Nicaragua!

So we took a run to the Nicaraguan border last weekend.  I was pretty nervous about the border crossing, because I've heard some crazy stories.  When we arrived at the border, we first had to find a spot to park our car because it is really difficult to take a car into Nicaragua.  You need many photocopies and many stamps and they fumigate your car too.  A friend of mine told me it took her 6 hours to cross the border with a car, plus a $50 bribe.  So, instead we parked and walked across the border.  The border is kind of a crazy disorganized place that would be really hard to navigate without lots of prior research and an understanding of at least intermediate Spanish.  There are multiple pieces of paper you need and places to show your passport.  Plus you walk about 400 meters through "no mans land" between the two countries.  However, if you have done your research, know some Spanish, and are kind and patient, the crossing (for us anyway) can be fairly smooth (although long).  After a couple of hours at the border, we grabbed a taxi and headed up to Granada.  Granada is an awesome colonial city on the shore of Lake Nicaragua.  We LOVED it.  We walked around the city the first night, and ate a super tasty dinner near the town square.

The kids loved being in a city.  They spent a lot of time in the hotel pool, and at a playground playing with the local kids.  Graham walked up to people at the park and asked if he could play soccer with them, so he didn't want to ever leave.  We also took a tour of a local volcano, and spent a lot of time just wandering around the colonial streets.

When the kids got tired of walking, we took a horse carriage ride, which was fun for the kids.  They were able to see more of Granada, and we learned about the history of the city.  Later that evening, however, they noticed that the horses were STILL working and walking people around the city.  They felt really bad for the horses then, and also noticed that some of them were really skinny.  They also noticed a lot of homeless people, which made them ask a lot of questions about why these people are homeless, and Graham wanted to give them all money.  Geoff helped him hand out oranges instead - it was a good life experience for the kids to help them understand how lucky they are and how much people can suffer.

Overall though, our experience in Granada was great and the kids decided that they like cities where there are streetlights to walk at night, lots of restaurants to chose from and parks with lots of other kids to play with.  It was also cooler than Nosara, which at this time of year was really nice.  Nicaragua was such a fun trip it had us wondering if we have chosen wisely!  It is MUCH MUCH cheaper than Costa Rica and the roads are better too!

On the shore of Lake Nicaragua

My happy daughter

Yummy pizza and greek food!!  Pizzaiol!