Thursday, January 14, 2010--UP IN THE MORNING AND OFF TO SCHOOL . . .

Really off to Nicaragua where I will meet daughter Jess for a three-week vacation.  In Nicaragua, Jess and I will meet Jessica's friends, Jenn & Peter. Jenn and Jessica had been co-workers at Blue Waters Kayaking Tours in Point Reyes Station, California, but Jenn had moved to Nicaragua and started her own kayaking business, Ibis Exchange. Jess and I would kayak the Padre Ramos Estero with Jenn as our guide.

The alarm sent out its modern ring at 3 am. Aarrggh! I had not slept a wink. I was finishing a good book about 12:45 am when the cats brought a live mouse to the bed: “IT’S A LIVE MOUSE!” I shrieked, waking Jeff.

The poor tiny mouse was wet from being mouthed. I threw a corner of the duvet over it, and Jeff held it in place, trapping the little guy while I ran to get a plastic container and lid. When I got back we lifted a corner of the duvet carefully and the guy promptly ran out and down behind the trunk at the foot of the bed . . . and disappeared. Neither we nor the cats could find the mouse anywhere.

Back to bed about 1:30 am. Jeff soon asleep and I wide awake. Finished my book but could not sleep, my mind rambling in all directions.

Got up with the alarm, took a shower, and washed my hair. Jeff made coffee and a croissant sandwich for me to take with me for breakfast, airport food being pricey and airlines food being so horrible and undependable.

We got to OKC at 5:30 am for my 6:30 am Continental flight to Houston with connections on COPA to Managua, Nicaragua. Five minutes after Jeff left the airport, I realized that I still had my raincoat on. Damn! I’d dressed for the heat (sandals and Capri's) and had planned to leave the jacket in the car. I rolled it tightly and crammed it into my backpack. I was traveling with only a mid-sized backpack and a fanny pack.

Flight to Houston fine; flight from Houston to Managua somewhat delayed as our pilots had trouble finding a lift to the airport and were late arriving. Many people on the plane were going to a wedding of a NY guy who worked for their company and a Nicaraguan woman. They had their wedding clothing in large bags carefully stowed in the overhead compartments.

As the plane approached the Managua airport, we could see several steaming volcanoes.

I had a bit of anxiety in Managua when I didn’t see either Jess or my backpack. Eventually both showed up, and off we went to the central bus stop, sharing a taxi with two girls from Pennsylvania whom we’d met at the airport.

At the central bus stop, we crammed ourselves into a mini-bus going to Leon. When all the seats are taken, the driver puts a chair or board from seat to seat across the aisle so that there is a center seat but no center aisle. (I found out later that they do this on the pangas, too, to get as many fares on as possible.) I got to sit on such a seat, a metal mesh chair of sorts. I had a young man on my left thigh and a young mother breastfeeding her small black eyed son on my right. Not only did I develop a waffle pattern on my derriere, but I was horribly cramped, my ankles swollen as there was no place to put my long legs and feet.

Most Central and South Americans are diminutive compared to us lanky northern relatives. Thus several aspects of travel in these countries make being tall uncomfortable. Riding on the bus was one of them. The regular buses (not the mini-buses) are all used U.S. school buses — elementary school buses! This means tiny seats with virtually no leg room. Also, in the country areas we traveled, some of the showers and toilets were outdoors and had black plastic privacy walls — privacy for the natives, maybe, but not for me as the walls were only about rib high. I had to crouch down when I was taking a bucket shower or using the loo.

The countryside was drier and more bare than I had imagined for a country this far south. Many people bicycled or rode the dusty roadside in rudimentary wooden carts pulled by small, washboard-ribbed horses, their harnesses made of rope or whatever would work. Men at roadside held up groups of large, dead iguanas by their tails, their tongues hanging out (the iguana’s tongues, that is). I surmised that iguana was a food item here much like guinea pigs are in northern Ecuador. Cattle grazed or were driven at roadside (see below)—the kind of white and pale tan cattle with the ruffled neck wattles and small upturned horns that one sees in pix of Africa. I later learned that these are special Nicaraguan cattle bred to be heat tolerant and are used for both meat and milk. Most of the houses at roadside were very basic dusty wooden pavilion types in a cleared patch of dirt and with thatched or tin roofs and plastic-wrapped outdoor showers, toilets, and cook spots.

When we arrived in Leon, we took a taxi to the Hostal Tortuga Booluda (Lazy Turtle). Before we left the U.S., I had reserved at Lazy Bones because Tortuga Booluda told me over the phone that they had no room available. Well, low and behold, the airy upstairs room was now available! Good news. It had its own bath, balcony, and cooling breezes, but was not made up, and Jess desperately needed to lie down. She has walking pneumonia, had taken the red-eye flight so had not slept the night before, and had packed hastily only hours before her departure as she was frantically tying up loose ends with her jobs, her separation from Kim, and her move to her new digs.

Tortuga Booluda gated front entrance

Artwork behind the Tortuga Booluda front desk symbolically showing some Nicaraguan history

Tortuga Booluda courtyard, the red stairs leading up to our room in the back

Jess is sleeping at the mo and I am out on the balcony lazing in the hammock and trying to i.d. the birds in the surrounding trees. So far I have seen only birds we have in NA. They, too, are down here on vacation: Orchard Oriole pair, several Mourning Doves, a couple of Scrub Jays, and a flock of Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, our OK state bird.

Jess trying to recover from exhaustion, separation, and walking pneumonia

Our balcony hammock and chairs

Jess relaxing in our balcony hammock

Roof tiles near our Tortuga Booluda balcony

Active volcano as seen from our balcony

Jess was too exhausted to go out for dinner, so asked me to go out and bring something back. My Spanish is Sesame Street to nonexistent and the city so strange that I made it in the dark busy streets only three blocks to a “supermarket.” This market had little in it that I could think to put together for a meal, even though we had access to a kitchen downstairs. I ended up buying a box of granola and a tub of plain yogurt.

When she woke up, Jess wanted none of it. She is depressed, among other things, and is wondering why she is here. I ate a bowl of granola and yogurt, we talked for about 45 minutes, and then hit the hay at 7:45 pm.

Well, we only hit the hay for an hour or so. At 9 pm Jess woke in a better mood and wanted to go for an explore. We walked around several parks and blocks, bought a baggie of sliced pineapple from a boy in a lavender ruffled apron (ruffled aprons with zippered pockets being the costume de rigor for street vendors) and bought street meat (chicken for me, pork for Jess with onions and tomatoes) wrapped in plantain leaves. This last was too messy to eat on the street, so we carried it back to TB and ate. Jess had a beer with hers from the cooler near the front desk and I had some water. Then I was dead on my feet and fell into bed.