Casa San Francisco Granada

After a very quick flight from San Salvador, we have arrived in Nicaragua. I am so glad all the flying is over as I have a bad head cold and haven't been able to clear my ears since the AKL/LA flight and now am pretty much deaf! Our taxi driver was at the airport ready to drive us the 1 hour from Managua to Granada where we were meeting my sister Karen. We beat her there as she was staying at a town 30 minutes away. We had our first Cuba Libre of the trip. The hotel Casa San Francisco is nice...

We arrived safely in Nicaragua a few days ago and have done very little since. Perfect. We started in Granada, a beautiful colonial city near Lake Nicaragua. The first night we stayed at Casa San Francisco, a beautiful but expensive ($50-night), hotel near the Parque Central. The first day we spent walking (a lot) around Granada and enjoying the warm weather. We took a panga ($5) around the Isletas and viewed the plants and beautiful homes that inhabit the area. Our second day we went to Masa...

Today we arrived in Nicaragua! We took a 3.5 hr flight from Seattle to Atlanta, then after a 4 hour layover, a 3.5 hr flight to Managua, Nicaragua. The flights went fine and we arrived on time. The airport in Managua was smaller than i expected, one simple terminal with immigration, customs and 2 luggage reclaim belts. After grabbing our luggage, we looked up outside the glass wall of the airport and there was a large crowd of people pressed up against the glass waiting on incoming passangers...

Sunday February 16 We moved on to Granada using a nice bus with air conditioning and free juice and snacks. The border was long but not tiring, because we were able to stay on the bus most of the time. We had to get off to get our passports stamped and our bags checked. We arrived in Granada and took a taxi to Casa San Francisco a hotel we remembered from our earlier trip to Nicaragua. The parrots I liked were still there and there was also a toucan. We called him a "one-can" because there us...

Casa San Fransisco, Granada Nicaragua I did some amazing jumps into the pool - see video. The restaurants of Granada are better than many other places. There is a restaurant called El Tercer Ojo, they have the best smoked salmon and bread with shredded beats, my favourite vegetable. And there was a Panini restaurant called the Euro Cafe that had great home made gelatto. I also liked the Garden Cafe, another restaurant near our hotel that had great home made chocolate chip cookies and lemonade...

Granada, Nicaragua We stayed at Secret Beach for 2 more weeks. There wasn't any treasure on the beach after Alma, but there was a spring. It was an underground river that came up on the beach, the spring was like quicksand and the sand looked like it was boiling because of the water coming up. If you put your foot in it you would sink to the bottom where there was rocks. when I was snorkling I saw a big jellyfish, hundreds of different types of fish and a big blue pufferfish about the size of...

Shawn has joined me for the first week here in Nicaragua. We arrived safely a few days ago and have done very little since. Perfect. We started in Granada, a beautiful colonial city near Lake Nicaragua. The first night we stayed at Casa San Francisco, a beautiful but expensive ($50-night), hotel near the Parque Central. We moved to Oasis Hostel ($6 dorm bed/locker, clean and safe). The first day we spent walking (a lot) around Granada and enjoying the warm weather. We took a panga ($5) around...