Zipadidoo Thanksgiving

Pretty much everyone in the U.S. returning to work after the weekend this week was asked questions like: "Did you eat too much turkey?" or "Tired of turkey?" That's because last week was Thanksgiving and that means Americans get together with family and friends and eat, you guessed it, turkey.

(Two lucky birds don't get eaten though, the one pardoned by President Bush and the back-up "pardon turkey," I guess in case something were to inadvertently happen to the first one. Coincidentally, they named these turkeys "May" and "Flower" this year, a cute reference to the ship that brought pilgrims to this country.)

White House photo by Chris Greenberg

But I digress. The point is that I didn't have any turkey this Thanksgiving. Instead, I traveled to Nicaragua for a short exploration of a country I had hardly even heard about, except of course the bad stories about contras about a decade ago. There is none of that now. You might encounter the odd corrupt cop (who charged us $20 for allegedly turning without a turn signal), but otherwise the country is very safe and extremely well organized for tourism. (But you'll find that there aren't many tourists there, making it even better if you do go.)

San Juan Del Sur by night

In Nicaragua I met up with my dad who had flown in from Ecuador. We spent a night in San Juan Del Sur, a beach town that's big among surfers, and two nights in Granada, a gorgeous colonial town with great al fresco dining and architecture.

Granada

Our trip was packed with activities, including hikes along the edges of two active volcanoes (Mombacho and Massaya) as well as a cruise among Granada's islets in Lake Nicaragua, which coincidentally are the "babies" of the Mombacho because they were created by an eruption.

Parking on the edge of Volcan Massaya. Back-in, so you can get away quickly.

A highlight was a zipline tour along the tops of the trees in the dense forest on the slopes of Volcan Mombacho. Dad was a bit scared, but he survived and enjoyed himself. You can see (and hear) him coming down the last bit in this video :)

More photos and videos can be seen in my private album as well as on Ben's Latino Benno blog.