The Eagle has Landed.

Dateline:   1248 marbles

So we landed in Nicaragua around 9:00 Wednesday night.  The flight was uneventful, if not a little entertaining.  I think most readers of this blog are still wondering, why Nicaragua and how can Delta, my hometown airline, fill a plane every night?

Well that is where I will begin.  Who were our travelmates on the flight? The composition of a flight to Nica is not the same as a flight to Paris or London.  It is a little more eclectic. A noticeable shortage of business travelers and well healed families off on an exciting getaway vacation.  Instead, I would say a Nica bound plane has 4 distinct groups.  I will start with the front of the plane and work my way to the back of the plane.

The first class cabin in rather small - 6 seats and was comprised mostly of group one of our travelmates - sport fisherman.  They were all decked out in Columbia PFG's with various sporting club logo's.  I recognized a past chairman of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and several of his friends of all ages.  They were excited and headed to the San Juan River and to the Pacific coast for tarpon and marlin fishing, respectively.  We are heading to the San Juan River next week so a fishing update will follow.

We sat in economy comfort next.  Our seatmate was a wonderful young attorney from Salt Lake City who loved to travel.  She said she suffered from wanderlust!  She too was a fisherman and was drawn to the uniqueness of Nicaragua and the world class fishing.   To be honest we probably fit in that group.  So group two is the wanderlust traveler. There were several other couples and groups of friend who were traveling on a tropical bohemian adventure.

The third group was the largest.  It was Nica families traveling back to their homes.  It was a little bit of a party (very informal) atmosphere in the back where they all left their seats and were talking with one another.  Very respectful of other travelers but enjoying their time together.

The forth group is Other.  It was comprised of the surfer dudes who were obvious by their shaggy hair, laid back style and tattoos.  They are headed to the pacific coast to do some world class surfing, cheap.  In group four, were several missionaries and a few NGO people. The one other person in Group four was a Chinese national.  By the look of his bag tag, he was with some engineering company and worked the whole time on his laptop.  On my last flight down to Nica in November there were many more Chinese nationals.

Why the Chinese presence?  Nicaragua has announced that it has granted rights to a Chinese company to construct a new canal to rival the Panama Canal.  It is highly controversial in the country.  I plan on finding out more about the canal on our trip.  Suffice it to say, there is activity going on.  Who knows if it will happen but something is happening.

So that is it.  We had a fun group on our flight and we made it safely to our hotel in Managua.  Our friends at Pineapples de Paz (http://nicanews.org/) will pick us up on Thursday and we will catch up with them and see their unique ministry in Tiquantepe, Nicaragua. More to come......