a day in Managua

i am so sorry for not updating more often...it's gotten tougher and tougher.......yesterday we spent a day in Managua....we dropped Tamara off at the airport around 11am and then we waited for Lauren. She was supposed to come with a group last year, but didn't get her passport in all the madness with passports last year and had to use her ticket by this week. After we found her, we did the traditional site-seeing day for her (since we had to wait til 7:30 pm to pick Cheryl up at the airport). So we headed to Granada for Monkey Island which was alot of fun! Until we got off the boat. I tried to buy cokes for everyone, until they tried to charge me 18 cordobas when it should have been 10. unfortunately 3 of the guys had already opened theirs, so i had to pay for them. Then, we get to the van and started to leave. apparently, since we didn't use the boat at the restuarant where we parked, we had to pay to park!? well, we tried to ignore it, got in and tried to drive off. unfortunately we didn't get very far because a guy crossed in front of the van and we couldn't go anywhere....Wilmur tried to rev the engine to get him to move. but that only made the "family" around the restuarant start moving in toward the van. so finally i had to hand a 20 cordoba bill out the window to the guy so we could leave. all because of mine and Lauren's American faces! geez! :) we were all quite flustered after that, but we weren't about to let it spoil our day....after that, we went to Masaya for Lauren to shop for souvenirs, but it seemed they were on to our American faces too. but not too bad....after we finished there, it was back to the airport to pick up Cheryl. She got in about 8pm, we ate dinner and headed back to Leon....about 5 mins from Leon, the bus starts rattling. we got to the side of the road and Wilbur (our new driver!!) checked to find some belt was about to come off. So he had to call his brother Mario, who came to pull us back to the house with his big work truck, going about 3 mph!! :) .....we made a day of it, leaving the house at 9am and returning home at 11:45ish!!!! whew what a day! :)