Leon isn't too far from the sea, and I want to head down to the beach for a New Years party.  But I have concerns.  I have friends who headed down that way; will I find them?  Will I find a place to stay?  Will I get trapped down there with no place to say?  Will I get robbed wandering the beach all night?  But I guess the biggest concern was if I was going to be alone on New Years, not knowing anyone.  For once, I decide to take the conservative choice, and decide to join some new Dutch friends for a New Years dinner here in the hostel and then see what's going on in the town of Leon.

Now that I've decided that I'm staying, the first thing that I do is order a Mojito, strip down, and jump into the pool.  A hot sunny day, in a pool, drinking a Mojito.  Okay, there certainly have been worse ways to spend the afternoon of News Years Eve than this. 

The hotel had noise complaints from the Christmas party, so they're being very strict about shutting down at 10pm tonight.  After dinner, I join the Dutch people and a few other travelers to walk the town.  I mix up a batch of nice jungle juice [orange juice, pineapple juice, mango juice, white rum and dark rum], pour it into some water bottles and take it with us. 

The central square is full of people and there are lots of fireworks going off, both big and small.  In a prime location in front of the church are photo booths, where you can get your photo taken with Santa.  Isn't that holiday over?  But tonight it seems popular with the Nicaraguan kids. 

One block north of the central square we find a dance party in some basketball courts that have been fenced off for the night.  It's packed full of Nicaraguans.  We pay the cover fee of 25 cordobas ($1.25) and head inside.  On a stage, some dancers are really shaking their asses, but almost everyone is dancing.  The music is mostly salsa, but some slow songs are thrown in.  We run into more people from our hostel and form a bit of a group.  I end up dancing with a hot French Canadian girl.  And we're all amused as 12-year old boys keep asking the 20-something foreign girls to dance.  I would have preferred to stay and dance, but the group wants to head back to the square for the stroke of midnight.  Unfortunately, nothing special happened at 12, and it basically passed without notice. 

We wandered down the road to Don Senor, and then kept dancing and drinking for hours.

Later on, I heard that at midnight people who couldn't afford the cover tore down the fence, and joined the dance party.  It sounds like we missed out on some excitement by leaving the outdoor dance party early.

Goodbye 2007.  Hello 2008 in Nicaragua. 

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