wasnt that difficult, because they were pretty much at Tammy's beck and call all night!

It was quite a full first day. I am the first one up and am writing this from the terrace where I'm listening to howler monkeys, crashing waves in the distance (this is one of the most popular surf destinations in the world), drinking a fresh cup of Nicaraguan coffee, and staring the largest spider I have ever seen in my life slowly make its way closer to my room. The perfect way to start Day 2!



Operation: Nicaragua, Day 2



It feels like we have been here a week when in reality we've barely made it past the 24 hour mark. With the sheer amount of travel and dancing we did yesterday, one would think we would have been dead today. But no-I was awake bright and early, though we had no idea what time it was because all of our clocks told us different times, good thing it really didnt matter. I Attempted to boil the tap water so we could have something to drink and found out that there is so much salt in the water that boiling it just becomes messy. For those of you who have not had this experience-take my word for it. Good life lesson learned. But without commitments or any solidified plans-it was extraordinary to be able to spend my morning puttering around the villa, unpacking my suitcase and arranging things in my giant walk in closet just so, and to jam out to some fabulous salsa music to really get the feel that I am actually here. After what seemed like ages, Tammy and I finally made it out of the house. Turns out it was only about 10:30am. What?

The staff here takes care of everything for us. It's weird and somewhat difficult to have all of our wants and needs done for us. We have both excelled at the budget travel thing and we all know that if you want to have something done-you have to do it yourself. Apparently thats not how it works here! No wonder this place is so popular. We arranged a private shuttle to town so we could go to the market for food. Mario, our tuk tuk driver (I don't know if thats what they call them here but thats what they are called in Thailand-so it works for me) hauled the two American girls to SJDS and dropped us off near the local market. Tammy and I have this ideal notion that we will engorge ourselves with fresh fruits and vegetables and that we will make dinners and completely take advantage of all this fresh produce we spend way too much money on in the states-and thats only IF we are lucky enough to be able to actually find it in the first place. Well since it was so early, we set our sights on lunch, then business. In the market there are about 5 or so different restaurants that closely resemble fast food kiosks, but somehow they manage to make everything fresh. We became buddies with our server, Olivia, and ate some incredibly delicious Jalapeno Chicken, which at one point, very nearly got the better end of me. Oh, did I mention my Melon smoothie? Tammy spent some time attempting to bargain with some women selling beach towels, but they were having none of it, so instead, we decided that it was time to visit the beach-in the daylight!

As we wandered through town we spotted a few places that we had read about and stopped in at this local coffee shop/used book store. Our first day in town and we run into some of the friends we made last night, who recognize us, and talk to us as if we've known each other for years. It was an incredibly surreal moment, but was really precious being accepted as part of a community instead of just a tourist. We recognized a large portion of town from our galavanting last night, but most importantly we rediscovered the glory of the famous horseshoe shaped SJDS playa, which is even more spectacular in the daylight. What I found to be completely unbelievable was that the beach was essentially deserted. When we got there around midday-there were only about four other groups of people enjoying the gorgeous weather. We wanted to jump in right away, but I didn't have my suit on, so somehow I managed to change into my suit in broad daylight in the middle of a beach... and not flash my goods to anyone! Apparently this is a common occurrence as we witnessed an entire family practically change into their suits right in front of us. Anyway-We understand that exercising caution when it comes to personal safety and property-but since they beach was empty, we ditched our towels and headed straight into the ocean! I always forget how much salt water burns.... We learned rather quickly why this part of the country is so popular for surfing! Those waves certainly do not look that large from the beach, but out in the water, they are massive, but fun to play in! Once we decided we were coated in enough sand and salt we started walking along the horseshoe to explore but quickly turned back due to the high winds sand blasting us so much that it was painful to even be out on the beach at longer. It was at this very moment that we decided our villa pool was the answer to all of our problems.

With our eyes on the prize, we ditched the painful exfoliation therapy session and headed straight back to the market for our fill of fruits and veggies! I am fairly certain that we confused the vendors as we walked down the line buying an insane variety of pretty much whatever they had to offer... some things we brought home we don't even know what they are! We also stocked up on water and beer-because we are efficient! Once we finished grocery shopping, we needed to find a store that would call our hotel to send the driver to pick us up. We went back to our lovely new friend Olivia's restaurant and asked for a phone. She handed us her mobile and insisted we use it. How nice! Mario came to our aid, loaded up our treasure, but before we could come home, we asked to stop at the "western" grocery store, Paxi, to compare prices and pick up some things we couldn't find at the market. Lesson learned, the grocery store is actually much cheaper! Who knew? Mario took us right up to our villa and unloaded our groceries. I can't believe that there are actually people in this world who are waited on like this. It astounds me.

After arranging our new fruits and veggies just so we dug into the papaya, the passion fruit, and the avocado. We felt like we had been out all day long but it was barely after 3pm. How does time move so slowly here. We spent some time lounging and allowing our skin to take a break from this crazy sun. Even I have a bit of pink on my nose and cheeks! ME! After lounging around the pool and being the only people tin sight, We asked at the front desk if our crazy spiders that were coming out of the vents were normal or dangerous and the maintenance guy, another new friend, Renaldo, came to check our our dilemma. No-the aranas are NOT poisonous, but they are large. And should not be coming through our vents, so he sprayed for us. Another problem solved. Our front desk friend, Carlos, also arranged and booked us a zip lining excursion for today. 17 platforms, 2+km of lines, some horseback riding, and everything beautiful. Our goal is to see a monkey and a sloth! After being bums for quite some time we got gussied up for a potential night in town... fortunately, we were beat, so we took a walk to the top of the 50 villas on property and discovered not only were they empty (so we were not intruding) but they also have the most spectacular views! Renaldo was hanging out up there since he works the night shift and walked with us some back down to our villa. We went back to the hotel bar for happy hour (those free apps get us every time) and spent a good portion of our night conversing in broken spanish with our waiter, Francisco and the bartender, Freddy. Our of all of it-we were flattered and now have a full night ahead of us dancing away with them in town! We were convinced it was late into the night since we were so wiped out, but found it it was barely past 8pm. What is this? Nica time is twice as long as time everywhere else in the world! We ran into our friendly Canadians on our walk back and we were soon cuddled up in for the night. By 9pm I was nodding off so to bed I went.

Now for today's adventures!



Operation: Nicaragua, Day 3

Ow. Ow. Ow. Please know that as I write this my entire being is in pain. It is 7:30am and it is the latest that I have slept since we arrived. My skin is a bit crispy and much more sensitive than I would like it to be. My body is broken and everything hurts. Even my eyes hurt. It hurts to breathe.

Day 3 was met with much gusto and anticipation. Tammy and I were up and puttering around the house early, got ready for our adventure, and went to the hotel restaurant for a traditional Nica breakfast. I am pretty sure the staff is entertained by us because they seem to break out into fits of laughter when they see us. Is it because we are that awesome? Or because we are those American girls? Or perhaps they suffer from spontaneous bursts of enthusiasm? Its quite difficult to say. We have been gorging on fruit so we shared a plate of huevos revueltos (scrambled eggs) served on tortillas with gallo pinto and rice. (p.s. coffee and juice are included with breakfast-what a concept!) Gallo pinto is as good as everyone says it is.

At 11 we had booked a zip line tour with Da Flying Frog canopy tour ($30). They were late, as everyone seems to be, but picked us up and whisked us away down scary back roads that could barely be classified as trails. We got all harnessed in and took another drive up to the top of the mountain that the villas share, with one of our guides riding on the hood of the car all the way up. The view! Its all about the view here and I am positive people take it for granted. It never gets old! The instructions were in spanglish and what we didnt understand we nodded our heads in agreement. How hard can it be? I had done a 3 line tour in Door County ($45) so I at least knew something to expect-there, we at least had brakes. Here-we were to use crunchy heavy duty leather gloves and pull down on the zip line. Not as easy as it sounds, and the root of most of my pain! I sent Tammy first since it was her first time and all I heard in return were screams. I think she liked it! We had 17 lines that took us a variety of distances. Some we couldnt even see the platform at the end of the line. Those were my favorite. We soared above the rain forest but didnt see any monkeys, which is one of our goals for this trip. I hear the howler monkeys every morning, but have yet to track one down in the wild! Our guides were gracious enough to offer us the opportunity to ride upside down for one of the longer lines. This is the most awkward position known to man. The guide hooks himself up to the zip line and attaches you next. Then you sit in his lap, facing him, and he grabs your legs and hoists them over his head spread eagle with the zip line in between. By this time you are now facing away from him, are upside down, and dangling over the canopy. its a rush. I was half focused on the precarious position I was in and if any bits were falling out while the other half of me was worried about my helmet/sunglasses that were slipping off. The third half of me was honing in on how unreal it felt to be upside down and flying over trees. The rush hits you once you stand back up on the next platform and realized that you just survived quite possibly, one of the most insane experiences of your life. I wonder if they ask all of their clients if they want to ride upside down, or only the cute girls?

That was pretty much the most exciting thing we did all day yesterday. After we got back we were hot and sweaty so obviously the best choice to make is to go check out the pool. We lazed around for what seemed like hours (still not used to how slowly time moves here), bronzed up a bit, relaxed in the cold water, and came home for a food break. For our mid afternoon snack we made a delightful batch of guacamole and mango salsa, but only after making fools out of ourselves by asking the bartender if we could borrow salt and pepper. We usually claim that we aren't all that hungry, and the next second we have demolished everything in sight. Doesn't matter-they were both stellar!! We made it back down to the bar for Happy Hour (who would we be if we didn't go), made plans with the friendly Canadians to meet up with them at a local bar for some live reggae music, and scheduled a taxi to take us into town. The music wasnt starting until 9:30, and by this time it was only 7, so we had some more time on our hands. We were both beat, from what we have yet to figure out, but we attempted some power recharging and made our way to town.

The night before we had made plans with Freddy and Francisco (hotel staff) to go dancing. Since we were going into town early we told Freddy to meet us at the Black Whale where we were heading to listen to James(a friend of a friend who we seem to know now) jam out some vicious tunes. This place is the most epic combination of surfer meets hippie and after a while its difficult to distinguish between the two. Tammy and I rolled in way before the party began so we grabbed a table (this place was packed and apparently open tables are often rare to find). We both tried Macuas, which have been described to us as a traditional Nica drink. Couldn't tell you what is in it, but they are delicious. It was too late for food so we grabbed some Tonas and went to dance to the music. What happened next may be the most brilliant night out at a bar that I have ever experienced. Their "dance floor/stage" isnt really either of those at all. Its a patch of what used to be their lawn that is now trampled down to a rutty, dirty, pile of dust. That being said, they have lawn chairs and hammocks lining the floor that are always filled with patrons. As we were jamming to the music we noticed that the nearest hammock was deserted so we claimed it as quickly as we could. We controlled that hammock for the rest of time there! Hammock. Beer. Live music. Gorgeous weather. And to top if off, when the band took a break, there was a fire show performed right next to us. Best seats in the house for a very entertaining show! Even the drunk performers proved that they could play with fire. It was intense! Shortly after the random fire show, Freddy showed up and we attempted to find a place to go dancing. All the usual places were closed so we resorted to staying at the Black Whale for drinks and chilling out! A word on Freddy. He is a very attractive Nico and really does have a great personality. He knows he is one of the hottest guys in town, but is very silly and nerdy around girls. He also speaks very little english, so all of our conversations have been in broken spanish. So who knows what we may or may not have told him about us!? Freddy made these plans with us and earlier in the day as he was serving us drinks by the pool (we've decided that he is now our own personal cabana boy), it was then that we noticed he dons a simple silver band on his left hand... which usually symbolizes: marriage. We had not noticed that before and became acutely aware that he was either faking his relationship or that he was going behind his girlfriend's back. Well, when asked the million dollar question, turns out our perfect Freddy does, in fact, have a long term girlfriend... and even though he wears a ring to symbolize their relationship, he apparently does not believe that they will ultimately end up together. Instead he is bored and needs something, or more appropriately, someone, to do. This was heartbreaking news! He is also completely enamored by Tammy, which doesnt seem to jeopardize his relationship in the least bit! Since he really only speaks spanish, I am the one that has to be the middle man and somewhere along the way I was able to convince him that Tammy and I are amantes secretos (lovers) and we are here for a romantic getaway. He completely fell for it and though his heart was shattered to hear the news that the woman of his dreams is with another woman, the white lie served a purpose and got the job done!

Being the old women we are, it was after midnight and we had turned into pumpkins. It was time to try to find a taxi back to the villa, but that proves to be a daunting hassle, nearly to the point where I would chose to stay in rather than try and find a (safe and cheap) ride home. Freddy called his contact, no answer. His friend called someone else, no answer. Luckily the owner of the bar has a guy he goes with so he made the called and hooked us up. Making friends with so many people has proved incredibly helpful. In all reality, it has completely transformed this entire experience. We shared a taxi home with one of the Canadians, Dave, and before we knew it we were sound asleep.

P.S. Apparently we now have a cat. She's pregnant and is desperate for some love. She hangs out on our terrace and cries for attention. We tried to give her water, but that snobby brat was too good for it! We also seem to have a gecko. Se llama, Gordito. He eats the spiders and all of the bad ants. We chose to keep him! Please, bring your friends! Just don't be in my bed when I decide to crawl into it. Thank you.



Operation: Nicaragua, Day 4

My skin is falling off. Congratulations, Katrina! You are now experiencing what most other people have to live through. Your skin is fried to a crisp, is beginning to flake off and expose a fresh new layer of skin that will soon be subjected to the same torture you have put the original layer through. This. Is. Hell. Although my body isnt as angry with me for hanging itself from a harness and flying through the air, it was a rough day.

I was slow moving all day. Though I was cursed with being awake early, I was still tired and unable to sleep. Everything hurt. My muscles from zip lining and my skin from my burn. It was the worst combination imaginable. Tammy and I took a long time to get out of the house, but our main motivation was getting more delicious eggs at the hotel restaurant. Francisco greeted us with apologies for having slept through our dancing date, but also informed us that breakfast was no longer being served. But thankfully, our favorite Canadian, Mark, was in the pool with his buddies and insisted that he buy us a Pina Colada to start our day. I must admit, it was a pretty damn good Pina Colada. Since we werent getting eggs at the hotel, we decided that we would focus all of our energy into the massive hamburgers(literally as big as your face) we discovered at the Black Whale in town. Instead of arranging a shuttle to take us in to SJDS, one of the gang offered to drive us in on his way back home. Yes, please and thank you! We invited Mark to join us for food, which he heartily agreed too, and that set the tone for the rest of our lovely, low key day! We tried to go to the Black Whale but they were closed. Damn, you! So we went down the street to a place which had the typical beach restaurant view, and great service. We had Dragon Fruit Daquiris and shared some great conversation. Mark is 47 and a construction worker and has an optimistic, wise, and contagious view on life. He is great to talk with, takes care of us (not in the creepy way) and truly values our company, which is refreshing! After sharing our meals Tammy and I decided it was time to explore the cathedral and go back to the market for more fruit! The cathedral is on the other side of town, which is important to note is probably a third of the size of Pittsville. The population claims to be 18000, but I don't actually believe those people are anywhere around SJDS, not to even mention that most of the people that we see are either tourists or expats. I digress. The city square shares a block with the cathedral (which is barely more than a tiny stucco chapel) and is full of the most eye popping colors I have seen thus far. The area is lush and green, the flowers are in bloom, and the ambiance is tranquil. If Nica time isn't slow enough already, I am convinced that time stops there. We stalked some interesting photo opportunities and headed to the market for the necessary supplies of mangos and papayas. The market is rather small-there are only a few stands and they are packed in alongside a few t-shirt donning places as well as a group of eateries which are pretty much equivalent to our version of a shopping mall food court. There are picnic tables and four or five "restaurants" with servers who are eager to catch a sale. We saw our friend, Olivia, who had been our server a few days before and went over to say hi! We exchanged some photos and she gave us her email. Then we got serious. We conquered the fruit shopping and came home with papaya, a different (and more familiar) type of mango, avocados, and star fruit! We picked up Mark and a shuttle and went off to the grocery store to buy last minute ingredients for our impromptu dinner party.

Mark is a self proclaimed good cook, so we didn't argue when he offered to cook dinner for us. It was mid afternoon when we started up the process with our first round of Bloody Caesars complete with radishes, onions, and celery. It was a fabulous experiment and was incredibly refreshing. Mark had some beans he was soaking that he donated to our evening's project. Beans with some sort of mixture of onions, peppers, baby corn, celery, star fruit (we snagged it at the market and were so anxious to cut it up that it wasnt ready), along with several other random things we found between our two houses. Not being a fan of beans I was less than excited-but they turned out to be more than just edible. They also tasted good, too! But his chicken! Now I couldn't really tell you how juicy and flavorful and perfect his chicken was. I melt at the thought nearly a day later! The crux of dinner was a failed experiment. Mark has also accumulated cocoa beans that he thought he may be able to mix up into some sort of chocolate sauce to pour of ice cream. It was a brilliant idea-had we actually known how to properly prepare raw cocoa beans. Tammy and I spent over an hour hand peeling the hard skins off of a bowl of beans. Next we crushed them up and Mark set them to a near boil in some butter. He then added honey to the mix to make it more syrup-like and then we waited. And waited. Then the cocoa beans started to burn a bit. So we rigged up a double boiler (which I learned all about from my mom watching her melt chocolate enough times for her Christmas bake-athon, thanks, by the way) and waited some more. There was a vague resemblance of something related to chocolate, but nothing really came of it. Mark later learned that our fatal error was that we needed to completely crush the beans into a powder and boil them in water. Apparently its as easy as that! Overall it was an amazing evening, and even more lovely that we found someone thousands of miles away who wanted to cook for us!

There had been a lot of hype about going out Saturday night, especially since Friday night was slightly a bust, but unfortunately I don't have much to write home about. After dinner-which was around 8pm, we collectively agreed that we needed to rest before we made any decisions, and each of us proceeded to completely pass out. End of story. Sleep.



Operation: Nicaragua, Day 5

HAPPY SUPER BOWL SUNDAY from bright and sunny Nica!

It was bound to be a good day with our beloved Packers playing in the Super Bowl. Mark has a philosophy here that I tend to agree with. When doing things as a group, the goal is to not push anybody. We are all here on holiday and there is no real schedule to stick to. Don't wake people up earlier than they want; don't push anybody to get out or leave before they are ready; etc. Well, Tammy and I both concur, however, we had one non-negotiable event on our agenda. A 5:29 Super Bowl kick off.

I was awake bright and early, per usual, so Tammy and I were out the door with pretty much zero plans for the day prior to kick off. We decided it would be beneficial to start our day off at the pool apologizing profusely to Freddy since we unintentionally blew him off last night. We had rescheduled our dancing date and instead promptly fell asleep after dinner. Oops. The first thing he said to me this morning was that I couldn't talk to him (he was joking...mostly) -so i think he is a wee bit sore that I dashed all of his romantic hopes and dreams when it comes to Tammy. Lo siento, Freddy! We did find Mark who seemed to have the same idea as us, breakfast and eggs. Also-newspaper games! A delightful combination. We relaxed for a while and I enjoyed reading by the pool, soaking up the sun since Tammy and I were responsible and attempted to stay out of the sun as much as possible yesterday.

As we were lounging around in the villa attempting to get our lives together, Dave came over and asked if we were interested in accompanying him to Playa Hermosa, which is a private beach (so you know its safe) just south of SJDS. Obviously. We loaded up and jumped into the jeep and were on another adventure!

This was our first real time on an off road-type excursion. We were told that the roads were bad, but we had no idea. The back roads do not exist. You need a 4x4 and some good shocks. No other option. This is a very important life lesson learned and all should heed my advice. The beach itself was not that far away from SJDS, and we passed the opening game of beisbol season here which was pretty exciting and PACKED! They may not have much here as a community, but you better believe they have a rocking baseball stadium AND a grass infield. We never had that in high school! Driving past the baseball field was the last stretch of "road" we would see until our return. After driving up and down numerous hills, forging through water, and climbing over the insane terrain, we finally made it to the front gate. We paid our dues and continues onward. Once we finally made it to the main area, it was absolutely gorgeous. A long sandy beach the stretched out for miles in both directions, mountains in the distance, and some of the largest waves I've ever encountered in my life. No wonder the surfers love this place. Playa Hermosa was also the setting for Survivor: Nicaragua, although I have yet to figure out what was so difficult to live through. I guess I will just have to go and watch the season while I deal with missing this phenomenal country! Small stretches of the road are fixed up a bit more than others, and the main beach area had some new accessories, which I am told were provided by the producers of Survivor. I was also informed that the crew stayed at the same villas we are in right now. I wonder who slept in my bed....? We swam, touched ocean wildlife, we lazed about in hammocks, I searched for sea shells, but the most random thing that I found at the beach, being pushed around by the waves is a tiny white marble. You better believe its coming home with me!

The only schedule that Tammy and I intended to keep was our 5:29 Super Bowl kick off. Its difficult to enforce that need with anybody who could care less about football. This is not something to mess around with. We left the beach at 3:30 with hopes of going back to the villas, getting ready, grabbing Dave and Mark, heading to the Black Whale for a hamburger as big as our heads, and off to watch the game. Unfortunately we didn't even return to the villas til 4:30, which is when we wanted to be watching pregame-instead we took the fastest showers ever, threw my Rodgers' jersey in my bag, and practically ran out the door, grabbed the guys, and bullied them into being Packer fans for the night. They still could care less. We did get to the Black Whale and to our surprise, they had the game playing! SCORE for Team International Packer Fans! We rush ordered the food and I promptly put on my jersey. I had no idea it would attract so much attention! It seemed that everyone had to make some sort of comment about it, but thats fine-I was proud to support my team! Back to the burgers. You need to understand that I am not joking when I say they are as big as your face. Tammy and I had a plan all along to share one, though the boys both attempted to eat their own. Fail. The burgers were delicious and Tammy and I devoured everything on our plate, though it took us a while to finally make it through the last of it. It was only By this time, when the National Anthem was being sung, that we realized the game was being broadcast in Spanish. Why this didn't occur to me earlier evades me, but it never once crossed my mind. I understand what I see while I am watching a game, but I cannot even explain how inconvenient it is to watch one in Spanish. That being said, I think ESPN Espanol should probably chose me as their announcer. I am way cuter, and although I need to work on my speaking skills-A LOT-I at least know what I am talking about. Anybody know who I need to speak with?

Within the first five minutes of the game, Tammy and I moved from outside to inside because the guys we were with just didnt understand the concept of watching a game instead of just being around for it, and we needed to focus. Shortly after that we realized we were the only people making noise in the entire bar and knew immediately we needed to go to a place where we were around fellow fans-or at least a bar where we could make noise and not hear it echo throughout the room. So during the next commercial break we jumped around the corner to Big Wave Daves. Once again, not many people actually understand the importance of haulin a$$. The entire point is to leave and get there by the time it starts again. It was LITERALLY just around the corner, and I was booking it. The fact that I misses about 10 seconds of playing time was made up for by finding our friendly fellow Wisconsinites already there. Connie and Julie (who we met on the first night) suffered from the same fate we did-they started out in a place where nobody else seemed to care, so they needed to find someone who did. Us! There was also a lovely young college boy, Matt, from North Dakota who cheered for our boys with us. There were a few other scragglers in the bar rooting for one team or another, but we took it on as our personal goal to represent the Packerbackers throughout all of Nicaragua by being the biggest, loudest, best cheerleaders we could be. Well, though it was a tense second half, we prevailed and losing my voice was not in vain. Although all that screaming did make the "interviews" I got after rather difficult. A hefty number of drunks thought it would be witty to pretend that I was Aaron Rodgers, and while we closely resemble each other, I just couldn't do him justice!

After the exhausting amount of effort we put into our day and that game, we were absolutely beat and wanted to head home and pass out! The boys were not ready to leave yet so we bravely set out to find a taxi. After a certain time in SJDS taxi's are nearly impossible to find unless you know someone who knows someone.. and we didnt see any in sight. Just about as we were going to give up and return to the boys to take us home, a car passed by and we saw our amiga, Olivia, from the market. We waved and shouted "hi". The car stopped, reversed, and we were whisked back to the villas. Olivias boyfriend spoke fabulous english and was more than delighted to meet the girls she had been talking about. Randall is Costa Rican and apparently they get two years off to come to Nica and work. We asked him how long he intended to stay since his two years are up, and he said "forever, because I have fallen in love." Olivia wins-she found her man!

Since our adrenaline was crashing at an intense rate, sleep came quickly. And we had another full day ahead of us.

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Photos

Almost there
missed Snowpocolypse by the skin of our teeth.
in Fort Lauderdale ready for our adventure

Ometepe
in el Lago de Nicaragua

Sunset
from the Villas de Palermo

Tammy & I
adventure travelers!
on our zip line tour