2Nica2Serve: Day 8 - Rest & Renew Day

Today was the team’s tourist day of Nicaragua. We started by going and seeing one of Nicaragua’s active volcanoes. We could only spend five minutes at the volcano because the sulfur was too strong and made it hard to breath. When you looked into the abyss of the volcano you could see the red hot lava. Then Konnor and Tim decided to see who was stronger and…. Konnor threw Timothy into the aforementioned abyss.

We also went to a museum that showed the living history of the volcano. One interesting fact is the natives would sacrifice their kids to the volcano god by crucifying them at the mouth. One of the exhibits had real live bats flying around the museum. The funny thing was that they were not in cages they just freely roamed the museum.

Next, we went to the market. The market was full of Nicaraguan souvenirs. Some people tried to barter with the vendors but failed with style. There were also people selling very off brand Oakley and ray ban sunglasses for three dollars. They had some really neat stuff like machetes, clay and wooden animals, key chains, hackisacks, tops, clothes, bird whistles, hammocks, dish utensils, and minion stuffed sacks. There were so many different vendors in a compacted space it was hard to tell the separate shops apart.

Last, we had the best part of our tourist day. We went to the Lagoon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This, by far brought the most joy to the day. The lunch was also very fulfilling. We had the option to buy beef, fish, or chicken, all of which was cooked to perfection.

They had a dock that sat 15-20 feet in the air. Almost all of the students jumped off of the dock. A few of the kids decided to jump off and do flips in the air; every single one of them landed on their stomachs.

The best part was the fact that we got Kalen to jump in! Everyone was cheering and encouraging him to jump in. He said “I was scared but I am so happy that I built the courage to jump in.”

The day was so much fun and it was very relaxing to just be in the culture. At the end on the way home from the lagoon, we saw the president being escorted somewhere. There were multiple police cars surrounding his car, it was very neat to see.

Trent Smith and Kaiana Sipes