Best Honeymoon Ever - Nicaragua!

Things are starting to get crazy as the end of the semester is getting closer. We spent way too much time in Portland over Thanksgiving and missed a good three days of classes, during which time we did nothing to make up for what we were missing, or even try to keep up with what was happening. Now we're one week away from the end of the semester (I can't believe how fast it's gone by!) and having to scramble to get everything done in time. I guess I can't really say it's the first time this has happened, it's happened just about as much as semesters I've been in college/high school...ha.

Anyway, our last week-ish in Central America got more and more fun. We had a lot of fun in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. We skipped over the first half of the country in a charter bus straight from capital to capital, San Salvador to Managua. It was a long bus ride, luckily the central americans have some infatuation with Hugh Jackman since we watched Wolverine, Australia, and I don't remember what other film he was in that we watched on the way.

So we stayed the first night in Managua, walked around and looked at some of the sites there, (not much), went to this crazy local market with thousands of little posts with local trades and artisans.

Our second day we went to Granada, a colonial town (very touristy though) not far from the capital and quite close to Lake Nicaragua.

It was a fun town to walk around, see some of the fun stuff they do there, and there they have a lot of high adventure stuff you can do. There's a volcano climb where you can see lava at night, zip-lining through the tree tops, adventure hikes, and more. We went for the zip-lining to save time.
America was a real trooper. She hates heights (and I'm not the fondest of them either, which is weird why I'm always wanting to do this crazy stuff...), but she followed me all the way regardless of what it meant. That's why I married her I guess (among many other reasons of course...).

After we were done in Grenada we took this ferry out to Ometepe Island, in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. It's this cool island formed from two volcanoes right next to each other jutting out of the lake. The little ferry took us out there and we were able to stay a couple nights on the island. It was really nice, the first day we did absolutely nothing, we just hung out in the hammocks at the hostel we stayed at all day. Went and got some grub, Nicaraguan style, and just sort of relaxed. It started to actually feel like we were on our honeymoon for a change, ha.
That feeling didn't last long. The next day we attempted to scale one of the volcanoes. It was insane. We went in with two Danish guys that were at the hostel and got a guide to take us up. It was necessary. The climb was incredibly intense, and America just couldn't make it. I don't blame her though, it was pretty crazy and I was starting to feel dizzy by the time we turned back.
The Danes continued on up and told us later that it was many hours after that they made it to the top, while it was worth it, they assured us that it was just as well that we turned back. The guide was necessary because on our way back we got lost, and it took a good few extra hours to find our way back to the main road to hop the local run down school bus to make it back to the small group of hostels where we were staying.

As sore as we were the next day, we took the ferry back to the mainland and hopped a bus into Costa Rica.

We thought Nicaragua was pretty awesome and were sad to leave, but also excited to be moving on to another country. So far we'd been out on the honeymoon almost three weeks, if not a full three weeks. I think by this time America was looking forward to the ever approaching return of hot showers, clean floors, and cushioned cars, not me so much, but I think that is a difference I share with most rational people I know.