Saturday: leaving Nicaragua

Our flight arrangements didn't all coincide, but the majority of our flights were scheduled to take off early Saturday morning, so we asked Felix to pick us up at 2am. The original plan was to party all night so we'd leave all pumped up. That fizzled when everyone got tired and passed out. i lasted until almost 1, but i think only Brave Dave stayed awake the whole time. Felix showed up right at 2, loaded up all our stuff, and our tired selves, and took us on our way. We left behind Morgan and Kelly, whose flights were later enough they got to sleep in before their trek.
After about 2 1/2 hours on the bus (during which I napped, and may have drooled on Colleen) we arrived at the airport. Those of us flying to Houston checked in, and then discovered that the security checkpoint was not yet open. So we hung out by the gates until they showed up to stamp our passports and go through our luggage. I had some filthy sandy, still wet from the ocean socks at the top, so they didn't check mine too closely.

Speaking of the filthy socks, my post about Friday left out the part about after Larry the yoga guy took some of us into town, he showed us around a bit and introduced us to real Nicaraguan chocolate. Then he went to teach a yoga class and we wandered around and shopped for a while. Then we walked along the beach to begin a hike back up to the villa. It was a beautiful sunset, and we got a great photo of Wolfy, after which, since we were paying attention to other things than the waves, we got our ankles soaked. After that, I just walked along in the surf. It was a grand finale, but my socks got soaked and filthy. Between the sandy beach and our stairs up the hill, in the growing darkness, we chanced upon gravel - that MOVED!! Hundreds upon hundreds of hermit crabs clickety-clicked their way around and under our feet and grossed us out to the point that we turned back to find a road. Once we found a road, we found a different kind of crab, but there was only one of him, and we were able to avoid stepping on him. It was pretty dark by this time - thank goodness Natalie and Erin had thought to bring their headlamps, so we were making our way along quite well in our plod up the steep hill, when an SUV pulled up and a former US Marine Corpsman asked if he could drive us the rest of the way up the hill. So the plod ended with a nice ride, just in time for dinner. I already miss the beans and rice.

So, back to Saturday: First plane ride was essentially a nap. During the nap, the flight staff neglected to give me my customs form, despite giving one to everyone else on the airplane. When I woke up to disembark, nobody said anything about it. although I vaguely wondered why I hadn't gotten one. So I get up to the table full of forms in Houston, and the form for US Citizens to fill out, is ONLY AVAILABLE IN SPANISH!!! I was a little bit bummed about that, but after a customs person from their booth told me to talk to one of the airport personnel, and I chased them down, they were able to find a form in English for me that was only a little bit wrinkled.

After making my way through customs, I had my bag searched. The security guy really got a kick out of my Sahale Pecans (from Costco) which I had brought on the trip and not eaten. They're awesome - with cranberries and orange zest and black pepper on the glazed pecans. The guy said he was going to have to go get some. Then he said I was cool. I responded, "that's great, but how's my bag?" So I got to go through and find out that our connecting flight had been delayed an hour. That was great, because we got to have one more lunch with Colleen, who had a later flight to Albequerque. So we had airport food, and then said goodbye. The plane was about an hour and a half late taking off. This flight I slept some, but also read the SkyMall magazine. That was wildly entertaining...
Then at SeaTac, we called for our shuttle to the hotel where we'd left the cars. After that ride, we split again, and said goodbye to Jackie and Brave Dave. Then after about an hour's drive, we dropped Judy off at her friend's house, and it was back to just me and Dr. Steele. At which point, we made straight for the nearest Taco Bell. When we left Taco Bell, for some reason, we both walked the wrong direction, and had to circle the building to get back to the car. So we waved at the drive thru people and giggled our way to the car. Also on the way home, we stopped at our nearest Trader Joes (only an hour and a half from home) to reload, as I had run out of avocadoes and Powerberries. So then we drove the rest of the way home, and I got my doggie back, and whoof - hit the sack!