Michelle Adventure Continues!

Pedro: Last time we chatted, Michelle and I successfully took Granada by storm.  What was next on our Nica journey agenda?

Michelle: We stopped in Managua for a night because I was feeling a little under the weather. We bought a bunch of snacks at the supermarket and had a hotel party while I waited for antibiotics to kick in. They next day, Pete had his one-year check-up at the doctor/dentist and then we were off to Esteli (town up north by his site)!

Pedro: Yup!  With receiving my clean bill of health it was back to work.  After eating some GREAT Italian food, Wednesday I co planed with a professor and taught a class with a different professor.  How’d I do, novia?

Michelle: Great! The kids were learning about mission statements (for businesses, etc.). Pete talked about the mission statement for the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health and the Peace Corps. Then we headed to Pete’s town, Palacaguina. Right as we got off the bus, it went from sunny to pouring BUCKETS on us. We ran to a covered pavilion and waited it out, but then we had to ford massive rivers on muddy roads to get to Pete’s house.

My walk home if it rained recently

Michelle meeting my neighbor's pig

Gross

Pedro: A guy in my town and I may have laughed at Michelle expense at her unsuccessful attempts to build a bridge to cross the stream…  Anywho, mama Carmen was happy to see Michelle again.  She fed us fresh cheese, avocado and tortillas.  Then it was back to Esteli for dinner.

Michelle: We went to a steakhouse…nice food was never so cheap! The next day we went to another class on Condega (I learned about market studies) and to the post office. After one year and nearly twenty pounds of care package jerkey, we learned that it’s illegal to mail dried meats into Nicaragua. Ryan’s package had been opened, the jerkey confiscated and then rewrapped in all sorts of bright yellow, official “Illegal contents were removed from this package” forms.  Ryan is such a rebel.

Pedro: Indeed he is.  After leaving the post office, we began the marathon trek to OMETEPE ISLAND!  First an hour bus ride to Esteli, then a 2 hour ride to Managua, plus a 20 minute cab ride, add another 2 hour bus ride and 20 minute cab ride and finally finish it off with a dead sprint to the last ferry to the island!

Michelle: Peter, would you like to tell your readers how we passed all that travel time?

Pedro: All I can tell you is that it definitely didn’t involve Michelle reading romance novels aloud to me…

Michelle: Definitely not ;) The hour ride on the ferry was amazing. We were moving towards Ometepe, an island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua with two volcanoes. And we were moving away from the prettiest sunset. Also, off to the left, there was a lighting storm in distant mountains. Really cool! Well off to breakfast at our waterfront hotel and to do island- things!

We made it!!!

A couple and a couple volcanoes

Sunset on our boatride