GGPa and GGMa's Visit!!

My grandparents came for a visit to the lovely place we call home! It was a great time with no shortage of adventure and memorable events. 

I have the BEST grandpa! He is silly and playful but subtle about it. He carried these plastic utensil walrus props in his pocket so he could just quietly slip into character and wait for a kid to erupt with laughter!

We took the kids to a fun new park one afternoon. 

Puerto Allende in the evening is a neat experience. Usually there are tons of people out enjoying the cooler weather near the shore of the lake. Unfortunately the night we went there weren't many street food vendors out. Usually there is lots of local foods to try!

While the big kids were in school one morning we hiked at one of my favorite nature reserves. Layne is a great hiking buddy, always up for adventure and doesn't complain.

After the hike we had worked up quite an appetite! A delicious local comedor served us a wonderful lunch with grilled chicken, gallo pinto (rice and beans), homemade cheese and fried plantains. 

Over the first weekend of my grandparents' visit we made our way up north close to the border with Honduras. It's at a much higher elevation than Managua and was comfortably cool. We had booked a Somoto Canyon Adventure Tour and it was awesome!!! 

We went up Friday evening and spent the night at their cabins. In the morning they fixed a delicious Nicaraguan breakfast of rice and beans and scrambled eggs. Very unfortunately, Grandma ate something that did not agree with her and she was sick all night. In the morning she was tired and still feeling sick and dehydrated. She said she most needed sleep and reassured us that she would rest while we went out on the tour without her. We tucked her in and left her with water, electrolytes and in the care of the tour operator's family. 

The tour was really quite an adventure! We hiked down into the canyon and when we reached the river we hopped right on in and floated (with life jackets) down a way. For about an hour and a half we toggled between floating in the cool water and getting out to scramble over rocks then swim again. It was great fun! Melanie couldn't resist jumping into a deep pool from the 9 meter tall rock. Always looking for an adrenaline rush! When the river widened out a bit we piled into a row boat and were shuttled to another hiking trail to make the climb out of the canyon. Some enterprising kids were waiting for us a short distance up the trail selling horseback rides out of the canyon for the kids. MONEY WELL SPENT! **It was $6 for all of them to ride horses back to the cabin so, yeah, no brainer!

We also took the tour of the Flor de Caña rum factory. We don't drink rum but why not?! It was pretty interesting. We learned the way to tell a high quality rum is to pour a little in your palm and rub your hands together. If it leaves a residue or any stickiness behind it means it wasn't distilled fully and still carries residual sugar from the molasses it is made with. This residual sugar will cause a mighty hangover! Flor de Caña, of course, leaves no sticky residue because it is distilled 5 times! 

The oak barrels are burned on the insides with a torch. This infuses a golden brown color into the liquor and brings out the flavors of the wood. The longer it ages in the barrels the darker the color is, more flavor is brought out, alcohol content is higher and the price goes WAY up!

Leon Viejo was a must see since it's the closest thing Nicaragua has to ancient ruins. They aren't ancient (settled in 1524 by the Spanish) but they are definitely interesting!!

  

One of our last and greatest adventures together was hiking Mombacho! My awesome grandma is a daredevil and wanted to go the rainforest zip line so of course we did! Layne fell asleep on the way and grandpa was happy to stay on solid ground and doze in the car with him.

The guides on the zip line had the whole tour choreographed, they even had me hand over my camera and they got great video and photos. It was fun and they definitely pushed the limits of our adventure! You'll see from the photos!

The hike around the dormant crater of Volcán Mombacho is one of the most beautiful places! Part of the trail is lush rainforest and the other part is a rare ecosystem called "cloud forest." A cloud forest is formed when the moisture from a rainforest evaporates and forms a permanent cloud. The cloud rains and recycles the same moisture into the forest again.

At the end of our hike we had the MOST EXCITING ENCOUNTER!!!!! We came upon a mother sloth with her baby! The incredible thing was that they were awake and moving through the trees! It was so awesome! Sloths rare to find and even more rare to find awake and moving.

It was a fun couple of weeks visiting with my grandparents and the kids loved connecting again with their GGPa and GGMa! Thank you for coming!