Day 1: Arrival!

I made it!! Yippee!  Where do I even begin??

When I landed in the airport in Managua, I had no specific instructions of what do to or how to find my "driver." After wandering around aimlessly for a few minutes, I headed over to the change counter and received over 5,000 cordobas for my $250. (roughly 25 cordobas=$1.00) I then followed some people I recognized from my flight and received a new stamp in my passport and headed through to customs. (I won't lie I was pretty proud of myself for figuring out what the heck to do once I landed...) I hadn't discussed the details of my arrival with my program coordinator in a few weeks so I was a bit nervous to say the least about the plan still being the same. I crossed my fingers as I walked out into the "Pick up" area and it wasn't long before I saw the sign: Christy MacKellar: Granada. YES! My driver, Felipe, asked me if I spoke Spanish and I was stupidly caught off guard but managed to say 'un poco!' Poor Felipe. He had a lot of patience with me. But luckily I was able to practice my small talk with him. Naturally, my go-to was asking him what his favorite food was. Gallo pinto. Good ole rice and beans. Seems to be the favorite of everyone here. He then insisted on showing me how great his sound system was. So he blasted some hot R&B hits from the 90's and sang along to most of them and told me how much he loves to sing Karaoke. Good guy, Felipe.
I quickly learned that the safest mode of transportation here is walking. My 45 minute ride from the airport to Granada was enough for me. There's virtually no speed limit and people just stay on someone's ass until they can pass them. Which, to me, seemed even more dangerous here considering there are stray animals everywhere. (we had to stop to wait for some stray horses to cross the road)

Little did I know then when I arrived on my doorstep how blissfully unaware I was of what I had just gotten myself into.