The vagabond adventures: leg one

For whatever we lose (like a you and a me). It is always ourselves that we find in the sea. - EE Cummings

We have no classes this week, so we are traveling all over Central America.
We took an executive bus to Rivas, Nicaragua. The bus played a movie (although it was cut minutes from the end) and wifi. When we passed through the boarder, they were checking bags and we were at the end of the line. They got to us and said "we are done, you are fine." Haha. It took them about an hour and a half to do the paperwork for the whole bus. My group entertained the ticas and nicas as we sung, danced, and had Christie give us Spanish lessons.
Our first leg took us to San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. We arrived in Rivas, Nicaragua and found a hostel for the night. We had an adventure getting to the atm and dinner. Surprise my card was rejected, meaning I was without money until Monday. Thankfully I have amazing friends who covered me until my dad could call the bank again. The next morning we ate pastries at a shop and strolled around a huge church.

Nicaraguan money, fun fact: it's waterproof

From Rivas, all 6 of us piled into a taxi and jammed out to the man's cd of Snoop Dog, Eminem, etc. It was an interesting ride with us quite on top of each other and at one point we had to get out of the car so it could make it up a very steep hill. All part of the adventure! We stopped by two very interesting hostels, one beautiful but full, the other just interesting and full, before we found our wonderful $8 views of the beach, breakfast included hostel.

Beach view from our hostel balcony

San Juan del Sur is a beautiful calm beach town. The ocean harbor is gorgeous and the city is watched over by a giant statue of Jesus up on the mountain. It reads Jesus en ti confio. How beautiful! We hiked up to the statue and it was miles of almost vertical roads. Our thighs were burning, but the views were incredibly worth it. The rest of the night was spent at an awesome cheap restaurant, swimming, and sleeping (after the girls had some Jesus time).

It was a really steep climb

Jesus

Me and the ocean from Jesus

 San Juan del Sur from Jesus

 The gang

Group love

 Sunset

 Beach moon

At dusk on the beach

Today we are our great breakfast and found a snorkeling tour. It was so awesome. We piled into a boat and drove out to a beach an hour away. We swam, snorkeled, fished (two people caught fish!) and enjoyed the ocean. We'll all be burnt tomorrow but it was worth it.

Now, we are making out way to Granada, Nicaragua for leg 2 of our journey. A market as big as a football field and more beaches await. Let the journey continue!