New Lodgings

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Whilst ensconced in Spanish classes in Esteli we stayed with a family on what was a pseudo homestay. Pseudo in the sense that Ivania, the mother of the household, was quietly building her very own little hotel empire. Consequently, we were joined at our digs by two other foreign characters. Kenny, a rather boring fifty plus save-the-world obsessive from Florida (sorry Kenny you’re a nice guy but one more riveting lunch time exchange over tortillas and gallopinto would be one more far too many). And, Joe (Joseph) a rather interestingly mannered lad from Upstate New York who we first had down as an axe murderer but turned out to be quite a fascinating individual.

Ivania and company were certainly more than a little removed from our host family in Sabana Grande. Removed mostly in terms of size. Ivania was very infrequently encountered without a frying pan in hand cooking up her next grease laden creation. Regular infusions of multigrain bread, dried fruit, nuts and bananas from our stash fortunately seemed to offset our artery clogging nourishment. Ivania’s favourite delicacy was deep fried tortilla which when we declined a second helping left our host decidedly perplexed. Silvio, the man of the house, deftly wove in his regular grease injections with some very intensive TV watching. It appeared Silvio’s ambition was for a career in TV based on his phenomenally close proximity to the box. It seemed as if at any moment his favourite rocking chair would launch him through the screen for his staring TV debut. However, rather unfortunately for Silvio the laws of physics would probably have thwarted his plans as the TV looked decidedly on the inadequate side to deal with his amble frame.

It was however a good spot to crash for a few weeks and not have to worry about cooking in between the onslaughts of Spanish classes. We’ve now left Esteli despite our rotund hosts constantly battering us with news about how everything about the world was awful outside their town. The unfortunate consequence of too much TV news. Now in Granada we are holing up for a week to put the wheels in motion on our plans for when we return home.

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