Well it turns out that although the pavement ends in Rio Blanco, the road does continue to several other small villages east and north of there.
Our project site is based out of the villages of San Pedro Del Norte, a small village about 3 hours (90 km) drive east of Rio Blanco and Tumarin (further east [...]
I found this neat T Shirt while walking around one of the local markets in Managua and couldn’t resist getting it (especially since it was only $5).
And, actually the funnier part of this little story was …
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For this job we were based in the town of Rio Blanco of Matagalpa, or basically the furthest town east of Managua that is still on the pavement (even though our project was about 60 km further east … this was the closest town to base out of).
Rio Blanco is much more of a town then the people in Managua seem to have given it credit, and although it certainly is a little bit different then most towns I have stayed in, it is not all bad. Perhaps a little rough around the edges but it seems to have all the necessary basics that we need to operate with. …
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Well after a lengthy wait and battle to get the Nicaraguan Customs to finally release our equipment to us, we were able to get to work.
We rented a hanger at the airport to use while we installed our LIDAR equipment onto the helicopter. Well actually it was more so a shelter from the sun then a traditional aircraft hangar as we would define it back home (… but glad to have it none the less).
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After checking in the city of Granada we went on an ecological tourism side of things by going on a guided boat tour of the Archipielago las Isleta, on Lake Nicaragua, a few minutes south of Granada. Our young tour guide promised us that on the tour we would see where some of the richest in the country live, see some historic forts and buildings and perhaps see some wild life and nature. Very exciting to some I sure but more so just a nice change from the typical colonial like sights and was also much cooler on the lake then it was in the city – witch was a nice change.
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The city of Granada, rich in history and culture, is situated on the northwestern shore of Lake Cocibolca is Nicaragua’s fourth largest city and historically one of Nicaragua’s most important places both economically and politically.
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After checking out the sites in and around Managua, we ventured off to some of the recommended areas outside of the city since we still had amble time left before our equipment would be released.
South of the City of Managua is the Parque Nacional Volcan Masaya, the countries largest Masaya sulfur dioxide gasNational Park and one of several protected areas of Nicaragua.
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So our tour continued around the city of Managua stopping at various historic and modern sites including places like the water front, the Dennis Martínez National Stadium, El Huembes Market and local restaurants. And like always a few laughs …
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So unlike most of my jobs that I normally get sent on, this particular one has provided me with an abundant amount of free time due to some security / customs issues involved with our survey gear (fortunate for me, not so fortunate for our company), so I have had amble time to explore the city and it’s culture. Some of the things that I explored were …
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After visiting every province of Canada and almost every state in the United States during the past three years, I have finaly embarked upon my first international trip (not including USA travel …), to the country of Nicaragua, the largest Location Map of Managua, Nicaraguastate in Central America bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south.
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