Nicaragua Part 2

Let’s go back to Nicaragua -

After the amazing day at Masalla on Wednesday, we returned to town and had dinner and went out for a drink and some relaxing time as a group. I didn’t have anything but it was fun to just be out with the girls. We tried to find a place to go dancing, but in San Juan del Sur, there wasn’t much to do on a Wednesday night. When we got back to the house things got a little crazy, and not in a good way. I don’t think this is the place to discuss such things, but know that we are all safe and everything got figured out by the time we left. Some of us would rather forget the events of that evening, but it was an important learning experience for some of us.

Thursday classes were ok, even on very little sleep. For the afternoon our host, Doña Rosa, had organized a trip to Grenada. Grenada is a small colonial-like town about 3 hours from San Juan del Sur that is known for its beautiful churches and the history. Grenada was the “capitol” of Nicaragua during a time when a man had declared himself president of Nicaragua under a puppet government and made Grenada the capitol. It didn’t last long but that is part of the strange history of Grenada. The streets were narrow but lined with continuous buildings, each shop or house painted a different color. It reminded me of a small town I went to when I was in Colombia, full of color and culture. There were food vendors selling apples (from the states!), local snacks and foods, mango verde (green mango, actually really good) and any number of other things. I walked around with Jane, Amy, Stacey, Caitlin, and Maritza (the woman who cooked for us) and her daughter. We waked through the town taking pictures and observing the difference in culture from Costa Rica, even the difference from San Juan del Sur. While loving all the colors we saw as we walked, we went into a couple churches.

Church in the main square

Center park with tour carriages lining the street

Cool barber shop, most all say that they are unisex.

The one near the central square was very beautiful, recently remodeled and repaired, but I didn’t take pictures inside, out of respect. Then we walked down the road a bit and went into another church:

Essentially: Kill the patriot Orteguismo. During one of their revolutions this was spray painted on the side of the church.

Beautiful carving at the top of the columns in the church.

Up the winding staircase to the tower.

It was in the middle of trying to do some repairs and one of the ways they funded that, was charging a dollar for tourists to climb the bell tower. It was one of the best dollars I have ever spent! The view from the top was phenomenal! We saw the bells, some older looking than others, and we could see so much of the city from there. Grenada sits on the edge of Lake Nicaragua, which we could also see:

In the other direction we could see green hills and we also had a fantastic view of other parts of the church’s architecture.

The pendulum of the clock at the top of the tower. We could feel it ticking!

We could see the town square and all the buildings:

It was breathtaking. After we climbed down, after taking a million pictures, we walked past a little café that sold iced coffee drinks and some amazing food. We enjoyed being out of the sun for a little while and cooled down with some fantastic milkshakes and other bebidas (drinks).

Maritza and her daughter, Jane, Stacey, Amy and Caitlin

Maritza wearing my sunglasses, she looked hot!

After a snack we continued our walk though town. We went down a very beautiful street. There were balcony gardens and so many colors! It was wonderful. Walking through the main square again, seeing the fountain and the statue of mother Mary surrounded by palm trees and little vendors:

Mother Mary bathing her children. My favorite is the one below:

We continued down the path that went to the lake:

Here there were no cars just some really cute cafés and higher end stores. I didn’t do any shopping, but we bought some mango verde and snacked while we walked.

Going back to the car we encountered several people begging for food or money. It was really different from Costa Rica. Granted I live in Monteverde, where there is a lot of tourism and not too much obvious poverty. But Nicaragua is poorer than Costa Rica by a long way, due to many revolutions and puppet governments that have left the country in turmoil. In Grenada, however, it was very obvious. They would come right up to you and ask for money or food. When we were getting in the car, they were right there. I had some food left from my snack and gave it to them but it still didn’t feel like I was helping. It is hard when the poverty is right in front of you. There are some memories that I will never forget. Some from the things I saw in India, some from Costa Rica and some from Nicaragua. Not all are negative, but they are all things that will influence me in the future.

After we left Grenada, we went to Masaya (sounds like messiah):

It is one of the largest collection of locally made arts and goods. It was a little like the Portland Saturday Market. We had a couple hours to look around. There was a lot of repetition. Many people doing the same crafts, but there was so much color and it was fun to look around. As I turned a corner I saw a vendor selling hammocks and hammock chairs, and they had them in, of all things, RAINBOW!! So, for $12, I have the most amazing rainbow hammock chair that will one day hang in my living room...or on the front porch of my house in Portland for the summer : ). I thought it would fit diagonally in one of my suitcases, but nope...I'll just have to carry it on, or send it home with my parents when they come in April (tee hee). There was all kinds of things there. shirts, native designed dresses in all colors (I would have bought one, but it would have looked like a Mumu on me, very unflattering). There were many types of cigars, some with Obama on them, cute carvings and paintings too. There was even some unusual art form of inflating and preserving or tanning frogs and posing them in some interesting and sometimes questionable poses:

After an hour, my feet hurt so much and I went back to the car to lay down. Plus most of the vendors were packing up and the sun was setting. It was very fun to see, plus a good way to buy some gifts for friends and family...hint hint.

On our way home we stopped at a little place where we could stretch our legs and eat dinner. After that we got back in the car for a couple more hours to get back to San Juan del Sur. We were all in a van that had seats for about 18 people but there were about 21 of us in the van, so it was a little crowded.

Friday class was fun again. I began to learn the future tense, especially the “I’m going to go…” and so on. In the afternoon we went to the beach for one last swim in the ocean. However, the water was FILLED with dying jellyfish. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t sting you, but they were EVERYWHERE!! I got in the water anyway, because it was our last day, but it was eventually too much. Back at the main house where we ate our meals, our hostess had planned a little party for us all. Some of the teachers performed a traditional Nicaraguan Dance for us, and then there was dancing with a fun game of musical chairs.

Our host Doña Rosa

My teacher and I

Maritza's daughter, such a sweet girl

Jane and I in our complementary colors!

They provided some drinks and we were all enjoying talking and enjoying the last night of our vacation. Some of us wanted to see the sunset over the beach one last time, and Jane wanted ice cream, so we walked to town to get some ice cream and watch the sunset. The ice cream place on the beach was selling the equivalent of fudgecicles for 3 cordobas, which is about 15 cents! They were so good! Sitting on the steps leading to the beach, watching the sun go down behind the horizon with tons of boats floating on the water was beautiful. A couple days before there had been a monstrous cruise ship in the bay and I had refused to watch the sunset, but that night it was perfect.

Macey was less than pleased that I was taking the picture, but everyone else doesn't mind.

Our last sunset in Nicaragua

Back at the house, we had some great food and freshened up to go out and try to find some place to go dancing! First, however, we had to get Jane more ice cream. Those fudgecicles were SO good!! While we were there, we ran into some other Canadians and they introduced us to a guy who used to work at the hotel they were staying at. His name was Michael and he spoke English really well! So while Jane was getting her ice cream fix (she finally stopped at 8 fudgecicles) the four of us, Amy, Stacey, Jane and I, sat and talked with him. We had plans to meet with our other friends at another bar that usually has dancing, so he walked with us to the bar. Eventually we went back to Iguana’s, the bar we had been at a couple nights before. It was kind of crowded but eventually they put on some music we could dance to and we had a ball! They even played some music I knew! Michael and Amy and I danced together and when I got too hot, just went to the ocean and walked on the sand. It was an amazing night!! Michael and I stayed out talking late into the night and we learned a TON about each other. He just graduated from high school and got accepted to a University in Managua (the capital) and he is going to study French so he can be a translator! He is the first person I have met here that has the desire to get a higher education, and that he is in the process of doing it is also amazing. His first day of classes was yesterday! It was a fantastic night and a glorious way to end a vacation!

So Nicaragua was pretty amazing. Madera is the most amazing beach I have ever been to and I met some fantastic people! There are parts that I wish hadn’t happened but overall, it was a great vacation! I’ll try to post all the pictures soon. Keep in touch!

Still working on up loading pictures, but hopefully these will suit for now.

Hugs!

K