After our busiest wedding season in our history, we took the opportunity of a small gap between the tail end of the wedding season and the busy Christmas season to slow things down.

Why Nicaragua?

Our family loves Yoga and when they asked if we wanted to join them along with several others on a Yoga and Surfing retreat, we said sure. The trip was planned by Heidi and Cole, two yoga instructors based in Edmonton who had previously visited the resort. All we knew about our trip to Nicaragua was that it involved some yoga, some surfing, some bugs and helping out the local community.

After an entire day of flying and layovers, we arrived in the capital city of Managua late at night, only to get into a van for a 3 hour road trip to our destination. About two hours in, we were going through suspension damage causing dirt roads.

Our First Day

We woke up to the sounds of roosters crowing, birds chirping and waves crashing. Since we arrived late at night and all was pitch black, we had no idea how close we were to the ocean. It turns out, we were just steps away.

Adventures

CNN named Volcano Boarding as #2 on the “Thrill seekers bucket list”. So we went for it!

I wasn’t sure which aspect was more dodgy, hurtling down a volcano on a piece of wood, or being on an active Volcano that was due to blow at any time. The tour guide said, historically the Volcano explodes every 16 years and this year was the 16th year with no explosions. Just kicking up dirt, revealed smoke seeping from the ground and picking it up felt like you could cook an egg on it.

We’ve Zip Lined off the Great Wall in China, under the hot sun in Mexico and now we’ve also Zip Lined in Grenada, one of the funnest Zip Lining Tours we we’ve tried.

Activities

As this was a Yoga and Surf retreat, this was our daily activity and we loved every minute.

We also got to witness the resort’s effort to save the turtle population.

Waves of Hope

A big part of our trip and the resort we stayed at, was the non profit organization “Waves Of Hope”. The focus of this organization was to improve the quality of life of the local community and to help alleviate the poverty in this remote location.

We were able to spend a great deal of time with the local residents that lived nearby and also help out a little with building a school.

For one afternoon, while all the boys in the community played soccer and baseball with the guys in our group, Amy held a kids flower workshop.

If you want to join a similar experience, check out the resort website and their non profit organization. It was such a memorable experience!

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