Jess and Stacey’s Travels

Mark and Jeana’s visit-click on photo for more pictures

Jeana and Mark returned to the states on Sunday after 10 days in Nicaragua.  We really, really enjoyed having them here and hopefully they had fun too.  Thank you to everyone who sent little care packages with them.  The corn nuts and cookies went quickly – partly to satisfy Mark’s insatiable appetite and partly to sustain us on our trip to the Corn Islands.  Sadly, the home-made jam got confiscated despite Jeana’s kung-fu efforts with homeland security. 
Fortunately for their visit, the rains had stopped the week before they got here.  Prior to that, we had had about one month of straight rain. 

Their first few days were spent in and around Granada.  While we wanted Jeana and Mark to stay with us in our rented house, the rooms were too stuffy.  They stayed at Casa Chandler, which they both said they would recommend, particularly the rooms inside the house near the pool.   

The second day, Stacey careened around potholes with everyone in a rental car to visit neighboring villages of Granada where we bought ceramics and hammocks.  The following day, Jeana and Mark soaked up more sun zip lining and hiking around Volcano Mombacho while Jess and Stacey worked on arranging the trip to the Corn Islands, on the Caribbean side of Nicaragua.

Zip lining at Mombacho-click on photo for more pictures

Monday, we all went to Managua and flew to Big Corn Island and then took a harrowing boat ride to Little Corn Island.  We met two other couples that we ended up playing cards with that night.  On Little Corn, we lazed around in hammocks overlooking the sea, Jeana obsessing over crossword puzzles and everyone else reading their books.  We only went diving a few times because the visibility was so poor due to bad storms that had hit that week.  We did see 5 sharks on one dive.  Surprisingly, Stacey did not freak out.  We used the Dolphin Dive Shop, although Little Corn Dive Shop seems to have higher standards as a PADI 5 star shop.   We played alot of hearts (missing Dan and Sara).  And Mark fished with a local resident, catching at least one big, ugly barracuda.

Card Shark and a Barracuda-click on photo for more pictures

After 3 days on Little Corn, we took another harrowing boat ride in the rain amongst big swells back to Big Corn Island.  We flew back to Managua and returned to Granada.  Jeana and Mark needed more adventure and left for Ometepe for two days of hiking, waterfalls, and crosswords; while Stacey and Jess napped in Granada. 

In 10 days, Jeana and Mark saw as much as you probably could squeeze in for that amount of time.  Mark discovered a love of Toña and pollo empanadas without pollo, while Jeana perfected her impressions of street vendors – Quesiiiillooos! 

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 12:57 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.