Blogs from Northern Highlands, Nicaragua, Central America Caribbean - page 23

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Ah omg so busy! Mon-Tues-Thurs Spanish class from 8am-12noon, and again from 1-3pm. Wed and Fri, as well as some Saturdays, like today, are in the field or the classroom learning Peace Corps stuff. Like getting immunizations, learning about dengue-malaria, figuring out the reasons why PC doesn´t like you to wear contact lenses - although I still am - learning about diarrhea and stomach viruses and how to prevent them... since out of the 22 of us several are sick and one has been taken to Managua for óbservation whatever that means, how to take your stool samples to the pharmacy to figure out if you have amoebas or bacteria or parasites or whatever... usually from the water that you drink, some from bad food, etc. Fortunately, knock on wood, I have a stomach muy fuerte, ... read more
managua hotel roomies
breakfast in managua
all our bags are packed and ready to go...


A week and a half into things and we’re feeling surprisingly settled and at home in our new surrounds. We seem to have found what we were searching for in our time of exploration. A community that is working hard to place itself in balance rather than at odds with nature and who has not mislaid its humanity and been distracted by materialism. Sabana Grande is a community that still bears the scars of recent hurricanes and less recent conflict. The family with whom we’re staying have been fantastically welcoming. Jorge (27) works as Warehouse Manager at the nearby Solar Centre the physical epicentre of Grupo Fenix’s activities. Yelba (27) quite literally runs the home and the family and she is a potent champion for progress within this small community. Scarleth (11) is the calm and ... read more
Spanish classes
Around Sabana Grande
Angel and Gina


Our first day post arrival in Managua felt highly intensive. It involved lots of forgetting of names, lots of nodding knowingly when we had no idea what we were being told in brisk Spanish and lots of trying to be nonchalant about places and situations very removed from anything we had previously encountered. Under the wing of Susan, the leader of activities here, we were navigated around the chaotic streets in the sticky heat of Managua. The primary mission for our day in Nicaragua’s capital city was to have ourselves recognised by the National Engineering University as being part of a legitimate programme (www.grupofenix.org), meet the programme staff based there, tour Suni Solar one of the entrepreneurial spin-offs from Grupo Fenix and have a solar cooked lunch (more about that later). Although some cloud nearly thwarted ... read more
A solar cooker
Centro Solar - project HQ


Hey, looks like my world famous fantastic computer skills have finally caught up with me, and the end of my blog was missing last week!! No idea what happened, go figure! Anyway, here it is -well, a summary of it anyway, because I don't want to type up everything again, just as I'm sure you don't want to hear me going on about my diving. Ooops, actually you're going to get just that anyway, because diving is fab people!!! By the end of my first day on the course, I wasn't convinced I was cut out for the whole breathing underwater thing, but I persisted and ended up absolutely loving it. I give up trying to tell you just how much I did love it, I don't know what's going on but I keep on losing ... read more
Museo de los Heroes y Martyres, Leon
Museo de Los Martyres y Heroes
A mural representing the history of the country, and the freedom won shown by the kids playing football


I arrived to Esteli Nicaragua yesterday in the early afternoon. After a few quick bus rides I found myself in the busteling city that lies just along the Pan-Am. It is a great town to explore the streets are narrow and filled with color of fruit stands, clothes for sale, and brightly painted tiendas of every kind. As I walked through the streets I soon came to the cathedral. It caught me off guard, it was so breath taking, the crand white cathedral standing tall over the parque central. Every town here has one a grand cathedral usually opposite the park but somehow in every town, every time you come upon the cathedral it is a marvelous sight. Today I headed south of town out towards the saltos. I walked out of town and along the ... read more
Esteli Cathedral
Walk to the Saltos
El Salto


LEON It seemed liked I´d changed worlds completely when I left the tranquil beauty of La Moskitia outlined in my last blog and, after spending more than a day and a half on buses, arrived in the groovy Spanish colonial city of Leon, the 2nd largest city in Nicaragua. It wasn´t just that I´d gone from primary rainforest to a decent sized city, but when I was out in Moskitia there were hardly any other travellers to see; Leon, however, is one of the main cities on "The Gringo Trail" through Central America, somewhere that almost everybody backpacking through these parts will stop at, and after having spent some time in the previous weeks a bit isolated from other travellers I purposefully went and checked myself into one of the budget traveller places in Leon with ... read more
"Go Down That Way and Hold On"
Sandinista Revolutionary
Breastfeeding and Gunslinging...


After passing a full day in Tegusigalpa and not finding much to do, we decided that we should make our way to Nicaragua, therefore we would have additional time to do cool stuff... when we find it. From Tegusigalpa we took a bus to Cholutecha and then continued on the same bus to San Marcos de Colon. This bus ride, which was supposed to be easy, turned out to be the longest, craziest thing ever. So to start, in Tegus every bus company has a different terminal (this makes life challenging when you don´t know schedules or prices), but we went to the company listed in the lonely planet. We got there early with hopes of having an early start to the day and getting to Nicaragua with some time to spare. This idea quickly turned ... read more


Miraflor The first of two organic farms we planned to WWOOF for, Finca Neblina del Bosque, was twelve-hectares on the edge of Miraflor Nature Reserve, 30km from Estelí. Only a year old, the farm´s fruit trees are just knee-high, they had only one chicken (with chicks), one pregnant pig, two horses, and a sweet collie named Fiona. It´s run by an interesting couple - Isabel is German and her husband Edwardo is Nica - who started the farm after selling some land on Isla de Ometepe. We volunteered doing mostly repair and maintenance work, while indulging in the serene setting, and studying Spanish with a sweet tutor named Marta. They fed us basic meals, lots of potatoes and gallo pinto (rice n beans), and housed us in their bamboo eco-cabañas powered by solar panels (the source ... read more
Riding Water
La Neblina
You´d think they were statues...


It took us a day and half to reach the dusty mountain town and former Sandanista stronghold of Estelí, Nicaragua. Estelí was at the violent front lines of the war for independence in the late 70s and fierce patriotism still permeates the city. Once there, we realized we had brought more than memories from Honduras... we spent most of the next four days in close proximity to our private bathroom. When we finally re-emerged, we ran into a scraggly, Spanish-slinging Jess, a friend from Portland. With a little time to explore, we found Estelí to feel a bit like one might imagine mid-20th century Colorado - dusty and arid, clear, sunny days and lots of guys in jeans and cowboy hats with thick, metal belt buckles. The people were nice, nicer than most since we left ... read more
Welcome to town
The church in the center of town
I left my corazon in Esteli


We departed Granada and said goodbye to Veronica and Achim and wished them well on their trip back to Europe after traveling all over the world for nine months. It was hard to say goodbye as we had experienced so much together in such a short amount of time and not knowing when we would see each other again, but they were extremely tired from such a long trip and looking forward to going home and resting up. We went to Esteli to do some volunteer work at Hope Clinic (A medical clinic based out of Ypsilanti, Michigan) Esteli, Nicaragua branch. We heard about the clinic through one of Michelle's friends back in Michigan and were excited about helping out in the Nicaraguan clinic. Esteli is the principal town between Managua and the Honduran border and ... read more
Sandinista Mural
Chilito y Su Familia
Luis Manuel Y Su Familia




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