Five down… two to go! (Wish we had 20 more!)

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Nicaragua, our fifth country to be visited in CA, required quite the maneuvering from Roatan, but it was well worth it! By sea and land, we would have taken a 1 hour water taxi from Roatan to the mainland and then a 15 hour (mas o menos) bus ride, and on top of that, adding time to go through three countries’ customs. Instead, we chose the more direct route – a plane ride. But nothing is ever that simple, of course. We flew to San Pedro, Honduras, then to San Salvador, El Salvador, then to Nicaragua. At least the plane rides, even with layovers only took 4 hours. Economically speaking, saving 15 hours of travel (on a bus) cost us $200.00. You do the math and let us know what you would have done for your travel.

The airport transfers were flawless. The immigration requirements are so less encumbering than via bus or in general, in the US. People at the counters smile and are excited to practice their English with us. We arrived at the airport in Managua and Andy was there to pick us up for the ride to the hotel, he had a sign reading “Clay Smith.” The baggage check through customs was putting our bags in a machine and a girl on the other side just asking for us to hurry up and give her our forms (3 seconds or less), she never looked at them, which is a good thing, since we were keen on smuggling dead iguanas in from Roatan for a snack. J

Andy had a 4 wheel drive Land Rover with turquoise seats. He spoke very little English but made sure that we saw things of interest along the way. The volcano at Olmetepe was smoking and we were able to see how beautiful it was, long before we reached Granada. Andy took us on a “short cut” so that we would not catch the afternoon traffic in Managua. We were thankful. The roads were really good (by CA standards), but Andy drove so fast that Ann had to close her eyes - - it was like a Disney World ride. Honk, Honk, Honk means for people to get out of the way - - we are coming!!! There were some familiar fast food signs, but mostly, people were milling about chatting and buying things from roadside vendors as in other CA countries. At one stoplight some kids wanted to clean Andy’s windshield. See photo of rejected kid sitting down.

We arrived in Granada and realized that the town looked a lot like Antigua, Guatemala. It is quaint looking and colonial. You can tell that behind the massive doors are glorious residences, but they will mostly remain a mystery to us. We chose to stay at Miss Margrit’s hotel based upon the feedback from Trip Advisor. We choose wisely! There were the same doors, that you know something good is behind, but until they are opened, you can only imagine. Let us say, beautiful and open, wood and tile hacienda would not even begin to describe the absolutely phenomenal space that awaited us. This space is exactly what you would see on House Hunter’s International as a hidden gem. A sitting area is just behind the door. By sitting area, we mean a super large gigantic room that is very cleverly decorated to allow you to appreciate the natural beauty of the room. Behind that, the breeze blows through the lushly landscaped courtyard, with fountain, through to the rear area which houses the kitchen, dining area, massive separate garden area and pool.

We hate to keep using the word paradise, but this is indoor/outdoor paradise, par none! We know that we will venture outside into the city, but for now, this is truly peaceful and we seriously want it to be our home. Our guest room is also awesome (of course it is). Wood floors, nice accents, big, comfy, clean and wonderful smelling bed and great bathroom with super big shower with a completely toilet paper friendly toilet! YES!!!

Our host, Chris (yes, same name as Roatan), from England (yes, same as Chris from Roatan) is charming and warm. His BFF/GF Pip (from New Zealand) is also extremely warm and inviting. They are interesting people with interesting stories. One of the best parts of this trip is being able to hear the stories of others, including this Brit and Kiwi. What is so surprising to us new vagabonds is that there are many out there with the passion for exploring a new world, just like us!!! These two hosts made us feel like friends just in for a holiday and we truly hope to see them again and share their company. (Love you guys!)

For our first night, we travel out for dinner towards the “square.” There is always one… just look for the biggest church!!! This one looks much like the one in Antigua, except it is not as clean and here, there are vendors with T-shirts and other typical wares.

We arrived at the “carne” (beef) restaurant at about 6 p.m. It was already very crowded. We were first put at a table in a fabulous location in the center of the restaurant… but… after a few moments, we were told that our seats were for people with reservations. Oh… ok. Nice. Thanks for raising the bar before lowering it again. We were then escorted to a location in the restaurant very near the bar and seemingly packed with “gringos.” We can only imagine that we were relegated to the “unclean” section and out of sight from those who prefer a more pure dining experience. But we can only speculate. Unfortunately, were we were relocated to was very crowded and the service was not that great. But, we suffered through our Caprese Salad (which was unique in that it had pesto rather than actual basil leaves but, nonetheless, really awesome) and steak dinner (shared). The cost was about $30, WOW!

A note about Central America is in order at this juncture. We are here in the middle of winter and it is just as stinking hot as Florida in summer!!! We are told that the summertime is unbearable and we cannot imagine it. Well, let us, Floridians, say that at times, we have literally been melting. Restaurants, for the most part, do not have air conditioning, however, during the “winter” there is a magnificent breeze and if you are in the shade, it is soothing and nice. If you are in a hotel room, you can open the windows and get the nice breeze - - unless you are Ann, the bug magnet. In which case, you just keep the doors and windows shut and melt.

Some CA lessons follow. ESSENTIAL LESSON regarding AC: If you feel that you need AC, you better make sure that you have it when booking your room. Otherwise, you will be a miserable creature. Do not be fooled by advertised claims of “air,” it does not mean “conditioned air!!!” It means windows can be opened for a breeze. ESSENTIAL LESSON regarding bugs: If you do not like bugs, do NOT book an eco-friendly lodge. “Green” may be the “in-thing”, but it equates to brown, yellow, red and black creepy crawlers and air borne attackers with stingers and pinchers. ESSENTIAL LESSON regarding public discomfort: Be ready to be asked straight-forwardly for money from children AND adults at various times and to buy things from them that you do not want or need (unlike the US where everyone has access to food and housing, the people here probably need the money!) ESSENTIAL LESSON regarding dogs and people: Both species are everywhere and both must learn to not get killed by traffic, because traffic (even horse carriages) have the right-of-way.

Last night, we decided to go to the grocery store and shop around for some dinner. The “La Colonia” seemed a good spot, so we walked a good 10 blocks through a bit of a dodgy area (or it would be at night, anyway). The store had many good items for creating a “snacking” dinner. We loaded up on some veggies, ham, cheese and some M&M’s for Ann and Twix for Clay. Our bag-boy teenager offered to carry out our bags, but we said that we would have to get a taxi. (Clay was carrying 10 pounds of ice and it was a really hot afternoon.) The kid said it was not a problem and took out our bags. We passed through the security guarded parking lot to the roadside. We were about to thank the kid and tip him, when he started hailing us a cab! It was fantastic! After he stopped two or three taxis, he finally chose one that he thought would suit us. It was a taxi with no one else in it. (The taxis here in Granada are “collective” taxis and often have several paying passengers at one time.) While the lad was diligently placing our bag into the taxi, Clay was frantically searching his pockets for an appropriate tip. The only bills that he had were C$100 bills. These bills are equivalent to about $5 US. Before we proceed, please bear in mind that a taxi ride anywhere in the city is C$10. Not wanting to do wrong by the young fellow, we gave him a C$100 note and said Feliz Navidad! He insisted that we had made a mistake but we assured him that we had not and he was very, very happy, as were we. (Clay would actually have ice in the bag when we arrived, instead of water!) This young lad knew that we were foreigners and went out of his way for us, without asking for anything in return… another beautiful lesson from humanity. We wish him all the best.

We got back to the hotel and realized that we forgot some crackers. Our host, Chris, said we could go two doors down to the tienda to get some. We realized that the tienda has a latticed/burglar bar door and no one is allowed in. This is true all around, for security purposes. You must actually go up and look inside through the lattice to see what they have and then ask for it. We had forgotten the word “cracker” so we asked for “Ritz.” Let us just say, that RITZ is a universally known product and without hesitation, the old lady behind the bars, asked us how many we would like. Ok… that was another issue. How many what? Crackers? Packs of crackers? Boxes of crackers? So clay ask to the said crackers and so the proprietor happily brought the crackers to the steel bars. It would appear that the Ritz crackers are sold in the area in little individual packets of eight crackers. Who knew?!?!?! We indicated that we would like 4 packs of said crackers. While we were at the “window” waiting for the crackers, a little boy approached and began to speak to a little girl behind the bars, concerning some homemade cookies of some type. These cookies were stored in a bread-bag type plastic bag and there were about 8 inside it. The child began to count his coins in order to see if he had enough for a cookie. It seemed that he lacked the funds for the delicacy and the little girl, inside the store, told him on no uncertain terms that he would need to return when he did have the funds. He looked incredibly sad. So we did what we always do… when the old lady returned with our Ritz, Clay asked how much for a cookie. It turned out that is was about 10 cents US. So we asked how much for the bag, not really knowing how many were in it. The old lady told us and we said to give us the bag and the Ritz. The total came to about $2.00 US. We took the large bag of home baked goods and handed them to the little boy and said, “Feliz Navidad.” He could not believe. (Hey… it’s Christmas!!!) The boy them shared the cookies with other children nearby. That felt incredibly awesome.

That night, snacking on our meal, we found the TV in the sitting room. We have not watched TV or read the news since we have been here, but BBC was on and we saw the sorrowful shooting incident in Connecticut. We were sad and had a long talk about the impossibility of solving all of the problems in the world but hoping we could spread something positive in our present and future journeys.

We then watched a movie called the “Metal Shifters.” Which we both agreed afterwards, was the most stupid movie on the planet (because the SYFY channel was the only channel in English). OMG, a satellite comes to Earth from Russia and has a biological virus which attaches itself to metal and in the end, it dies when people figure out it doesn’t like Whiskey and everyone dumps whiskey on the metal. But wait, the metal likes the iron in people’s blood so it targets people, but there are things made of iron everywhere throughout the movie but it ignores all the massive iron items. Okay, we actually lost IQ points for having watched the whole movie, but we did improve our Spanish by reading the sub-titles and figuring out when it was not accurate. We laughed ourselves silly and decided we might have the same fun tomorrow. But, you won’t know exactly what stupidity ensued unless you read the next blog.

PS. Chris has dog Lola as well as a Mama Kitty with her cute kitten. This all adds to the fact that this would be a perfect home for us. Dad K., we know that you are cringing right now, but you would feel worse about the 14 ceiling fans. :->

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