Mike, Shane, and I arrived in Managua late last night. We bartered for a taxi (well, Shane did, as neither I nor Mike speak Spanish), and got to the hostel. After not being sure if they´d let us in or not, we settled down to bed in not-so-comfy ones.
We slept despite the heat, and woke up early. We each took a long deserved, freezing cold shower and headed into the city. Turns out, there´s not as much to do as we thought, and everything is rather spread out (because of the heat and distance between everything, we´ve taken taxis everywhere). We ended up, at the first place we went to, in the middle of a celebration of the birth of some famous guy who helped in the Revolution. TV cameras, school kids, smoke and guns, flower ceremonies, the works! It was crazy. And, of course, we were the only Gringos there--so much so that I saw someone taking pictures of us instead of the crazy ceremony! That would happen to me; there were also some cute little kids begging, who apparently had never seen sunscreen before, for as I was lathering myself with it (and lecturing Shane and Mike to do the same), the two girls couldn´t figure out what on earth we were doing! They had to ask us to explain it to them!
It just goes to show how the heat and the sun, while immense to us, is an every day thing here. People are wearing jeans and pants like it´s normal, and the 3 of us are sweating through and through! I do, though, see a ton of people sitting or lying outside their houses along the street. Driving and taking taxis everywhere has really shown a lot of the city and allowed us to see how so many people live.
We went to a museum and for just $2 each, we got admission and a private tour! Then we went to a mall to get air conditioning and McDonald´s, toured some more, saw great sights of the city and the lagoon, went to a market, and now we´re resting at the hostel and figuring out the logistics of a day trip we want to take tomorrow before heading out for dinner and drinks tonight.
The city is great! Everyone has been really nice, despite all the staring at us strange white people. Everything is so colorful, with more colors than I´ve ever seen anywhere. The poverty, however, is obvious. Currogated metal makes up most of the buildings, garbage piles are on every corner, the people look dirty and hungry, and there are lots of beggars.
It has already been a cool experience! I can´t wait for the rest of our adventure. We´ve done so much in only a few hours!
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