finally in Nicaragua!

hello all! I am finally writing my first post from Nicaragua, our final destination on this whirlwind of a semester. After a 3:30 am departure time, a 10 hour ride, and 3 border crossings, we made it into the capital city of Managua, but then immediately got on another bus en route to San Juan del Sur, the beach town where we rented a house for our fall break week.

Rachel, Eric, Dylan, Charles, Laura, Georgia, Dylan's sister Andrea, and myself, made it to Rivas, an inland town just about 25 minutes from the coast, just after sunset. Unfortunately, there were no more buses to take us to San Juan, so we hopped in taxis, directing them to the only hostel we knew the name of. The taxi drivers told us they could drop us off at the foot of the hill, but couldn't drive up the dirt road due to the poor conditions from rains. When we arrived, a police truck met us at the entrance and agreed to drive us up, but unfortunately the hostel only had 2 empty beds... and there were 8 of us. The police said that they would take us into the town to another hostel, but they seemed kind of sketchy about the whole situation. When we got back in the truck, 3 of us were in the cab with the rest in the bed, and Laura thanked the policeman for their help. They looked at each other and laughed. Kind of weird. Then they dropped us off about a mile from the hostel, claiming they couldn't take us any further but then asked us to write down our names. Also weird. We were so tired and hungry that we didn't care, and just agreed to take taxis into town. We finally ended Casa Oro, a really great surfing hostel right in the heart of San Juan, and we were so pleased to find that we got free drink tickets and breakfast in the morning.

The next morning after some grocery shopping we were picked up by the property managers of our house and driven out to our absolutely beautiful beach-front home. Honestly, we did not deserve such an incredible place. It had a pool, gates that opened up to the sand of the beach, and A/C in every bedroom (a luxury we had been dearly missing). We spent the first couple days lounging, reading, sea-kayaking (cuz the house had those too!), surf lessons, and partying... of course :). On my 21st birthday which fell in the middle of the week, we went back into San Juan and took a sunset booze cruise, which was absolutely amazing! We were able to stop and swim, fish a little, and just listen to music on the water while the sun went down. We had such incredible weather the entire week, I don't know how we got so lucky. After the boat trip we went into town for a beach front dinner, where a large table of old white folks were also celebrating their friend's 50th birthday. I had had a little too much to drink (it was my 21st,  I'm allowed to!) and went up to the man whose birthday it was and told him, "don't worry! your not as old as my dad!" Oops.

Just as getting into San Juan was hard, getting out was almost harder. We called a cab for 9 am, a reliable one that our house keeper had recommended, so that we could catch the 10 am bus. They never showed, so we called kind of upset because we were going to miss the express bus. They told us that there was a giant truck stuck in the mud in the middle of the road that leads to our house, and that they wouldn't be able to get through. So we packed up all of our stuff and started walking, completing nearly two miles once we had reached our taxis. It was hot, humid, muddy with tons of puddles, and by the time we got there, I was not the happiest of people. Our cabbie was so great though and took us straight to Rivas so that we could catch the next express bus... which we also barely made. But we ended up in Managua safe and sound.

Needless to say, the entire week was exactly what we needed with tons of sleep and fun, gearing us up for the last six weeks of our semester. We've had two days of classes and moved in with our host families for the better part of the time spent here, and I can tell the time is going to fly. Rachel and I are living together in the house of Dona Marta, the sweetest little woman I've ever met who refers to us as "mi chicas." Both of our professors for our poli sci and history classes are such intelligent and strong women, and I'm really excited for learning more about Nicaragua's history.

Ciao!
Becca

pictures soon!