Monday, 23 April 2012
Nicaragua: Part 3; Granada
Granada is a super crazy busy colonial style city, I loved it! Reminded me of San Francisco or Prague where the buildings are all built beside each other and they don't waste space with anything green. Add to that a lot of people, cars and horse drawn carriages (as everyone attempts to share the narrow roads) and it is a little chaotic. It was also "Semana Santa" (Easter week) which is the major holiday in Central America. Interesting sights included palm houses being woven outside all the churches, a "mardi gras style parade" complete with band carrying Jesus on the cross (not sure party music really fits the occasion but...) and a human reinactment of the crucifixion. We did a ton of fun and interesting things in Granada and met up with more friends from Nosara.
Highlights included:
1. Horse drawn carriage ride: doing the tourist thing and taking a horse drawn carriage around the central part of the city, visiting a 100 (not quite) different churches and heading down to the lake (the biggest lake in Central Americas(19th in the world) bordering the city. I gotta say riding by horse drawn carriage is the way to travel! We also switched hotels via carriage and made quite the spectacle ourselves with a surfboard and stroller piled on while the driver attempted to "parallel park" on the opposite side of the road (no easy feat let me tell you).
2. Making chocolate: Jorja, Carter and I went to a chocolate making class. We learned all about cacao beans and then we took the beans, roasted them on a fire, cracked off the shells, ground them and then added a variety of ingredients to make chocolate drinks popular with the aztecs, mayans, and finally the spanish. At this point we were all hopped up on cacoa and sugar and we moved on to making a chocolate bar. This step requires a bunch more masticating and tempering which was done for us by a few handy machines and then we got to add our own special ingredient. Mine was rum!
3. Open Air Market: We went on a wild goose chase looking for chia seeds and a cacao/nut grinder in the open air market. This was a market like you might see on the Amazing Race Tv show. A true labyrinth of impossibly tiny and very crowded streets, lanes and then I don't even know what to call them. Not easy to negotiate with a stroller and a real sweat fest I gotta tell you! I found my chia seeds but not my grinder, only a meat grinder, which unfortunately sent us in the direction of the meat stalls (I tried not to look as it was rather scary and may have turned me off meat for a lifetime!)
4. Tio Antonio: tucked into the heart of the city was this really cool little shop that is a social project (rare in these parts). They hire the hard to employ and teach them to make hammocks of all sizes. We finally bought one for our backyard, tried out the "World's Largest Hammock" and bought three "stuffy hammocks" (now hanging off the bunk beds at our house). There was also a cafe here completely staffed by the deaf and mute. You ordered by pointing to a picture in the menu and/or signing. Very cool, l-o-v-e-d everything about this visit and a definite highlight of the trip!
Well as you can see I tried to "paint a few pictures with words" as we are waiting for friends to send us a few (as you may recall our camera ran out of power. We actually tried to replace/charge our battery by having our horse drawn carriage stop at the Radio Shack but sadly it was not yet open at 830am in the morning. Huh, go figure!) Anyways, stay posted.
Monday, 16 April 2012
Nicaragua: Part 2; Rancho Santana
About a 2 hour drive from the boarder we arrived in Rancho Santana also know to us as "a little slice of heaven". Hands down nicest place we have ever stayed in anywhere (and we have been to a lot of nice places!)
Our room was a 3 bedroom, 3 bath condo with a huge deck overlooking the beach. It was beautiful!
We took that little path/bridge across the river to the restaurant and pool. We had a huge kitchen in our room but the restaurant had the best food we have ever had and the grocery store was about a 45 minute driver away...so we ate out. The food? Breakfast (pina colado french toast), lunch (homemade chicken noodle soup, gazpacho), supper (sesame crusted fish, coconut rice and steamed veggies). Yum, every meal was sooooo gooooood! We ate like kings!
We enjoyed the pool with a fountain in the middle, the "bocchie ball court" and the beaches. Jorja and I got a pedicure for $20, Terry surfed (what else!) and we met a lot of interesting people including a Nico getting rich from selling ice! We also had a tour of their big organic garden run by a Canadian (of course!) Jorja, Carter and I went horseback riding along the beach. We called our ride the "Tour of the Three Little Pigs" as we went by houses made of wood, concrete, plastic and you got it, even straw. We also saw one of the houses featured on House Hunters International (one of our favorite shows back in Canada!)
Sadly this is when our camera battery died so we are relying on others to send us photos of the rest of our trip!
Our room was a 3 bedroom, 3 bath condo with a huge deck overlooking the beach. It was beautiful!
We took that little path/bridge across the river to the restaurant and pool. We had a huge kitchen in our room but the restaurant had the best food we have ever had and the grocery store was about a 45 minute driver away...so we ate out. The food? Breakfast (pina colado french toast), lunch (homemade chicken noodle soup, gazpacho), supper (sesame crusted fish, coconut rice and steamed veggies). Yum, every meal was sooooo gooooood! We ate like kings!
We enjoyed the pool with a fountain in the middle, the "bocchie ball court" and the beaches. Jorja and I got a pedicure for $20, Terry surfed (what else!) and we met a lot of interesting people including a Nico getting rich from selling ice! We also had a tour of their big organic garden run by a Canadian (of course!) Jorja, Carter and I went horseback riding along the beach. We called our ride the "Tour of the Three Little Pigs" as we went by houses made of wood, concrete, plastic and you got it, even straw. We also saw one of the houses featured on House Hunters International (one of our favorite shows back in Canada!)
Sadly this is when our camera battery died so we are relying on others to send us photos of the rest of our trip!
Nicaragua: Part 1; Crossing the Border
We heard all the rumors and many many different stories about crossing this boarder so we were prepared for anything! And really it wasn't that bad, just long. After researching a lot of different options we decided the easiest way to get the 8 of us (we travelled with another family of 3) to our destination was to hire a drive.
So first, we drove to and parked our cars to the airport in Liberia (about a 2 hour drive), then we moved all our stuff into a van. We headed to the border (about an 1 hr and a half drive) and as we got closer we saw mucho, mucho, semis parked on the one lane Pan American highway. This made getting to the actual boarder very exciting as we used the other (wrong) lane and hoped for a break in the semis when another semi came towards us head on. We made it alive and had fun counting the hammocks hung under the semis for the driver to sleep in. Makes you wonder how long they wait!
Upon arriving at the boarder there was a rather long line so we found some "help" which included some cash and the handing over of the husbands passports to be taken to places unknown (scary!) As this child loving country will sometimes let women and children jump the cue, we came in a side door with our new "best friend" got our passports stamped and left Costa Rica. Thankfully, our hubby's passports were then returned to us also stamped and we carried on to step two.
We were able to drive a little farther but then had to empty out of our car to walk across the boarder. Yes, everyone has to "hoof it" with their stuff no matter what. So off we went with one pregnant lady, 4 kids, 2 surfboards, a stroller and some luggage to the Nicaragua passport office (about 800 meters). Here we found our driver on this side and repacked a van where we then waited probably 2 hours to get our passports stamped again. That explains the picture of our very sweaty friend Raynar who took one for the team and waited in a jam packed large cage essentially. I also got in trouble for taking a picture here so thought I better include it!
Did I mention we just happened to run into some other friends? That's Jorja with her friend "Mirabie" at the Nicaragua boarder. She was traveling with her mom and aunt. So we added them to our entourage and gave them a ride about half way as they were going directly to Granada. 11 people in our van good, thing we had air conditioning!
And just like that we were off to Rancho Santana in Nicaragua!
So first, we drove to and parked our cars to the airport in Liberia (about a 2 hour drive), then we moved all our stuff into a van. We headed to the border (about an 1 hr and a half drive) and as we got closer we saw mucho, mucho, semis parked on the one lane Pan American highway. This made getting to the actual boarder very exciting as we used the other (wrong) lane and hoped for a break in the semis when another semi came towards us head on. We made it alive and had fun counting the hammocks hung under the semis for the driver to sleep in. Makes you wonder how long they wait!
Upon arriving at the boarder there was a rather long line so we found some "help" which included some cash and the handing over of the husbands passports to be taken to places unknown (scary!) As this child loving country will sometimes let women and children jump the cue, we came in a side door with our new "best friend" got our passports stamped and left Costa Rica. Thankfully, our hubby's passports were then returned to us also stamped and we carried on to step two.
We were able to drive a little farther but then had to empty out of our car to walk across the boarder. Yes, everyone has to "hoof it" with their stuff no matter what. So off we went with one pregnant lady, 4 kids, 2 surfboards, a stroller and some luggage to the Nicaragua passport office (about 800 meters). Here we found our driver on this side and repacked a van where we then waited probably 2 hours to get our passports stamped again. That explains the picture of our very sweaty friend Raynar who took one for the team and waited in a jam packed large cage essentially. I also got in trouble for taking a picture here so thought I better include it!
Did I mention we just happened to run into some other friends? That's Jorja with her friend "Mirabie" at the Nicaragua boarder. She was traveling with her mom and aunt. So we added them to our entourage and gave them a ride about half way as they were going directly to Granada. 11 people in our van good, thing we had air conditioning!
And just like that we were off to Rancho Santana in Nicaragua!
Friday, 6 April 2012
Talent Show
The long anticipated Talent Show has come and gone. We were all stars that evening as you can tell by the pictures. Jorja and Carter performed "If you are Happy and You Know it" (Jorja was the marionetta and Carter the puppeteer in case you haven't figured that out!) Fun evening had by all until Lindsay's "diva" like behavior due to being up past her bedtime (or maybe it was the champagne) required an early exit by some of us. It was quite a show with magic, song and dance, a dog and horses making appearances. 
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