Riding bicycles...

Recently one of the employees of the property management company lent us a bicycle.  He said we can use it for free if we want to fix it up and make it "rideable", and then just give it back to him when we leave.  This was a great deal since even with all of the repairs we had to make, it was still much cheaper than buying a new one. 

Many of the people in Granada use bicycles as their main form of transportation (cheap and easy to maintain).  Often, you will see a whole family riding on one bike, including very young babies and toddlers.  They are very obviously taught from a young age how to sit and hold on, because they do not move or squirm around at all.  The passengers will sit on the support bar, or in the case of small children, sometimes stand on the bar, with the man usually cycling and steering the bike.  People and packages also sit on laps, or stand on rods coming out of the back wheel of the bike. Ever since arriving, Isabel has been asking us to ride on a bicycle like the Nicaraguan children do.  Well now she's able to!  When we first got here we probably would have been pretty reluctant to do this, but now we are much more relaxed about such things as child safety :^)  I however, have no desire to join them on the bike, and just got a bike of my own thanks to Raul's aunt.

Below are some pictures of their inaugural ride.  They go all over the place on the bike and Isabel loves it.  Its also great because many times she gets tired of walking and we have to deal with a lot of whining and complaining if we are out and about.  Now she gets transported around without having to exert herself at all.

You can see another family on bicycle behind them.

Looking quite stern for some reason... (and those are tattoos on her arms, not bites for once)