Tuesday, January 19, 2010 -- OUR STAY AT DONĀ JUANA’S

Woke with the rooster at 4 am. Got up at 7 am and repacked my bag. Daniel and Jess were back at about 7:30—both had slept in the little tents under Jenn & Peter’s pavilion meant for Jess and me. They thought it prudent as the party ended late and they had drunk much rum. I paid Tina for my room ($8) and then Jess and I said goodbye to Daniel and walked back to Jenn & Peter’s. There we had breakfast of Raisin Bran, yogurt, pineapple slices, and coffee. Then we packed up our gear and left from the beach for our four-day kayak tour of Padre Ramos Estero. While we were eating our breakfast, Uciel, a young guy that Jenn is training as a kayak tour leader and naturalist, and Dina, a young woman whom Jenn has employed as a cook, were busy gathering the supplies for our paddle. Uciel filled two large plastic containers with drinking water from the well and gathered the hammocks, tents, and Thermarests; Dina gathered her cookware and stove and food supplies. The two of them would motor to our take-out later in the day.

Jenn and Jess and I had a wonderful paddle! Almost as though we were the only people on the estuary. Though I tired easily and had the devil of a time with my hip, heel, and blisters getting in and out of the kayak, I took short rests and managed to hold my own. We explored several channels, birded, examined the trees and plants, swam, and kept an eye out for the sea turtles that swim in these waters. On the beaches were many small hermit crabs in all sorts of shells. We watched two different battles for different shells. The crabs are ruthless, pulling out and battling with the crabs in the larger shells they want. One or the other dies.

Again we stopped at one of the islands at low tide and had lunch—rice and beans, cheese (a very good white cheese with a sharp flavor), tortillas, cold mango and pineapple/banana juice from the little cooler. Jenn let us taste tamarind seeds, and she plucked some very spiny pods and showed us the pearly grey seed inside. She told us that pregnant Nicaraguan women placed these seeds in a glass of water to see which ones floated and which ones sunk. This distinguishing male from female. The seeds are worn by all babies for good luck.

The estuary is full of red and black mangrove trees. Some having small anemones on their roots, others with small crabs. While we never saw a sea turtle, we did find a large, intact tortuga skull caught in one of the mangrove roots. Jenn collected and treasured it.

About mid-afternoon we turned into a small channel in the mangroves and came to a clearing and a muddy beach before which was anchored Jenn’s blue wooden motorboat. Uciel came to the muddy bank (it was low tide) to help us up the bank. He had set up two tents—one in which Jenn, he, and Dina were to sleep and one in which Jess and I were to sleep. The tents were right next to each other, so Jess and I moved ours farther away into our own clearing for more privacy.

Uciel with the two tents

Jessica's and my tent after move in

We were at Donā Juana’s house! DJ was a real treat. She is a 62-year old independent individual who lives five miles from the nearest road or store. Most of her supplies come by boat. Our tents were set up near her thatched pavilion. I immediately saw that this was a house with a difference. DJ’s thatched pavilion had cut, upturned logs around its perimeter to sit on . . . and each was topped with a colorful round cushion. Donā Juana had planted many different bushes and flowers, each placed in a neat circle of stones. She had hung plants and birds’ nests and interesting finds from the pavilion and fence and the thatch porch to her house. Iguanas climbed her trees, unmolested and protected from those who would eat them. Two orange-fronted parakeets chirped in the hanging plants before her dirt-floored thatched porch. She had elevated her privy so that one had to walk up three steps to get to it, and then, after parting the hanging canvas door, had to remove a chunk of wood that served as the toilet lid. Pretty primitive, but the toilet base was concrete and before the toilet was a soft little rug.

Dona Juana's very nice and servicable pavilion

Donā Juana invited us to her thatched porch under which was a primitive oven and stove that she had built herself, as well as shelves for dishes and plastic glasses, etc. Not far from the porch was Donā Juana’s bucket shower with typical low plastic surround next to a clothes washing basin. Both were filled with water from DJ’s well, which was across the dirt path in her cattle lot. When later that evening I wanted to take a shower, she fetched bucket after bucket of water, and I dumped it into the large plastic barrel in one corner of the shower—which again was pint sized and didn’t afford me much protection from curious eyes. Several well-fed dogs strolled the area, as well as three pigs and chickens and turkeys with their young. All the fowl walked up a pole ladder DJ had devised and into the trees near the porch to roost in the evenings. The three roosters woke us far too early each morn; the barking dogs, crowing roosters, and cooing doves kept us awake into the night, but these are the sounds familiar to Nicaraguan ears and they don’t even hear them anymore.

All of Donā Juana’s dirt yard was swept and raked, and there were little piles of burning or burned leaves and debris here and there. (I must at this point stop for an aside: I told Jess near the end of our trip that I would remember Nicaragua for two things—the smell of smoke and its dissolving napkins. Having no regular garbage pick-up or dump, Nicaraguans fed their table scraps to the dogs and pigs and burned anything burnable each morning, generally at the edge of the road to their property. Thus the air was often hazy with smoke. I’ll get to the dissolving napkin bit later.) Dona Juana's dirt yard was filled with orange, lime, and other fruit trees.

I learned later that evening that Donā Juana had four children in college and was giving room and board to an adopted daughter with a 3-month old baby.

Dona Juana's adopted daughter;I have forgotten her name

After I showered and got out of my paddling/swimming clothes, Jenn spoke to Donā Juana and brought me a pail of water in which to soak my very sore blistered foot, also a pair of DJ’s clean socks. One of the bandages I had applied had turned to a gummy, gluey mess and was impossible to get off. The open blister was filled with mud and dirt. I used a safety pin to open the bottom of the blister enough that Jenn could irrigate it and flush out the dirt. She then applied a “waterproof” dressing. Jess took a couple of pix of this operation.

After the shower and foot doctoring, it was time to laze in the hammocks and talk while Dina prepared supper, which consisted of very tough but tasty beef with the usual rice and beans and cabbage salad. Dina forgot the seasonings I think as she and Uciel searched through all the gear for the “condiments.” Dina is cooking on a two-burner Coleman stove. We help ourselves from the various skillets and pans on or near the stove or she heaps a plate and hands it to us. Everyone is being too solicitous of me, even going so far as to give me a Thermarest chair with a back to sit on my log.

Jess and I were in the little tent and ready for sleep not too long after dark. Jess fell asleep quickly, but I tossed and turned all night, getting up several times and struggling out of the tent to pee. One time, unable to find my headlamp, I walked straight into a tree in the dark, fortunately not the one with the thorny trunk.