In mid-August, our wonderful friends Mandy and Juan arrived in Managua. The long-awaited week was an absolute blast, we soaked up all of our time together, laughed a lot and traveled around beautiful Nicaragua. These two were married a year ago and decided to spend their first anniversary here with us. One highlight of this trip is that we did a lot of new things. After being in Nicaragua for a few years, the “tourist” activities can become somewhat repetitive, so we were excited to explore this amazing country just a bit more. We hope that you enjoy seeing some of the highlights of our time together.
After their arrival and missing luggage, we headed to the downtown Plaza and Malecon. We hung out by the shore and passed a rainstorm eating and drinking some of our favorite Nicaraguan specialties.
John and Mandy loved the volcanoes of Nicaragua, the fact that you can look down in an active crater, hike and swim was a definite highlight. Here John is trying to reach for a special rock, he was wayyyy too close to the edge.
John requested that we do a canopy tour. While Kevin thought it would be boring and I was not the biggest fan due to my fear of everything heights as well as the negative environmental impact, we did it and it was super fun.
We visited the Coyotepe Fortress in Masaya, which has a long history in Nicaragua in times of conflict. It has been something on my list for many years and I was glad to finally visit. Do I need to go back? Not really.
We spent some time in the beautiful colonial city of Granada. I love this photo from the La Merced Bell Tower.
We got our beach on at a couple of our favorite beaches, north of San Juan Del Sur. In July, while I was in California on a work trip, we spent a day at the beach together. Sorry Cali, but you have nothing on us!
We checked out a new beach called Guacalito de la Isla. It was quite pristine.
I love these three!
After spending time at the beaches, we headed up to the coffee country of Matagalpa.
We went to the Castillo del Cacao and stocked up on chocolate. Some of you may be receiving this for Christmas.
We hung out with our neighbors in Tierra Prometida. They met Mandy on skype awhile back and were thrilled to actually meet her in person. Even without speaking Spanish, she can still make people laugh!
We got super into games during the week. John loved playing Nicaraguan BINGO and we all got obsessed with Euchre. The Zonnefeld’s may have received a lot of free meals due to the LaBreskey’s losing several games.
Thanks to Mandy and John we did A LOT of juicing as they brought us down a new juicer. We have used it everyday since. This morning for breakfast I had a celery, cucumber, carrot and orange juice. Yum!
On their last day here, we went to Laguna de Tiscapa. We saw the famous Sandino statue up-close and looked down into the volcano lake.
There were many contrasts between the time that we spent together in Minnesota a year ago and the week we spent here in Nicaragua, but that is the charm in life, the differences and beauty found in each place.
THANK-YOU Mandy and John for taking the time to come and visit us. We are grateful for the sacrifice you made to come and hang out with us for a week. You are dear friends and we cannot wait for the day when we are all in Minnesota together living side by side.
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