After an extremely early wake up, the group inhaled another scrumptious breakfast featuring our favorite assortment of fresh juices and delicious coffee, we boarded the bus heading Northwest from Managua to Leon. While some took the opportunity to catch up on the precious hours of sleep lost, others spent the three hour trek taking in the spectacular views--and spectacular they truly were. As we ventured farther and farther away from the city of Managua we were met with miles of flat farmland, roaming livestock, and amazing scenes of volcanoes littering the outer landscapes.
Finally, we had reached Leon! With little time to spare we quickly checked into the extremely friendly and colonial styled Hotel Europa, dropped our stuff off and once again boarded the bus on our way to the Volcano Cerro Negro.
It was here that we would take on the adventure of a lifetime--hiking up then boarding down the roughly 500 meter high volcano.
The exhaustive hike up was undoubtedly worth every huff, puff, and drop of salty sweat. A thrilling experience, the superb views were truly amazing and awe-inspiring.
After dusting off and shaking out the last volcanic pebbles caught in our shoes, it was time to head back to Hotel Europa for a well deserved lunch. Yet, our day surely did not end there. After lunch it was back to the bus, but this time we were headed to the beach to sit back, relax, and enjoy the beautiful Pacific Ocean.
The beach was beautiful and everyone was excited to go swimming. Even though we got there around 3 or 4 PM, it was still extremely warm and provided a nice escape from the cold that we would have been experiencing in the US.
The current was very strong and the waves were fun to play in. Some of us rented a boogie board to try our hand at catching some surf! After catching some waves we watched the sunset in the water where we each tried to jump and catch the very last glimpse of the sun tucking under the horizon line.
After drying off we welcomed by a huge menu of fresh seafood. Overall it seemed that there was a wide variety of choices including lobster (1 order consisted of 3 lobsters!), fish shrimp and many other delicious entrees. We combined a ton of tables to make one long table where we dined all together right on the sandy shore.
At night after cleaning up from a long day of activities, Christiam taught us how to perform a dance that was very popular for people our age called the Bachata, which is a much more traditional form of dancing then we are used to (and requires a lot of skill and rhythm!). We went to club Oxygene 2 where we were able to test out our new dance moves.
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