To start this post off, it is important to know that I am not talking about the "peaceful life" when I say "vida pacífica". Although it is potentially a peaceful life as well, I am referring to the "Pacific life". Just over a week ago, a group of us students and a couple teachers decided to take a little one day vacation to a place called San Juan del Sur. It is one of the most southern town in Nicaragua and is right on the Pacific coast. It was a much needed little break from what has become a very busy stint here at Casa Xalteva. We hired a driver for the day, each put in $10.00, and he took us down at 7:00 and brought us back around 18:00. It was a small town but very beautiful. I have heard that there are many different beaches in the area, but we stayed on the main beach that is right alongside the town. It was a day of relaxing on the beach, tanning, burning, kicking the ball around, swimming, and some exploring in the town as we scavenged around for food.
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| The waves were actually quite large and we had a ton of fun attempting to body surf on them. San Juan del Sur is a surfing location...and some of the nearby beaches have much larger waves I have heard. |
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| It is almost impossible to see in this picture, but on the cliff in the distance there is a Jesus statue, somewhat similar to that of Rio de Janeiro |
A couple of the girls in the group had already been here and recommended a pizza place for lunch. It turned out to be quite the delicious choice!
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| Post pizza picture |
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| That is the little pizzeria that we went to (the orange building) |
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| On our way back to the beach |
Here are some last pictures of the beach setup, the group, and the ride home.
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| Packing up, unfortunately, and about to leave the shade of the Toña umbrella. There are 2 different beers in Nicaragua: Toña and Victoria...they basically taste exactly the same, with Toña having an additional .3% of alcohol content. So they are basically the same, exactly the same. |
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| I felt like I was on a Corona commercial. "Find your beach." |
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| Gabriela (one of the Spanish teachers, in front) and Kate (a consultant at Casa Xalteva) |
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| From left: Gerald (another teacher), Anne-Sofie, and Katrine (both from Denmark) |
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| Katrina and I were stuck in the far back of the SUV on the ride back...both sufficiently burned as you can see. |
A last little fun fact for this past couple weeks is that I found a scorpion in Casa Xalteva one evening. Not only did I found a scorpion, but the scorpion had found a cucaracha (cockroach) and was locked in epic battle with it. Not only had the scorpion found a cucaracha, but it had found the largest, most disgusting cucaracha I have seen in my life. Cecilia and I swept the 2 of them into a 5 gallon bucket and left them for Andrés (the amazingly talented all purpose employee of Casa Xalteva), who dispatched of the two of them a couple hours later.
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| It almost looks as if the cucaracha is winning at this point... |
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| ...I feel like we might have altered the workings of fate with the sweeping and transfer process, however. |
