Los Cardones EcoLodge and Surf Resort, Nicaragua

After a few weeks of postponement, I hopped on an American Airlines 737 aircraft from ATL to MIA, arrived and satisfied my breakfast hunger with Cuban sandwich along with Cuban coffee. After being delayed for 2 hours for mechanical issues, I finally took off to MGA in an American Airlines 767 (paid $80 for my ZED fare because I cannot jumpseat on American Airlines internationally unlike other domestic carriers), rode a KIA branded taxi for 1.5 hours and arrived at Los Cardones.  Granted this was another solo adventure but the purpose was to scout out the place and more importantly hang out with great company.

A few weeks back, I recently found out that one of my high school gal-friends, took up a 6 month gig to work as managers for the "resort." Whatever the cost, I had to go visit and hang out.   As most of you may know (or not know), I'm always down for anything.  Upon arriving at the resort dressed inappropriately in business attire, I was greeted by her, taken to my cabana and changed.  I was steaming and my wool pants had to come off!

Thoughts of picking up a surfboard and hitting the beach right away were lingering especially after watching Chris hit the waves, but I was feeling more of a mellow tone.   After a while, I decided that it was going to be just a day of rest. The night simply concluded with a wonderfully prepared dinner by Adam and chatter of what the next morning would bring.  It was a long day for me and this is exactly what I needed.

Through the next few days, I would eat 3 meals a day which were prepared VERY well, surf in the morning then just hang out the rest of the day. I didn't do that much except for the random hike around the facility, sleep in an awesome hammock for a few hours, talk it up with friends and just pass the time. It's been a while since I actually got to feel the second hand tick as the minutes at the resort lagged on by. Being "unplugged" was a great feeling, but sometimes I felt like I was missing things. Time was therefore just standing still at certain times but it was a good thing.

Some of you may not realize, but I've been minimal-izing my life as of late. Coming down from an awesome high, I'm loving it more and more. Sometimes I'm tempted here and there, but simplicity and happiness is where it's at. This vacation made me realize it once again that with an ocean, good friends and food, life can be truly gratifying.

Videos and more pictures after the jump!

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I uploaded little tours of the resort to my youtube account: http://www.youtube.com/enicolas and you can watch the videos there or right here down below! The first one is of the resort and the second is of my living quarters. Check them out and leave a comment here or on my youtube page!

Flying part 2: 4th Week in July

Of all the randomness in flying for the Delta Connection Carrier, Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA) based solely out of Atlanta, my four day schedule had an assignment that was to operate a Cincinnati to Miami roundtrip.  New to me and apparently pretty new to the system I might add.  Last summer, I got to fly the Miami system through Tallahassee, Florida and that was a blast, so I was really looking forward to this trip.  I would have loved an overnight in MIA but I guess we won't be doing any of those in the near future. Flying towards Miami, we noticed that the normal summer cloud build-ups were in every quadrant.  It was going to be all about the quick turn.  Looking at our schedule, we also noticed that we had more than ample time to grab some Cuban Coffee and a sandwich.  Coffee was a success but the sandwich place closed I guess.  Massive fail as I was left to eat a Meat Stromboli from Sbarros.  Definitely not the Cuban Sandwich I was hoping for.

I did my walk around and of course it stated to sprinkle a bit.  Just enough to get me a little damp but not dripping.  Flying out of Miami was a lot of fun though.  Departing 8R we made a turn to the north and was vectored toward the northwest in order to get around and through some cloud build-up.  Fun stuff!  Check out the radar and the cloud picture of the cavern we flew through!

An of course after we landed in Cincinnati Airport which many of you might not know is 1) a ghost town since Delta has slowly changed all of its routing and deleted many flights from the CVG system 2) is actually located in Northern Kentucky. Check it out on this map:

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We made our way to one of the nicer hotels we stay at, Hilton Airport, and then we headed out to celebrate my birthday. Happy hour at Applebees has become the common theme with overnights lately just because the deals are too good to pass up and there's nothing else nearby! We had a couple of drinks, great appetizers but I chose the liquid diet last night. Fun times! On the walk back to the hotel, we hit up Rafferty's for some of there fine honey butter croissants the called it a night. Good times guys and thanks for the great night!

Flying part 1: 4th Week in July

Flying the CRJ700 has been definitely more exciting than the CRJ200 and this week was just another example.  I guess it might be the mere fact that 1 more flight attendant / stewardess adds to the mix during dinner or that I'm just getting lucky being paired up with great crews.  With that, this was a rather enjoyable week. The first night was an overnight in Quad Cities, Illinois which I have already blogged about... great food!  Check it out here. (http://www.elijahnicolas.com/wp/2009/07/26/overnight-in-quad-cities/)

The next night exposed me to the true horrors that Newark, New Jersey is.  Rudeness was in the air but friends were around to pick me up and create a lightened atmosphere.  We headed to the Shorthills Mall which was pretty high society status.  Too bad it was an indoor mall but shopping around is always fun when the weather outside is humid, muggy with a chance of thunderstorms.  We ate at a great place called All American Joe's Bar (something like that) and concluded the night with a drive through a ritzy neighborhood w/ average home sales of $2-4M, stroll through it's local town full of boutique shops that had tennis outfits in the windows.  I can't remember the name of the town but there was an theater playing Public Enemies and that was what we were watching.  For a two and half hour movie, it kept me going.  I enjoyed it thoroughly but I have to admit that 500 Days of Summer (trailer) was more entertaining.  Johnny Depp had a great roll, Christian Bale looks a little skinny and didn't convince me so much, but overall it was a great biography on John Dillinger.    Albeit more appealing I guess in it's very unique story telling.  Go watch it already if you have not!  It's playing in select theaters so make you scope out the local area for show times.

I'll write up part two tomorrow starting off with some good MIA weather story and capping it off with a fun night in Cincinnati...er Kentucky...that one place that we stayed at last night.  Here's a picture of the morning sun rising over Manhattan skyline as seen from the Newark Airport.  You can see the Empire State Building too if you take a close look!  Check it out!