Estamos en Managua

Yo, sorry for the long drought in blogging. We´ve been in Managua since Tuesday evening, but Benjamin has kept us both entertained and busy learning about Nica, su barrio y su trabaja especialmente. There are a number of stories to tell, but being the first on, I´ll start back at where we left off.

So we arrived in DF (Mexico City, but known to Mexicans as District Federal, just like our DC), after 35 hours, changing buses twice, and watching a number of rather incredible movies (more on that later). Obviously, it felt rather incredible to get off the bus, especially since it was 3 hours shorter than expected. We gathered our things and tried to figure out what to do, walking around a bit to eventually find a panaderia and failing to find internet and completely failing to get ahold of our DF contacts. Eventually we decided that we would hop on another bus to Guatemala, since Stan had been given Central America on a Shoestring for Christmas (many thanks to the Histand family) and we could find a hostal and things to do in Guate, that weren´t as easy to figure in DF.

After finishing off the bag of pretzels that Nathaniel and Cory gave us in Goshen (thanks guys!), we spent a third consecutive night sleeping on a bus and 18 hours later got into Tapachula along la frontera with Guatemala and waited another six hours before getting a bus to Guatemala City. Crossing the border proved a bit hectic, especially for Stan as he was doing most of the interacting, being the best Spanish speaker of the group, though we made it in without too much fanfare and a relatively inexpensive entrance fee. We made it into Guatemala City around 8 or 9 in the evening, got a cab, visited a cajero (atm), and went to a hostal. I´m forgetting the name. Someone else can pick up the events from there. But before I go, movies watched on buses: White Chicks (dubbed in Spanish), Big Mama´s House, Swimming Upstream, crazy Mexican lady irritating people, Bizzare and annoying Mexican cop flick, Kiss of Death, Spanglish, 50 first dates (in part), Million Dollar Baby, Shilokah (Sean Connery western and as good as that sounds), The Ladykillers, and Transporter 2.

My top five: Spanglish, Million Dollar Baby, Transporter 2, Big Mama´s House, and White Chicks.