I have been dreading having to write this post. This is the horrible "I made it home safely but procrastinated for over a month and now have to do the tedious trip summary" entry. I apologize.
After Granada we went to a little homestay spanish school by the name of Hijos Del Maiz or Children of the Corn. Unfortunate name choice. Needless to say I was a bit nervous. The bus ride there was kind of amazing. The Bus was tricked out with colorful streamers and the bus driver was ripped and blasted clubbing music the entire time. The road was essentially an empty riverbed filled with giant rocks. At one point the bus stopped for 10 minutes next to an exeptionally large pile of rocks while a man jumped out and began loading rocks into the bus...just incase the hundreds of pounds of grain, firewood and pregnant women we were already hauling wasn't enough. Everyone was covered in dust from the open windows. A man asked Justin to see if the communal water bottle was under our seat and upon looking Justin pulled out a container of engine coolant. The man looked at us as if we were insane to try to drink engine coolant...He apparently had not taken the bus to Matagalpa where we witnessed the passangers drinking water out of a container that held this exact brand of coolant.
The school was quite the experience. The teachers were not as equipt as our school in San Juan Del Sur, but the home stay made it worth our while. We stayed in a brick campesino house with an adobe oven. Our host mother grew/roasted/grounded and made our coffee herself. She made her own cheese, grew her own vegetables raised her own children/grandchildren and the majority of the communties children. She and her Husband lived in the town when it was attacked by the contras. The entire town is proud of their history and makes sure everyone knows their turbulent past. The town, Legartillo was run off of a few hours of solar electricity a day. All their water was supplied by a treasured pump that each family took turns guarding on rotation every night. Legartillo has an amazing, supportive community and provided me with the most eye opening part of our trip. The month after we left the town the government put in land lines for electricity. I wonder how the town has changed since then..
After Hijos Del Maiz, we spent our time traveling back and forth from Leon, Esteli, Jiquilillo and then back to Granada.
Leon is a metropolitan city known for its heat. We ate at some amazingly fancy restaurants for as little as 25 dollars for two meals and bottle service, got swarmed by locusts on top of a cathedral, went to some great museums such as the myths and legends museum and one that specialized in the contemporary art of Latin America. We also both ate something bad here that forced us to go running full speed back to the beach.
Jiquilillo is a small beach town on a peninsula of northern Nicaragua. We stayed at a hostel in a bamboo hut about 30 feet from the beach. We found giant shells, watched fishermen bring in sharks after a day of fishing, read tons of books, swam, rescued a sea turtle from becoming soup and met a lot of really great travelers. We left the day before the horrible earthquake in Japan which forced everyone away from the beach in fear of a tsunami. Jiquilillo was wiped out by a tsunami not very long ago and many of the people who live there lost family members.
Esteli is most known for its coffee plantations and cigar factories. We went on a cigar factory tour, drank some amazing organic coffee, saw a sloth in the rain forest, slept in a treehouse, and stayed on a legit Finca.
Then we went home. I left a bazillion things out of this summary...but that's what happens when you procrastinate. It took us over 24 hours to get home thanks to hurricane like winds in Florida and an 8 hour layover. Justin and I both jumped back into the American lifestyle quickly enjoying our reliable electricity, toilets that can accomadate toilet paper flushing, foods we missed, and a bed guaranteed to be bed bug free. Prices were hard to get used to again. Everytime we bought something we converted it to Cordobas and realized for one tank of gas you could get all of your daily meals.
We hibernated for a month and tomorrow we set off on our next grand adventure. The Pacific Crest Trail. We are hiking over 1,000 miles from the border of Mexico to Truckee, CA. This will officially cover all the places that Justin had to skip last summer and provide another two and a half months of living rent free. We have officially gone 365 days of not paying rent or having a permanent address.
What a crazy year!
I am almost 24!
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Granada
We just happened to arrive in the bustling city of Granada during the anual Festival Internacional de Poesía. A perfect mistake. There were giant stages set up all over the city where international poets read their work to eager crowds. Nicaragua has a rich, rich history of poets. Ruben Dario being the most famous poetic celebrity is well known by all. So while we wandered around looking at the amazing cathedrals and churches we were surrounded by cultural demonstrations of nicaraguan tradition. This link is from 2009, but it explains the event very well. Passion for Poetry in Nicaragua-BBC.
Our first day in Nicaragua we were overwhelmed by the heat and noise. The city was a drastic change from our relaxed island adventure. The only downfall to our Granada timing was that every hotel was booked. A slightly crazy looking man picked up on our lost-overwhelmed-american tourist scents and insisted on helping us find a hotel. He walked us from place to place, speaking in broken english and waving at random people...we were highly skeptical. Why was he so insistant on helping us, how did he know all these people and more importantly did we have to tip him?? Finally we settled on a semi-private room in a hostel that seemed nice. We had half a wall seperating our room from the other. We noticed that the hotel gave our insisting guide 30 cordobas. We figured it was good that he helped us navigate because at one point we found ourselves surrounded by the glue sniffing street kids that are typical of Granada..our guide skillfully swatted them away. We spent the majority of our morning drinking giant glasses of iced cacao in the central park while watching the street vendors do their thing. We took the obligatory siesta and then went to the central park at night to watch nationally famous singer Carlos Mejía Godoy perform infront of the cathedral.
Our first day in Nicaragua we were overwhelmed by the heat and noise. The city was a drastic change from our relaxed island adventure. The only downfall to our Granada timing was that every hotel was booked. A slightly crazy looking man picked up on our lost-overwhelmed-american tourist scents and insisted on helping us find a hotel. He walked us from place to place, speaking in broken english and waving at random people...we were highly skeptical. Why was he so insistant on helping us, how did he know all these people and more importantly did we have to tip him?? Finally we settled on a semi-private room in a hostel that seemed nice. We had half a wall seperating our room from the other. We noticed that the hotel gave our insisting guide 30 cordobas. We figured it was good that he helped us navigate because at one point we found ourselves surrounded by the glue sniffing street kids that are typical of Granada..our guide skillfully swatted them away. We spent the majority of our morning drinking giant glasses of iced cacao in the central park while watching the street vendors do their thing. We took the obligatory siesta and then went to the central park at night to watch nationally famous singer Carlos Mejía Godoy perform infront of the cathedral.
The next morning we heard a rumor that a parade would be starting just down the block from our hostal. The rumor was proven to be true when suddenly fireworks starting exploding and a band began playing. Out of absolutely nowhere hundreds of people in amazing costumes appeared infront of the delapidated church and began dancing in a manner that I have never witnessed before in my entire life..
All the men were dressed like voluptuous women complete with nylons, heels, makeup, undergarments..you name it. They all wore fantastic painted wooden masks. It was literally insane. Sensory overload.
Soon we noticed more and more people in costumes lining up in the street to prepare for the parade. Groups of boys dragging chains between them ran full speed down the street, falling, scraping their knees on the road, setting off fireworks and chasing each other while wearing this hats will tall blue thingys ( for lack of a better word) jutting up a few feet into the air. Folklorico groups danced along behind them. More men in dresses shimmied their way down the street to reggeaton. It was magnificent.
Towards the end of the parade a group of men dressed like random political figures (that I don´t know well enough to identify..except Ortega of course) came walking down the street. The man dressed as Ortega was manipulating a giant piñata while random characters attempted to swat at it. A man in a purple dress called Justin into the parade and made him try to hit the piñata. Justin being the insightful, respectful person he is gently swatted the piñata just incase the action was disrespectful to a certain political party. The man, most likely unimpressed by Justin´s batting arm called me in next. Because I am apparently much more oblivious to my political actions I wailed on that piñata like there was no tomorrow while the crazy men in dresses danced and chanted around me. Definetly the weirdest moment in my life so far. The group was protesting the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan dispute of the Rio San Juan. I am not sure of American involvement in this issue, but I would not be surprised if a photo of me destroying that piñata suddenly appears in some ¨Get America out of our Teritorial Disputes!¨ article...oops.
Other than the crazy parade, The poverty in Granada seemed overwhelming. I´m not sure if the beggers were out in full force because of the influx of tourists or what, but it was really heartbreaking. Children begging for food followed us everywhere. We were so bothered by it that we left earlier than we had intended to. We plan on returning to Granada for a few more days before we fly home. It will be interesting to see the city a bit less inflated with people.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
una poema
Los Indios Cielos
Abramos un camino en el aire,
para mirarnos,
busquemos un rincón en el aire
para acostarnos.
Sin luz en el cuerpo
sólo con fuego.
Este color de sombra tiene tu cara.
Este color de sombra es la sombra de tu alma.
Abramos un camino en el aire
con tu brazo.
Si no te ven mis ojos, que te vea
mi carne.
¡Ah! No tenemos luz en el cuerpo
Tenemos fuego.
para mirarnos,
busquemos un rincón en el aire
para acostarnos.
Sin luz en el cuerpo
sólo con fuego.
Este color de sombra tiene tu cara.
Este color de sombra es la sombra de tu alma.
Abramos un camino en el aire
con tu brazo.
Si no te ven mis ojos, que te vea
mi carne.
¡Ah! No tenemos luz en el cuerpo
Tenemos fuego.
--------
The Blind Indians
Lets open a road in the air
so we can look at each other.
Lets look for a corner in the air
so we can lie down.
Without light in our bodies, only fire.
Your face has the color of shadow.
The color of shadow, the color of your soul.
Lets open a road in the air
with your arm.
If my eyes do not see you
my flesh will.
Ah we don´t have light in our bodies.
We have fire.
Joaquin Pasos
One of these days I need to drink eight cups of coffee, find an air conditioned Cyber and update this blog. It seems impossible to catch up. I found this poem in a book while wasting away time on a curb in the middle of a campesino community. Poetry is HUGE in Nicaragua. Poets are celebrities.
Right now we are in Leon and it is HOT, HOT, HOT.
Ice cream has never been so necessary.
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