I end up chatting with a coffee farmer and am told that they are shade trees for the coffee. Asking him for permission to take a photo of his quaint operation, it’s obvious they have none of the superstitions held in Guatemala about fotos. He calls over his daughter and makes her pose for me.
Kim is perpetually amazed at how I can start a long conversation with anyone, in any language. This continued for the next several hours, pulling over every few kilometers for yet another photo op, Nicaragua is wonderful. We stopped in Esteli, at a ‘turicentro’ thinking they would have maps (the eternal search for maps) but quickly realized that it’s a tourist destination, not tourist information. There were pools, cabanas and a science museum with some really neat exhibits, like a wood fired pressure cooker (we still think anything with a pressure cooker is neat) inside the belly of a dragon, the steam vented through the nostrils and the smoke out the mouth. There was also a Brontosaurus with a series of pulleys to raise and lower his head, and a T-Rex with hydraulic powered jaws, and a Triceratops with solar panel and solar powered eyes. Lunch in Esteli was accompanied by a delicious cup of fresh tamarind juice, a taste Kim says she’ll never forget.
We, and many, many horse drawn carts and Russian cars navigated the narrow streets into Grenada. The Antigua of Nicaragua they say. WOW has been our mantra. It lacks the touristyness of Antigua and rivals it for charm and beauty (although the streets are not cobblestone, which was quaint for about ten minutes driving around Antigua). And the people! Though unemployment is high, the Sandanistas’socialist experiment seems to have left a good mark here. There are more road signs here than in the rest of Central America combined, we’ve seen actual operational ambulances, the drivers are very friendly and courteous (we even saw a cop with a RADAR), the kids are all in school and there’s a lack of garbage on the roadside. Kim even said it reminds her of Canada.
We had a funny experience trying to find a place to camp. Several travelers recommended eating at a local restaurant and then tipping the guard to sleep there. Sitting down to eat, the smell of fish quickly reminded us of amoebas, and then the completely uncooked chicken they served confirmed our fears. Not wanting to be rude, we didn’t know what to do, so Kim went to the van to get a plastic bag. Amid hysterical laughter we built a wall of napkin holders and beer bottles to conceal us slipping the raw chicken into the bag. Ok, so maybe the ample beer after a hot day on the road made this a lot funnier. We didn’t see any security guards and decided to head back into town a few blocks away, and slept near the central park in a parking lot. Not the lakeside night we had anticipated, but a wonderful night’s sleep.
For Valentines day (happy V-Day moms and nana) we are being very decadent. We have booked a flight to the Corn Islands, on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. We will be staying on Little Corn, surround by sharks, rays, and reefs with all the fish you can imagine (so say the posters). We ran into another tourist and he went on and on and on and on about how amazing his two weeks out there were. We’re excited! There may not be internet so this will be our last post for a week or so.
http://divelittlecorn.com/photos.shtml
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