Today was fun but really exhausting day! We woke up to the sound of different animals which is now considered normal as we get used to living like a local in Matagalpa, Nicaragua. As leaders, we were a little stressed about waking people up in the morning and making sure that everyone will be down and ready for breakfast on time, so we pretty much woke up every hour just to check the time and make sure to get up before them. Apparently, most of the people in the group were already awake since it is a little later than the usual wake up time.

During breakfast, we had a plateful of pancakes and sweet fruits such as watermelon, papaya, and banana and it was savored by everyone. We thought that Nicaragua’s pancakes tasted different compared to Americans’ because it was lighter and thinner, but still full of flavor without the overpowering sweetness of the syrup. After our heavy meal, everyone created groups of four or more to go out on their own and explore the city freely. We made sure that everyone is safe by signing in/out at a certain time with their locations and the people in their group. They were expected to be back 15 minutes before the next activity because it’s mandatory to eat lunch and dinner at the hostel.

We love each other so much that we decided to be in a group of eleven which was not ideal. The shops were pretty small and we overcrowded the area leaving no space for any of us to move around. Since there were so many of us, we had a tough time deciding where to go and what to do considering each other’s opinions. We took longer than usual to shop and we ran out of time. However, we had another opportunity to go out after lunch, so we decided to split the group in half. Being in a smaller group gave us a chance to go to many places like the market, souvenir shops, ice cream place, coffee shop, book store, internet cafe, payphone, and the park.

After free time, we walked back to the hostel for dinner. Everyone got back on time before our curfew (5:00 pm) which we are very proud of since we did not lose privileges for tomorrow. We had an hour of free time to ourselves in the hostel before dinner to rest and chill since it was a pretty long and tiring day. We don’t know if it was due to exhaustion or our food was just really good and everyone kept asking for more especially the sweet fried plantains. Right after dinner, we had the nightly meeting discussing about our feelings and thoughts about the day. At the end of the day, It was our pleasure being the “Líder del día” and it was a great experience.