After a final dinner with our friends in Troncones, we woke
up early last Wednesday and loaded our 11 bags into Russell's truck to head for
the airport in Ixtapa. It was the start
of a very long 13 hour day which took us to Mexico city first where we had to
drag our two kids, two 8 foot board bags and the other 9 miscellaneous bags
from terminal 1 to terminal 2. There is
a train that easily connects the two but after lugging all of our gear to the
entrance of the train we were turned around by security guards telling us the
massive and heavy board bags we'd just drug all the way to the train were too
big to go on it. They redirected us down
to the buses that were fortunately close to the train, but not any easier to
move everything down to. Once packed onto
the bus, we drove through heavy Mexico City traffic for about 10 minutes before
arriving at terminal 2.
It was right about then I started to notice a strong
chemical odor emitting from our board bag which I quickly realized was leaking
epoxy resin from the repair kit that I had purchased off a local shaper in
Mexico before departing. The airport was
clearly no place to address this so I just let it ride. After about an hour plus of negotiating a $4
bus ride, we arrived at the Taca desk in Mexico City to check in for the Mexico
City>San Salvador>Managua portion of our journey. The kids were holding up pretty well at this
point considering Slater was well past his nap time, but dragging the bags and
managing the kids was already starting to wear on us both by 3P.
We checked in without incident and were happy to be rid of
more than half our bags for the duration of the trip checking in most of what
we had. Once on the flight to San
Salvador, the kids started to get punchy which was appropriately managed with
candy and iPad activities. Slater was
less manageable, but fortunately this part of the flight was only 2 hours. The other upside is they actually serve you
good food and drinks on the airline for FREE.
I'm not talking about them giving you a mini bottle of bourbon and a bag
of pretzels either. They rolled out a
choice of a chicken salad sandwich or ham and cheese with a nice macaroni
salad. It was topped off with a nice
pour from and actual bottle of Johnny Walker which I was in need of badly at
this point in the trip.
We arrived in Sal Salvador for our 2+ hour layover before
boarding to take the quick 55 minute flight into Managua. At this point it was about 7P and Slater was
on full on melt down. Melissa spotted a
Subway going to our gate and doubled back with Jordan for sandwiches after we
dropped what were carrying. I stayed
with Slater to watch him roll on the floor while screaming randomly about nothing
in particular for 25 minutes. It's one
of the parenting moments where you really question why the hell you choose to
travel for 13 hours straight with a 2 year old and a 5 year old.
Finally we arrived in Managua beaten down and in desperate
need of a shower. We got through customs
after being fleeced for $10 a piece which is apparently a tourism tax that we
were fully unaware of even after doing extensive research on Nicaragua. We didn't have cash so we had to hit an ATM
and then they didn't have change once we had cash so this whole Three Stooges
routine at 10P after the day we had almost caused me to completely lose it.
We got to the hotel which was actually a really nice place
we'd stayed at 3 years ago. After a
fitful night of sleep due to the Subway Sandwiches we'd ingested (I'll spare
you the details but both Melissa and I were hit with intestinal difficulty ) we
woke to have a great breakfast and prepare for the 4 hour drive south to
Hacienda Iguana where we'll spend the next 3 months. The car ride was fairly uneventful, although
we did get some great views of the countryside including several active volcano
cones. Our driver Roberto also gave us
the lay of the land and suggested several activities to consider doing with the
kids over the next 3 months.
We're settling into
Iguana meeting several families and enjoying living on a golf course that our
town home butts up to. It is a far
different environment from what we've been experiencing the last 5 months. There are only a couple small restaurants on
the property and virtually no shopping.
The beach and surf breaks (Colorado's and Panga Drops) are about a 10
minute walk from where we're at. The
first 3 days have produced sloppy, windy, unsurfable conditions which is
unusual for this time of year. We're
looking forward to making new friends and exploring this beautiful country for
the next several months!
Note, no pictures on
this blog. There weren't many taken
traveling or when we got here mainly because of the chaos of the last 5
days. Also, we are currently without
wifi which has made getting photos off the mobile devices a little
tougher. Next blog should be loaded up.
