Hotel Plaza Colon Granada

... the knots however got pummeled by rough hands &amp; my hair severely mussed - not good!<br><br>Before the ferry ride, fortified myself with the local speciality - vigoron - mashed yucca topped with cabbage salad &amp; chicharron.<br><br>Forked out an extra 28 cordobas for the Granda to Altagracia ferry because my bags weighed <br>weighed more than 45lbs - they don't explain but only allowed free one bag less than 45lbs - no handbags, daypacks, etc NADA!<br><br><br><br>

... is that nobody approaches you about anything. They assume the guy´s in charge of all important buying and traveling decisions. Thus, they ignore me and hound Ted. It´s awesome. I just sit back and laugh and watch him struggle to say no, being the complacent wife I am. After a Belgian tourist got roped into the tour, the man came back and said we could go on it for $6, as opposed to his original offer of $20. Seeing as we really had nothing to do, and it was a ...

... station $5US (rip off), then a minibus to a halfway point in the middle of nowhere that was apparently close to it $3US (while being absolutely squished into the seat by other passengers), then we had to stop a passing taxi to take us all the way to the lake, we managed to get him down to $25US which still seemed like loads but he kept complaining it was difficult drive down there and still a few kilometers away. He dropped us quite a few meters from the Laguna and ...

... me goosebumps and there were some screams when the ending came out. Ew. <br><br>After all our horror story swapping we decided it was time to hit the town. Unfortunately the usual group thing occurred and we all faffed around for way too long before actually heading out, thus leaving us with very limited options on places that were 1) open and 2) were not charging exhorbitant entrance fees. This left us with Cafe Nuit, a bar around the corner from our hostel that ...

... dirt tracks are what suffice here, so you can only imagine the comfort in the back of a pick up truck, bumping along for the best part of an hour. We checked into our place, fed ourselves and the boys arranged a guide for the next day´s hike. Apparently you can´t climb Conception unaided. Our guide brought us to the shop for supplies for the next day and warned us that he´d be waiting at five downstairs. Five!!!!! <br><br>It was still dark when the ...

... more tactile activities such as making<br>our own healthy refreshments that were rich in the nutrients we had<br>discussed during the workshop.<br> We also wrote a letter to the<br>municipal office of the Ministry of Health in Tola to request visits<br>from Ob/Gyns to give consults to the pregnant women in the community at<br>least once every two months. Without this service, most women go<br>without sonograms and other &#8220;standard&#8221; prenatal care ...

... restaurant which claimed to be Chinese (with all due respect, I would beg to differ).. but I was still suffering from jet lag - our program director tried to creep on me to take a picture of me in my state of drowsiness (I'm sure Eliseo, Cynthia and Claire egged her on).. oh man. but it's okay.. she didn't succeed. no embarrassing pictures as of yet - tomorrow we get to meet our host families!! excitingg<br><br>

... corner. I do not think we have paid more than $1 for dinner since we have been here! Anyways, back to Leon. It was great to get back to staying in a proper hostel with a kitchen, a few showers, TV, pool table and bar again! Was a really pleasant city, with great outdoor street style restaurants. We spent 3nights there just relaxing, getting used to being in a ´place with traffic and people again, and making the most of the food! I also decided to ...

... the next day. Eventually rocking up at 9am, he made some excuse about the lack of boats and that he would definitely have one in an hour. An hour later he said '30 mins more'... and set off for the port again. We never found out whether he kept his word on that one - we bugged out on the next bus bound for Altagracia. 'Slick Rick'. F*ck him :-)