Nicaragua, dia dos

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Let the adventure begin...while technically it is day two, the real adventure begins today.

I have to preface today's blog post with please do not judge me for any mistakes you may find. It has been a VERY long day (you will hear more about this in tomorrow's post), and I am pretty tired. Right now, it is 11:45 pm but I know if I do not blog, I will get behind and then will be really off.

This quaint little hotel, La Posada del Doctor, serves breakfast with your stay. It was a lovely breakfast of an egg, two slices of toast, fresh watermelon, and some wonderful fresh squeezed juice. Jesse, Paul, and I had a quiet breakfast before the days activities began and then headed to our cool rooms until the rest of the group arrived and we began a HOT day of walking and touring the downtown area of Leon. After Ronaldo arrived with the group, we walked to a very nice little coffee shop for our morning caffeine. I did not have the coffee and grew to regret that decision later in the day with a caffeine withdrawal headache.

We went to the Cathedral de Leon. It was constructed between 1747 and 1814 and was consecrated by the pope in 1860. The Cathedral has maintained the status of being the largest cathedral in Central Americas and one of the best known in the Americas due to its distinct architecture and special cultural importance. The Cathedral has a nave and four aisles, ten arched bays and two towers in the facade, flanking a central round pediment marking the position of the nave. Due to the robustness of its walls, the Cathedral has survived tremors, volcanic eruptions of the volcano Black Hill and wars. In 1824 several cannons were mounted on the roof during the siege of the city by conservative forces, and in the insurrection of June and July 1979 against dictator Anastasio. The guerrilla fighters of the Sandinista National Liberation Front also used it for military purposes. Seven tunnels start under the church and lead to the other churches in the city. Three of those tunnels are partly opened to tourists. Beneath the Cathedral, in crypts designed to survive earthquakes, the mortal remains of 27 people rest, among them 10 bishops, 5 priests, an eminent leader of the independence movement, 3 poets, a musician, 6 notables and a slave. While in this building we saw many people coming and going, praying and lighting candles. As we were in there, Jesse had a short teaching and we discussed that Religion runs deep in our souls--there is a God-shaped void in our lives that nothing else can fill. Seeing all of the icons made me realize how people are reaching for God. As we gazed at many icons, artwork, and decorations you realize just how far off Jesus is to these people. By that I mean that they do not feel that connection, that relationship, that we have with Him. Knowing that we can go directly to him, we do not have to go through anybody else just straight to him. It is very sad to me that many believe they do not have direct access but have to go through Mary or even the saints. They do not believe that Jesus is in their grasp. I saw though the love that these people have for God. It was so very evident in how they worship...so referent. After spending some time in the church, we bought tickets so we could go up top the church. The tickets were $3, and the view was worth every cent of it. You have to go up some pretty steep narrow stairwells to reach the top. The moment you step outside of the dark concrete staircase you totally are blinded by the light. I am NOT joking. It was so white, it was hard to keep my eyes open. As I spent some time up there it get easier.

As we left there we really just walked around the downtown or plaza of Leon and Jesse played tour guide. He hates it when you say that so do not tell him I said so. Jesse wanted to keep it low key because he knew most of us had not been there before, and he must have seen the looks on our faces as we were all trying to take in every ounce of what we were seeing. I am a little jealous of the rest of the group, those who are staying longer, as Jesse, Paul, Isaac, and I will be leaving on Monday night and heading back to Managua to spend the night. It is an hour and a half to two hour drive (apparently depending on who is driving), and we have a 7 am flight out. We went to El Sesteo for lunch, a great lunch. I had a plate of three different types of tacos. The tacos were very yummy, but the best thing there by far is a fresh squeezed juice they make, a-m-a-z-i-n-g! The heat by this time was approaching 100 so Jesse suggested we all go back to our respective quarters and rest/cool down before meeting up again at 5 to tour a little more after the sun goes down (here, the sun sets about 5:30ish) and having dinner as a group.

I spent my free time writing day one's blog. I feel blessed to have AC so to lay on my bed and blog was a wonderfully relaxing way to spend my siesta time. We walked around some more just taking in the local culture. Here in Leon, they seriously do not have street names anyway. Apparently, directions are given in this city by the location of your destination in relation to the churches. There are churches everywhere. Some are huge, some are just big, some are plain, some are bright, but there certainly are a LOT of them.

We walked to YaVoy for dinner and man, the jalapeño chicken was amazing. We had gathered a couple of extra people, Ronaldo and Larry. Ronaldo is driving the team in and out of town from Pedro's and Larry had met us at the airport and helped load us up, etc. Larry really speaks no English but that does not stop him from communicating with us.  Hannah and Juan speak great Spanish, Brianna can definitely communicate well in Spanish, but the rest of us, yea, not so much. Larry sat by Paul, Jesse, Hannah and I and had inquired about Paul's testimony so Paul shared. After Paul had finished, he asked about Larry's so Larry shared (via Hannah), Let me just say, I have been thrown a few 'curve balls' in my life, but it does not even begin to compare to Larry's story. He has had a hard life, but because Pedro cared enough to keep coming back to Larry, to keep bring him the good news, Larry is now saved. As we were making our way back to our hotel, Jesse said we had to have ice cream so gelato it was. A double scoop of gelato is only a buck here. I had never had gelato before and it probably was a good thing there is not any close to my hotel.

I think tonight is going to be an early night since mi espanol is muy malo so there will no television watching tonight.

Buenas noches mis amigos.