"Managua" Nicaragua Travelogue by paradisedreamer

Today was a bit of a waste of a day. Our flight from Belize City to Managua (Nicaragua) was only at 5pm so we had to hang around all day. We had lunch at Big Daddies which does a buffet style meal, reasonably priced and good food. We then went back to the Belcove and read on the verandah, Sam was allowed to sit in the room and watch TV.

Our cab to the airport arrived early which meant lots of waiting around the airport with nothing to do. Eventually we got to board the plane and then had to shift people out of our seats and we were off. Flying over El Salvador was beautiful, lots of mountains reaching to the sea and a gorgeous view of a huge volcano and down to the flat fertile lowlands.
The airport in San Salvador was very nice and modern. Marc managed to buy Marlboros so he was happy. We had to wait an hour until our connecting flight to Managua. It seems that all TACA flights stop at San Salvador being their main hub.
When you arrive in Nicaragua you have to pay a $5 entry fee per person in USD cash. We were hoping to change some money into local currency but they were closed, that was the first of our downhill battle. We then went to budget to collect our car. It was $250 and we reckoned it would go up to $400 with insurance. No chance matey, insurance is horrendously expensive and the price jumped up to $1054!!!! So that was then end of that plan, now what? We had planned on having a car to travel the country. We got a taxi to our hotel luckily we had $5 cash to pay for it. Our driver was a maniac so maybe it’s a good idea we won’t be driving.

We then had problems at the reception of our hotel, again people trying to pull the wool over our eyes, good thing we had our internet confirmation printed out so they could not dispute the rate.
By this time we were both frazzled. We were given vouchers for a complimentary drink so we thought ok lets have a drink and chill but at the bar and we told no kids allowed. We took our drinks to the reception lounge and were just waiting for someone to tell us we couldn’t smoke, luckily no-one did or Marc may have lost it. I love traveling but sometimes it can be downright painful.

We ordered room service and the food was very good. It was midnight by the time we got to bed, still with no idea where we are going tomorrow.