San Juan del Sur, Rivas, Nicaragua
Well, today we visited a country that everybody has at least heard or read something about, and what a day we had. After breakfast our Zodiacs shuttles took us to the dock of San Juan del Sur, founded it seems by the Spaniards when they thought of the Pacific Ocean as the South Sea. On landing here we were welcomed by a local marimba band playing folkloric music and once we boarded our buses we took a short ride to the town of Rivas to visit its small museum and be welcomed by a troupe of three to four-year old kids performing some of the local Nicaraguan dances for us. After their performance we had a few minutes to exchange gifts and take a few shots before making our way to the next stop, which was the local market of Rivas. This time however we were not riding on our buses, rather using the local form of transportation, known as “pepanos” after the man who invented them, which are modified bicycles with a capacity to take as many as two people. To accommodate us all we enlisted quite a few of these, so at this point of our trip I don’t really know whom or what was the actual attraction: us exploring the town and seeing the colonial adobe style of Rivas, or the town residents staring at us in disbelief at seeing their small town taken over by a veritable procession of us foreigners on their local taxis, snapping pictures as we travel. After our visit to the local market we were back on our pepanos on our way the visit a church and then to eat some ice cream in main town square. At this point we were ready for lunch, so we boarded our buses to make our way to the ranch known as Hacienda Amayo, owned by the family of former president of Nicaragua Violeta Chamorro. At the ranch we enjoyed a delicious local lunch known as Cavallo Vallo, with an amazing view of Lake Nicaragua and the two volcanoes on the island of Ometepe. Then, once we finished lunch, we had a local baseball team of eleven and twelve year olds who not only welcomed our kids for a game but let some of the older guests join in the end. With the incredible score of 16 to 6 runs, we were losing but happy and managed to get a rematch, with soccer this time, that ended in 5 goals to 3, us winning. And just in case this wasn’t enough, we brought our visit to a close with a piñata for the fun of all.
By the end of the afternoon everybody was ready to get back to the ship for a well-earned nap.
And this was our visit to Nicaragua, that I believe to be one of the most exotic stops of our trip, because we have all read or heard something about this country but never thought we would get here. Not knowing what to expect of our visit, what we got out of it was the surprise of seeing how a country and its people, with an incredible history of revolutions, earthquakes and hurricanes, received us with open arms and kindness that no words can do justice to.
Well, today we visited a country that everybody has at least heard or read something about, and what a day we had. After breakfast our Zodiacs shuttles took us to the dock of San Juan del Sur, founded it seems by the Spaniards when they thought of the Pacific Ocean as the South Sea. On landing here we were welcomed by a local marimba band playing folkloric music and once we boarded our buses we took a short ride to the town of Rivas to visit its small museum and be welcomed by a troupe of three to four-year old kids performing some of the local Nicaraguan dances for us. After their performance we had a few minutes to exchange gifts and take a few shots before making our way to the next stop, which was the local market of Rivas. This time however we were not riding on our buses, rather using the local form of transportation, known as “pepanos” after the man who invented them, which are modified bicycles with a capacity to take as many as two people. To accommodate us all we enlisted quite a few of these, so at this point of our trip I don’t really know whom or what was the actual attraction: us exploring the town and seeing the colonial adobe style of Rivas, or the town residents staring at us in disbelief at seeing their small town taken over by a veritable procession of us foreigners on their local taxis, snapping pictures as we travel. After our visit to the local market we were back on our pepanos on our way the visit a church and then to eat some ice cream in main town square. At this point we were ready for lunch, so we boarded our buses to make our way to the ranch known as Hacienda Amayo, owned by the family of former president of Nicaragua Violeta Chamorro. At the ranch we enjoyed a delicious local lunch known as Cavallo Vallo, with an amazing view of Lake Nicaragua and the two volcanoes on the island of Ometepe. Then, once we finished lunch, we had a local baseball team of eleven and twelve year olds who not only welcomed our kids for a game but let some of the older guests join in the end. With the incredible score of 16 to 6 runs, we were losing but happy and managed to get a rematch, with soccer this time, that ended in 5 goals to 3, us winning. And just in case this wasn’t enough, we brought our visit to a close with a piñata for the fun of all.
By the end of the afternoon everybody was ready to get back to the ship for a well-earned nap.
And this was our visit to Nicaragua, that I believe to be one of the most exotic stops of our trip, because we have all read or heard something about this country but never thought we would get here. Not knowing what to expect of our visit, what we got out of it was the surprise of seeing how a country and its people, with an incredible history of revolutions, earthquakes and hurricanes, received us with open arms and kindness that no words can do justice to.
