Matagalpa

We are now in Matagalpa. We had a slight change of plans this morning. I had wanted to spend a couple of days in Jinotega which is known as the city of mists which sounded kind of cool but when we got to the bus station, they told us that it would be 4 hours before that bus left but there are a lot of buses to Matagalpa. I didnt feel like waiting around so we hopped on the bus for Matagalpa and here we are.

So far, the town is pretty unimpressive but we are extremely happy with the amenities so far. We arrived in town hungry so we quickly found a hotel so that we could move on to lunch. Our hotel room at Hotel Central is really nice. For 300 cordobas a night ($14.13 US) we have cable TV, a warm water shower, 2 fans and a nice big comfy bed. The girl at the hotel recommended a restaurant so we went to check it out. It was absolutely the busiest restaurant that we have been to in Central America and the first buffet. We loaded up our plates and lucked out in finding an empty table to eat at. The food was great and cheap!

We will stick around here and take a week of Spanish school. The school is closed until Monday so we havent checked it out yet but it is affiliated with the Matagalpa tour company so hopefully they can help us out with some excursions around the area also.

It looks like internet will be a challenge here. We had final confirmation today the the internet stick will not work. We did find this nice coffee shop right next to our hotel and it has wifi. Look at our beautiful coffee drinks. Even though we have been down here in coffee land for months, it is actually pretty hard to find a good cup of coffee. I plan on coming here every day for a good coffee and some internet so we will be keeping in touch.

For those of you who follow our spot locations...I'm so sorry. We have tried to do a couple of spots but have been having a difficult time. Its been very overcast and it doesnt seem to get a signal with the cloud cover.

So until now, the weather in Central America, much like the rest of the world, has been really screwy. Apparently, though, May is the start of the rainy season here in Nicaragua and it has arrived right on schedule. It has been raining all day. No harm done, though. We wont melt and with cable TV we were able to get some nice TV time in while it poured outside. Hopefully, once we start our classes, the rain will only come in the mornings so that we can go out and do things in the afternoon. Otherwise, I guess we will be able to focus on our studies.

Down here the seasons are different. There are only 2 seasons, the rainy season which they call winter, and the dry season which they call summer. So as you guys are all settling into summer, we are starting winter here.

Thats all I can think of for now. More later.