(Going offline again, will be back in a few days)

With 4 hours of sleep under my belt, my phone blared out the now all too familiar Marimba at 2:30AM. I quickly turned it off to avoid waking up my 12 neighbors. 

By 2:50, I was ready and waiting for my 3:00 airport shuttle. It was 3:15 when I decided it was time to wake up one of the live-in hostel staff. Eyes bloodshot and staring at me with a "What the hell?" expression on her face, the staff quickly understood the reason for her rude awakening. Hustling downstairs with a determination to quickly head back up to bed, she called the shuttle - within 5 minutes, it arrived. 

The shuttle headed in the same direction as the walk David and I took the previous day. Except instead of the bustling markets, we saw men sitting idly on the backs of trucks reading the paper, and others busily unloading the day's fruits and vegetables to be sold. 

We arrived at the airport about 30 minutes later. First step was to pay the departure tax of $29. Curiously, I didn't get a matching exit stamp on my passport. Instead, it was a stamp on my departure tax receipt.

Having spent the majority of the previous day in transport, and arriving at the hostel late, I woke up with a strong desire to shower out the exhaust and sweat that covered me.  To my chagrin, the 6'x4' window in the bathroom had no blinds. It was still early morning and the sun was barely awake itself, so an unexpected audience was unlikely.  Nevertheless, strange. 

At only four days, my time in Leon was regrettably short. Latina Hostel had quickly become my traveling home, while the streets of Leon rapidly became my regular stomping ground. 

Though Leon is the second largest city in Nicaragua, it has a small town feel that's entirely different from the big city attitude of Managua. In Managua, the presence of the police are noticeable. Whereas in Leon, I never caught sight of them. A couple high rises, mostly - if not all - hotels, punctuate the Managua sky, while nothing but clouds and sun remained the sole occupants of Leon's. Traffic lights and stop signs are more diligently obeyed in the capital city, with honking the preferred alternative traffic control system in Leon.