We are now entering our fourth month in Nicaragua. We were only supposed to be here for one month. We picked up our passports from immigration yesterday with our new 60-day stamp.
We signed a two-month lease in a new house. Our new house is in a community next door to where we were staying in April and May. We decided to move for a few reasons.
- First, the new place is a little less expensive. When COVID first hit, our thought was finding a place that was safe and comfortable for being quarantined. We thought we would only be here for one extra month.
- Our new place is cozier than in our previous place. Our last place is new construction. It is sleek and beautiful, but it is boxlike and sterile with white walls and gray floors. Our new house has rich browns, textured walls, brick ceilings in the bedrooms. It is more our style.
- It is built to be cooler. The rainy season is helping with the heat, but temperatures are still in the 80’s and the humidity is intense. Our last place was not built with the Nicaragua weather in mind. There are no screens on the doors or windows. The airflow is poor. It would heat up during the day, making it unbearable to sit in the living area. Our new house has screens and big doors and windows that we can open for airflow.
The outdoor living space is phenomenal 
The living area has several different areas for us to spread out 
Lucas and Henry love the bar stools 
We all fight over the hammock 
The couch is comfortable for naps too
There are still no flights. There are flights scheduled to resume in Managua later this month, but flight dates have been pushed back several times since all flights stopped back in April.
The Costa Rican border is now closed through the end of June and we predict that will be extended. The Honduras border is also closed with no indication of when it will open.
It is hard to get accurate information on the state of COVID here. International news organizations publish stories of catastrophic numbers and an inadequate response by the government. Nicaragua Facebook group posts that we read are full of people contradicting each other.
Our first-hand experience from going out to get groceries and our trip to Managua is that many of the people of Nicaragua are taking this seriously. Masks are common. Most stores make you use sanitizer and wipe the bottoms of your shoes in disinfectant before entering. Grocery stores and immigration take temperatures of all people who are entering and require masks to be worn. Car tires are sprayed when entering and exiting many towns.
Things are still ok for us here. We go out to get groceries and we have been to beaches, which are practically deserted. Otherwise, we stay at home. We are keeping busy. Boys do school in the morning. No summer break for them. We decided as a family that since we cannot go out and explore the world, we will keep our regular routine.
We hope to fly back to the states at the end of July or early August, but only time will tell. Until then we are doing just fine here in Nicaragua.
