Nicaragua is Full of Surprises

We couldn't talk about this trip in advance because it was a secret.  We were going to Nicaragua to help Jenny celebrate her birthday.  Jenny is our daughter in law, married to our son TK.

So any blog post before we got there, or even on our way, would have spilled the beans.  As it turns out, we were able to pull it off, and Jenny was amazed, what a fun way to spring a surprise on someone. 

Only, well, okay, it's sort of a long way to go.  We had been wanting to come and visit TK and Jenny for a while and this was a perfect way to make it work.  Nicaragua in Central America is not that terribly far from the US, unlike some of the places we visit.  

They were having breakfast in a local popular cafe, and it was pre-arranged that we would meet them there.  As we walked in, Jenny was like "Oh look, there's your mom and dad TK, Wait, WHAT?" her jaw dropped and she took a moment to process.  We shouted Happy Birthday!  and she was completely astonished.  She had no idea we were coming. 



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It's now Saturday, yesterday we traveled by car to another part of Nicaragua to a town called Catarina.  It's about three hours away from where they live, and it's by a couple of large lakes.  One is actually in the crater of a volcano, Nicagagua's version of Oregon's Crater Lake.  I wrote about this in a previous blog post when we were here earlier - click here: Oregon isn't the only place with a Crater Lake.

We are staying in a house on the rim above the lake, and from here you can see the second lake in the near distance.  This second lake, called Lake Nicaragua is much larger, probably fifty miles long and almost as wide.  In fact, it's the biggest in Central America, so big that there are two huge volcanoes rising up out of the middle of it.  This whole darn country is full of volcanoes, many are quite spectacular. 

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We went out for dinner last night, to celebrate Jenny's birthday, but were challenged to find a nice place.  We ended up on a big plaza in the middle of town that was filled with a very lively crowd.  There was a concert going on (super noisy) and a parade of futbol supporters (very noisy) and a bunch of music and cars driving by (very noisy).  All in all, it was ... very noisy, but quite energetic. Seems like everyone in town heads out to the plaza on Friday night for some fun. 

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The place we're staying in is a grand old house on the rim of the lake, with spacious spanish style interior and beautiful lush grounds.  This is the kind of climate and landscape where anything can and will grow, competing with fellow plants for room to grow.