Nicaragua Day 5: More Than Futbol

Early 3:30am wake up call by mosquitos again. How do they keep getting to me! I'm in a screened room! Mike said it was because we had the door open. I'm going to take his word for it and cross my fingers that since the door has been closed I will have a bite-less night tonight. So after I sprayed down for a third time I threw pants on, despite the heat, and went back to sleep. 7:00am wake up call and I cooked eggs in a basket for breakfast and then we headed off to Lake Apoyo in Masaya!

The Monkey Hut is one of my favorite places in Nicaragua. It has a $6 entrance fee for free wifi, kayaks, tubes, lake access, bar and restaurant, hammocks and picnic tables. It's on an ecological reserve so everything is very nice- beautiful view, crystal clear water. The lake was formed from a collapsed volcano thousands of years ago so the ground is a bunch of small smooth rocks. We went last year for the first time and when we were discussing what to do with our day off it was everyone's top vote. Luis, Alexander, Hellen, Mike, and I piled into the pick up truck and headed to the Monkey Hut.

We have been talking throughout the week about exercising and healthy diet for Luis and Alexander who are both very overweight. They both said they wanted to get healthy and I asked them, if I were to put a 15 minute work out for them to do, would they do it? and they both said yes! So they brought a change of clothes and after we hung out for a while, did my nails :-) and ate lunch, we digested and then geared up for a our 15 minute work out! High knees, Dips, Squats, Push Ups, Crunches, Flutter Kicks. 4 x 3 minute rounds and everyone worked really hard. We all did it together! Alexander, Luis, and Hellen were so tired at points during the workout that 1 person would start laughing which would just start a chain reaction. They thought it was funny how foreign and difficult the exercises were to them! At the end, I promised major poundage lost if they did this 15 min routine every day! 

We decided that tomorrow when we meet up for our final soccer mini-tournament we would have everyone do the work out as a warm up to support Alex and Luis in their weight loss! 

We built up quite the sweat and eventually made our way down to the lake. Alex and Luis had said earlier that they did not know how to swim! Luckily they had tubes to lay in and so with their  tubes (ilke "floaties") we did a little mini swim lesson that just turned out to be more a fun joke-around than anything else. 

We spent the afternoon laughing and relaxing, enjoying the company, and enjoying the lake. What a great day! 

On the way home we stopped at one of the best restaurants in town for some Carne Asada- my favorite :-) $5 a plate? I'll take it. Lunch earlier was $23 for 5 people and it was awesome- chicken fajitas! 

When I got home I FaceTimed with my Mom who could not get over "FaceTime". It was the first time she has ever seen it or used it! :-) and it was really fun to see my grandmother's face on FaceTime when she saw me looking back at her from Nicaragua! My oh my, technology! 

Tomorrow is the last day here. We will host a small tournament for the central youth leaders where we rent a turf field. It's nice to do something for the older youth leaders that are responsible for running the camp for the younger youth participants all week. Looking forward to seeing everyone one last time before I fly out to Belize on Saturday morning. 

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