1/14/14- Managua

We started off the day with our last breakfast in Nicaragua at Casa San Juan. It was a bitter breakfast as we knew we would soon be saying good bye to fresh Nicaraguan coffee and guava jam spread toast.

From there we went to Nitlapan to finish up our project and finally deliver our proposal to the organization. Everyone worked effortlessly to finish up their detailed wire frames and we had one last meeting with Maria to finalize everything and walk her through our database proposal. We were excited about finishing the project and Maria and the staff at Nitlapan were very satisfied and thanked us tremendously for all of the work and help we provided. We took a group picture with Maria and John, Soly, Cameron, and Gary bought themselves long-desired Nitalpan hats as souvenirs that served as a symbol of our graduation  and hard work from Nitlapan.

 

After wrapping up the project,  we met up with Cynthia and Christian to go touring around Managua. We drove up to the Parque Histórico Nacional Loma de Tiscapa which was a high altitude area overlooking the Tiscapa Lagoon and the entire beautiful horizon of Managua. 

To make things even better, we stumbled upon a zip lining canopy tour across the lagoon. It wasn't a part of our plans but we couldn't resist testing our fears and taking advantage of this once in a life time experience. There was a several of us interested in the zip lining tour so we got ourselves suited up and took off flying across the lagoon. Some of were brave enough to go down upside down and super-man style with the help of the enthusiastic instructor. 

 

After zip lining, we boarded the bus again. Our next stop was a pier on Lake Managua. While at the pier, our group walked on the sidewalk along the water. We spent a little time sitting on benches by the water. The pier had numerous restaurants and bars. We learned from Cynthia that the pier was a very popular hang out spot at night. We stopped in one restaurant for drinks.

Soon after, we got back on the bus. On our drive back to the hotel, the bus took us there some of the lower income neighborhoods in Managua. The names of the neighborhoods we drove through Monsenor Lezcano, Barrio Santana, Linda Vista, and Las Brisas. These neighborhoods were packed with houses that were built right next to one another. On the streets, there were vast amounts of people standing around, including young kids. It was eye opening to see how the residents of these neighborhoods lived. After driving through, we made our way back to Hotel Casa San Juan.