---Thursday ----
The second part of my trip involved visiting my family in Camopa. Getting from Ometepe to Camoapa turned out to a challenge. This is the trip we ended up taking starting with a 3:30am wake-up call for a 4am bus ride.
One side of the island to other side via bus(2.5 hrs)
Other side of island to San Jorge via boat(1 hr)
San Jorge to Rivas by Taxi (15 mins)
Rivas to Granada by bus (2hrs)
Granada to Managua by bus(1hrs)
Managua to Camoapa by bus (3 hrs)
Total: Over 9 hours
Yes indeed. That was not pleasant. We had to go through Granada to pick up some stuff that I left at the volunteer house. Becky and I also had breakfast in Granada and took some time to see a photo exhibit in the park. We arrived at my grandma's house (although my grandmother passed away it will always be my grandma's house) around 5pm.
We were tired. We had dinner chatted for a bit, walked around the park. We each had a beer and went to sleep around 10pm. We did not wake up the next day until 10am, a well needed night's sleep.
---Friday ----
It was raining for the entire day. This prevented us from going anywhere in the town (not that there was much to see anyways). Throughout the day relatives kept arriving to see me. At some point I think that the house had about 15-18 people who were somehow related to me or knew me from childhood.
Most of this day was spent talking to relatives and taking pictures. At some point I tried to connect to the internet to upload some pictures, but the connection was so slow that it was not really worth waiting.
This day I also decided not to go to the Patent Interview Program at Loyola. I had gotten only one interview which I left was not enough to warrant me spending money to fly to Chicago and stay at an expensive hotel.
At night I invited some family member to have dinner at a restaurant. The food was good but the service was horrendous. I don't think I would come back.
---Saturday ----
I visited my mother's and grandmother's grave early in the morning (during a small window of no rain). We then left for Managua in the 11:45am bus. Three hours we were back in Managua. We checked into a place which was listed in the budget section of a guide book. I did not like this place. The book was wrong: no internet, and not clean.
Nonetheless we made the most of the day. We actually had time to go dress and shoe shopping. Shopping with Becky is ummm.... an experience. We did manage to find a suitable dress and shoes. We also decided to watch a movie: Get Smart or "Super Agente 86." This was such a great movie! It made me laugh through the entire movie. We eventually went back to the hostel and slept.