12/2023 Nashville to Miami then Managua Nicaragua, drive to Leon, dinner & La Gigantona dance.

Today we make the 3 hour drive from our home in Carbondale, Illinois to Nashville for an early morning flight to Miami and then on to Managua. We stay at the Hilton embassy suites at the Nashville airport where they have a really nice happy hour with free drinks and lots of snacks and then have a lovely dinner at the Ten Restaurant there. We went to bed around midnight only to get up early around 230 in the morning to head over to the airport for our 530 flight. We find a bar that's open for a drink and meet some interesting folks there before boarding our flight to Miami. We eventually arrive in Managua where Judy's Nicaragua flag dress is a huge hit. At the Managua airport we meet up with our wonderful guide Julio and fantastic driver Jaime from Wild Frontiers who arranged the trip. We drive two and a half hours from Managua to Leon and pass by the Hugo Chavez barrio in Managua. We check in at the beautiful El Convento Hotel which used to be a Catholic nuns convent. We head into town and stop at the San Francisco Church built in 1629 and the Leon Cathedral built in 1747. We grab a coconut sorbet and then have a lovely dinner and enchanted evening at El Sesteo restaurant listening to the thousands of birds roosting in the trees and watching all the local boys doing the traditional dance of the gigantona and the dwarf cabezon. This is a dance performed with a boy inside of a large female doll wearing a colorful long dress designed to represent a tall light skinned rich Spanish woman. There is another dancer with a large dwarf head, el enano cabezon which is designed to represent the local indigenous man who is poor but very intelligent. There is usually one or two boys playing drums and one of the boys tells the story. We visited a street lined with lighted photographs of Sandinista martyrs who died during the revolution of 1979. We then dined alfresco at El Sesteo and were joined at dinner by a stray dog and a boy who we gave our leftovers to. After dinner we headed back to the hotel to get a good night sleep and be ready for our volcano sledding adventure the next day.