Friday, January 15, 2010--PLAYING ON THE PLAYA—LAS PEŇITAS

The plan is (was) to hole up in Leon for two or three days doing little or nothing so that Jess could rest and recover before heading north to our five-day Padre Ramos kayak paddle, scheduled to begin on January 18th.  Hold that thought . . .

I got up at 8 and brewed coffee for both of us in the communal kitchen. Then we took turns taking showers (cold water only), organized our stuff, and then left to check out Lazy Bones—a bigger, newer hostel with a swimming pool. Lazy bones had a wonderfully spacious courtyard and pool area, but, the only rooms available were smaller, windowless, and with less storage space than the one we were in. We decided that we were well off where we were.

We did, however, eat breakfast in El Mediterraneo on Parque Rubén Darío Street (named after Nicaragua’s most revered poet), across from Lazy Bones. El M’s dining tables were in a great plant and vine shrouded courtyard. I had mushroom & tomato crêpes & coffee and Jess had a Nica breakfast of rice and beans and eggs. She also had a tall pineapple smoothie.

A  pale and rocky Jess braving it over breakfast at El Mediterraneo, Lonely Planet at the ready

Jess is still coughing and feeling weak and exhausted. When not studying her Lonely Planet, she is diving into her Spanish primers, figuring out a way to say or ask something. She picks up language like the buses here pick up passengers. Very quickly she crams a lot of words and phrases into her working vocabulary. She has a talent for imitating, too, so her pronunciation is excellent. I, on the other hand, seem to be the old horse to who can’t learn new tricks. I have little aural memory (or much memory at all, for that matter). I must see the word written and then hear it repeatedly before it sticks in my mind. Even then I am self-conscious about using it. Smiling, personable Jess has no such problems and charms all whom she meets.

After breakfast, we returned to TB, rested for about an hour, and then caught a taxi to the central bus stop and a bus to the playa (beach). The bus was one of the crazily painted ones and we squeezed in elbow to elbow, thigh to thigh. The bus held probably three times its maximum load of people—some on the roof with the luggage—and the ticket collector hanging out the front door yelling our destination to all, hoping to cram one more fare onto the bus. It was a 40-minute HOT ride, but interesting. One of the passengers had what I think was a red-lored parrot, and I took a couple of pix of it.

I nearly missed the bus while taking a photo of this orange-fronted parakeet near the bus stop

Eventually the crowd thinned out and I got to sit down . . . next to a woman named Christine from Vancouver Island. She seemed a pretty timid traveler to be solo. She was relieved to be speaking English, so told me of her travels so far. Pretty unexciting by my standards.

When we got to the beach, we got off at Oasis, a surfer’s place. Jess is a beach baby and wanted to surf, despite her condition. She checked out Oasis and then we walked down the beach to Hotel Olazul’s thatch-roofed restaurant right on the beach. On the way we met Christine, who ran out from another place to greet us.

At Olazul, we shared a shrimp salad (swimming in way too much dressing) and drank a couple of beers and fruit drinks. Jess wrote out some postcards, and I watched the action on the beach and in the restaurant. A handful of kids were hawking seashell necklaces. Two bony, skinny female dogs, their teats hanging down and their stomachs concave, stood by our table and looked at us beseechingly. Both the kids and the dogs were chased off by the waiter and the security guard. The half starved dogs, horses, and kids hurt my feelings. I left half my drink and quite a bit of food on my plate, which the kids stole before we'd hardly stood up. No need for bus staff here.

Seedpod and salad, what could be better?

Some of the children hawking shell jewelry

Jess was considering moving from Leon to Las Penitas and Hotel Olazul, the Lonely Planet “pick” of a place to stay. Olazul had no vacancies. Neither of us are city people, and Jess wanted a vacation where she could loll in a hammock, lie in the sun, and surf. Me? I’m for taking photos, birding, exploring tide pools, picking up shells, and finding seedpods and interesting natural things.

Our trip back on the bus was much less crowded and faster than our trip to the Playa—our return driver having a lead foot. We joked that the driver on the way out was a feather foot. When we got back to Leon, the bus driver told us to get off—this was the last stop. A taxi driver was Johnny on the Spot to pick us up and take us back to TB.

Jess about to be engulfed in a large wave

Back at TB, I was sitting in a swinging chair in the courtyard having a beer and watching a couple play billiards when a woman who claimed to have been on the same bus approached. She told me that we had not needed to get off the bus and take a taxi because the real “end of the line” was at a nearby church. Guess the taxi driver and bus driver were in cahoots . . . probably related. Actually we didn’t need to worry much about this kind of scam. Tourists are such a novelty in the country that few bus drivers and taxis take them “for a ride.”

We showered, put in a little computer time reading and responding to our e-mails, dressed, and went back out an hour or so later. Before we ate, we walked to a bank ATM, or I should say Jess did. I walked part of the way and then waited for her on a bench. My feet are still swollen and I’m having trouble with my Achilles tendon. (I HATE feeling old like this!) Jess used the ATM and withdrew $200 from each of our accounts—about 2,000 cordobas each. Nicaraguan paper money is interesting, slick and waxy feeling with small see-through windows in it and pix of people and places in the country.

Forty-eight percent of the Nicaraguan population lives below the poverty level, earning the equivalent of $100 or less a month. We were told that professionals such as doctors make about the equivalent of $500 a month. It is no wonder then that when we hand a shop owner a 200 cordoba bill (about $10), he just shakes his head and cannot make change for it. Rooms at Tortuga rent for from $6 to $24—we have the most expensive room with its own bathroom. The cheapest rooms at these hostels are dormitory style and much too hot, cramped, and claustrophobic for any but the well-hardened backpacker.

We ate dinner where we'd had breakfast, at El Mediterraneo across from Lazy Bones. Dinner was served in the same building but in a different courtyard. I had a Victoria beer, a bowl of delicious gazpacho soup, and we shared a cucumber/walnut salad. Jess had curried chicken. We shared a banana crepe for dessert. it came, as below, with a funny face. All but the salad was delicious.