Managua and Beyond...

 After a 20 hour flight, we arrived in Managua, Nicaragua around 2:00am. We stood in a long line at customs, just happy to finally be there. I made it to the counter and it was easy, i just gave the agent some money he gave me a receipt and stamped my passport.  We grabbed our bags from baggage claim, and headed to the exit. On the way out of the airport, there was a local man standing there with a card board sign that read "Patrick Sweeny". Hmmm.. This must have been our ride. We followed him to an old beat up taxi, he spoke almost no english and we spoke almost no spanish, so we exchanged names and a few mucho gusto's and we were off. The driver sped away from the airport, hauling ass through red lights and flying around corners without a blink of his eye. I quickly buckled my seatbelt and hoped for the best. After a small tour of Managua, we finally reached our hotel.

When we stopped, i looked around and saw our hotel, Hotel Los Felipe. Felipe was an older hotel with bars and gates that covered the front of the property, at this point i was wondering what kind of neighborhood we were actually in. The cab driver whistled and a very tired looking man approached us from out of the shadows. We told him in our crappy spanish that we had a reservation, he said something that neither of us understood, gave us our key, and showed us to our room.

The room was small with two beds, a fan, and a TV. To see a bed was a sight for sore eyes, so i quickly laid out my sleeping bag liner and crashed. 

I awoke in the morning to the first beams of light shining through our rooms window, warming our room and turning it swampy within minutes.. I looked over at Pat, " Morning Dude" I said with a groggy voice.. " Top of the morning to ya" Pat said as he did just about every morning. With excitement filling my bones, I jumped from my bed and started to load my pack for the days adventure. We had to find money, avocado's, and beer.. Priorities...I know.. So we headed out with the first cab driver we saw as we left our hotel. He drove us to the bank, where after a quick pat down,  had our money changed and were ready to hit the Grocery Store. Our driver dropped us at the store where we proceeded to run around, gather some produce, hot sauce, and of course alcohol. After the trip to town we headed back to the hotel to have lunch and some beers.

The woman at the counter of our hotel told us how dangerous Managua was, and told us to try not to wander away to far, as there was many sketchy areas in the city. 

So we decided to go for a short run through the city.. We left our hotel at a nice pace, dodging cars, and  cat calling locals. Sprinting away from rabid dog trying to bite us ( i just had to run faster than Pat not to get bit) At one point Patrick said " So if anyone yells anything at us or tries to approach us i think we should just say "no gracias" and smile". So for the rest of the run Patrick and I would just run by random angry, and VERY friendly people and just shout " NO GRACIAS". After a few miles of running and sight seeing we realized that we had no idea where we were. So we decided to retrace our steps and find our way back home. 

We wandered the city for what felt like hours getting close to our place, but never finding it. Finally we decided to just take a breather have a Liter of Tona and cool off. So we found a bar, the bar was covered in chain linked fence and the music was louder than hell. "this will do" I thought to myself. We sat at a table shirtless and sweaty. The woman working came over sat down a huge beer and two glasses. This was exactly what we needed to find our way home. We ended up slamming two liters of beer and much more relaxed we left and just strolled down the sidewalk with no worries in sight.

 We walked to the end of the street and saw a bunch of kids in a park playing stickball. Pat decided to ask the kids if he could take a few swings. The kids were more than happy to let him take a few cracks. After he was done he handed me the stick, I took a few swings, and let the kids get back to the game. We strolled on at a casual pace for a few more miles finally accidentally finding our hotel. 

Getting back to the hotel was great, hitting the pool, lounging, and taking another little sunset stroll around Managua. 

We scooped up some gallo pintos, and headed home for dinner. We caught Castaway on Nicaraguan  TV, and got to bed early. Tomorrow was a big day... Tomorrow was the day we found our way to the Island of Ometepe....