Nicaragua, here we come!!

From our last journey to Central America (Tela, Honduras)

Well, here we come....in 6 months :) The plane tickets for Ryan and Brandy's 4th Wedding Anniversary Trip have just been booked! With this purchase comes a challenge: living out of two small backpacks from Sunday-Sunday. If you have flown Spirit Airlines, you may know how this challenge came about. Spirit, while being about $200 less than the next cheapest flight from another airline, also charges for both carry on and checked luggage! Boo! I decided to spend the luggage money on trip insurance since we're booking so far in advance of our trip. I think it's money well spent for peace of mind for the next 6 months but I'm sure there are plenty of people who would rather have the extra luggage. The way I see it, it's less stuff to lug around....especially since our preferred mode of transportation will be hoofing it and public transport. When we went to Honduras, I over packed because I wanted to be prepared for anything that could happen. Turns out, even with our massive bags, we didn't have baby oil for the no-see-ums that are just awful in Utila and something we had no way of knowing about before we left (We didn't even know we'd be going to Utila before we left). What I learned from Honduras is that you can be prepared but packing everything but the kitchen sink isn't necessary. Clothes, toiletries, 2 beach towels and some comfy shoes. That should do it. Oh, and maybe one of those light sleeping bag things...that would have been nice in the San Pedro Sula airport when we spent 13 hours there. This time around, our flight doesn't leave Managua until around 1:00 am, so we should have plenty of exploring time during the day that we don't get to the airport quite so early. I'm also going to make sure someone will actually be at the ticket counter to check us in when we arrive. I wonder if they stop letting people into the airport at a certain time? I have some research to do!

Have you been to Nicaragua? What are your recommendations? All we know for sure is this: We want to hike a volcano, Ryan wants to do some surfing (he's a little leery of renting a surfboard but for our trip, it just makes more sense this time) and we want to be around actual Nicaraguans. This is our favorite part of traveling abroad. We want to feel like we have actually left the US! No resorts, no air conditioning (unless that's part of the general experience), and NO CHAIN RESTAURANTS. I'm sad to say that we have broken all of these rules but it's something to strive for ;)