Cloudforest Selva Negra, Highlands of Nicaragua

After a horrible bout of food poisoning for me and Charlie, (we stayed an extra night at the expensive fancy hotel in Granada, so we could throw up and have diarrhea in a "clean" toilet - TMI I know), we drove 3 hours up into the highlands to stay on a coffee farm in a cloudforest. It's pretty, run by a German couple with A-frame buildings set around a pond/lake. There are howler monkeys, all kinds of birds, cicadas, lots of geese, fish, frogs & tadpoles (the kids have already fallen into the pond trying to catch frogs). They have a great playground here that they are enjoying also.

We took a tour of the farm. They have animals & greenhouses to grow vegetables & flowers. Here's Henry's comments: "We saw pigs that were very stinky. And we saw cows, one of them were peeing. Ewww. We got to touch the cows but they kept putting their black tongues on us. And their tongues were very rough, but their nose was more slimy."

Easter Sunday in Nicaragua

We are in Granada now, Nicaragua. We flew in late last night from Belize and got a rental car, then drove here. Granada is about 30 miles from Managua, where we flew in. It’s Easter Sunday, so we will go to mass at the beautiful cathedral here in town at 5pm today but it will be in Spanish, so I’m not sure how long we can stay with our fidgety kids. Poor Henry threw up 3 times last night and Elise threw up this morning, so today is a “rest” day for us. Paul splurged and we are staying in a “4 star” hotel here (that is a relative term, it’s a nice hotel definitely, but not exactly 4 stars by western standards) for $140/night. It’s the most expensive accommodations we will have on this trip I think. But we need it, since the kids are sick. I hope Elise feels better tomorrow. Henry is ok now. I think it may have been the water, we drank from the drinking fountain in Belize’s airport before we left yesterday, that was the only water we drank from the tap the whole trip and now 2 kids are ill. So we will have to be more careful. Jacob had diarrhea twice in Belize, which we never could pinpoint what that was from, since we all ate pretty much the same food, but maybe he’s just more sensitive or something. Is this too much gross information for you? Ha-ha.

Well we had a yummy American breakfast with eggs, bacon, toast, hash browns, pancakes and fresh juices and coffee and it only cost $25 for the 6 of us. That was a pleasant surprise. Things are cheaper in Nicaragua. Granada is very pretty. Colonial buildings painted in bright colors, cobblestone streets, pedestrian squares. There are horse drawn carriages too, from the central square that we can take for $20/hour. We will have to find a guy that speaks English though, they all approached us in Spanish and we were hoping for a guided tour during our hour as we went around the city. If Elise wakes up and feels better, we’ll do the carriage ride today.

Paul just got back from getting his Nico haircut and shave. $5 for the whole thing. When the straight razor came out for the shave he was just hoping that the lady holding it didn't have a 20 year old grudge against Americanos.

All in all we have been very pleasantly surprised that Nicaragua has been much more accessible and developed than Belize.