Christensen Family

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Nicaragua and Costa Rica Trip Day 3

Wednesday we went to the museum San Francisco in Granada. Granada is the colonial capital of Nicaragua and is one of the oldest cities in Central America. It is a beautiful city with tons of Spanish influence. Then we climbed a tower that had a view of the whole city of Granada. We went to lunch at Kathy's waffle house. We drove up to lake Apoyo. On the way to lake Apoyo, we got lost so Kirt stopped to ask some people how we got there. A random Nicaraguan man told us he would ride with us and show us the way, so Kirt told him to hop in. He went up with us to the lake and then back again. We were trying to find a lookout to the lake, but we couldn't get there without 4 wheel drive. We almost got stuck in the mud so we decided to turn around and just go to the lake.

This is supposedly a game that the indigenous people in Garanda used to play. Doesn't look fun to me.

Traditional house of the indigenous people.

Statues that the Spanish found when on some of the islands when they first came to Granada.

Painting of the Nativity Nicaraguan style.

Outside of the San Francisco museum.

View from a tower in Granada

Different direction from the tower

Windey staircase up to the tower with a view.

Swimming in Lake Nicaragua. It is the warmest body of water I have ever swam in. It had to be 80-85 degrees.

Drinks at lake Apoyo.

Playing with the parakeet.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Nicaragua and Costa Rica Trip Day 2

Today we swam in beautiful pool at our hotel. Then we checked out and went to our rental house. We went on a boat tour of the isletas of lake Nicaragua, had lunch and then went grocery shopping. Grocery shopping in Nicaragua leaves much to be desired. We are so spoiled.

Balcony at our hotel Plaza Colon.

Beautiful view at the hotel

Night view of hotel

Boat tour of the Isletas in Lake Nicaragua. The volcano eruptions have created lots of little islands in lake Nicaragua.

One of the little islands has 4 monkeys living on it. They can't get off the island because monkeys can't swim.

Church in the central plaza in Granada.

Inside the church.

Garret striking a pose.

Inside our house. The middle part of our house had a courtyard with palm trees and a small swimming pool. It was weird to have open space right in the middle of our house. When it rained, it was raining in our house.

The outside of our house and our lovely car. When Kirt and I went on our cruise in January we had a stop in Limon Costa Rica. We met a tour guide company owner named JJ. Kirt has been in contact with him since we left and had arranged to rent a 12 passenger van from him. He was supposed to meet us at our rental house on Tuesday morning. Unfortunately he wrecked his van 2 weeks before we were to go on our trip. He had arranged to borrow a van from a friend. He was at the Nicaraguan border Tuesday morning at 4am with this borrowed van, but they would not let him across the border because the van did not have the proper paperwork. So he arranged for us to rent this wonderful van that screams "tourist" while we are in Nicaragua. He is supposed to meet us at the border with the borrowed van next Monday when we go to Costa Rica.

Being serenaded at the restaurant that we went to lunch.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Nicaragua and Costa Rica Trip Day 1

And we're off on our month long adventure to Nicaragua and Costa Rica. We left early this morning. We flew through Minneapolis and Atlanta. We got to sit on the runway for 2 hours in Atlanta, but other than that our flights were uneventful. Luckily that was the last leg, or we would have missed one of our connections because we had short layovers. When we got to Nicaragua, we had to take a shuttle ride to Granada. When we got there, we were unable to get a hold of the management company that we were renting our house from, so we had to stay in a hotel that night. Considering everything that could have gone wrong, it was a fairly good 1st day.