of coffee, guidebooks, and the peace corps

---

Currently Reading:
Moon Handbooks Nicaragua, 2nd edition
by Randy Wood and Joshua Berman

Okay so I’m not in Nicaragua YET but this post has to do with info I’ve found on Nica and the awesomest guidebook evah!

See also, I am in Panera and on my 2nd big cup of coffee and am WIRED! Am trying to up my caffeine tolerance, which, I know! is the opposite of what most people do, but since I am going to a nation of farmers and many a coffee plantation, I want to be able to hold my own when they offer me a cup of fresh roasted Nica coffee!

So the reason I’m going to Nicaragua is as a Peace Corps Volunteer for 27 months of service as a “Rural Agricultural Extensionist. Now, the PC provides lots of literature… but even after reading through all of it, my vision of Nica still wasn’t coalescing. I mean, who knows anything about Nicaragua? Certainly not me. And the PC lit is mainly geared toward all PCV’s. So the books of paperwork can be used for PCV’s in Latin America or Africa or the Middle East - they aren’t regionally specific. And even the stuff about LA was more about the job I’ll be engaged in and less about what Nica is all about.

So, I started looking online. But everything is touristy stuff. And I looked for a guidebook. But all I could find was a Lonely Planet on Central America, and it only had about 4 pages dedicated to Nicaragua.

From the online sources and 4 pages in a guidebook, I gleaned that Nica is the “land of lakes and volcanoes,” is about the size of New York State, has a rough political history of its own, as well as a rough history with the States, is the poorest of the CA countries but is a “hidden gem,” and that the people are warm, welcoming, and very proud of being Nicaraguan.

Okay, so those are the basics. But, good god, I am moving there for TWO YEARS! My PCV packing list basically says “you don’t know where you’re going to be stationed so pack for all weather” but “don’t pack too much or more than you can carry!” Talk about contradictions!

Well THANK GOD yesterday Dad and I went to Springfield and stopped at Barnes & Noble. I went straight to the Travel section and, after passing a whole TWO shelves on China and Beijing --thank you Olympics as there were only about 5 whole books on China a year ago at B&N-- and past the shelves upon shelves of Europe, I finally came to the Latin section.

And wouldn’t ya know it? A whole shelf for Costa Rica. Half a shelf for Honduras. Plenty for South America. Several for just Chile. Also several for the Caribbean islands. Oh yeah, freaking Guatemala had at least 5 books. Belize had a few. But Nicaragua? ONE BOOK. One WHOLE BOOK.

So I picked it up and went to read. It’s a brand I haven’t heard of, Moon Handbook. At least it wasn’t Lonely Planet or Fodors.

Now, let me preface, there is nothing wrong with LP or Fodors. LP has a great website that is very user friendly. But their books lack… something. Some spark. Some pizzazz. LP and Fodors are both so… formulaic. The writing is very concise and they get a lot of info in, but, frankly, I find them boring. Every country’s book is just like the next.

I like my guidebooks to have a little umph to them. I don’t like to travel systematically or to follow a formula. Sure, I love to see the big sites and be a tourist for a day. But I also like to find the hole-in-the-wall restaurants and the back alleys and just wander around off the beaten track for afternoons on end. And I like my guidebooks to understand that.

Arielle and I used Let’s Go with great success in India. The book was a little offbeat, kind of like us .

So I opened up Moon Handbooks NICARAGUA with some trepidation, just planning to read a little and see what else I could learn before it was time to leave B&N and then I’d put the lone Nica book back on the shelf.

But, by god, if this book isn’t freaking awesome! The writing style is right up my alley. For instance, little phrases like, “Don’t go to these sketchy barrios if you want to walk away with your watch and rings,” or, when describing the kind of headache that goes with one of the LA diseases, they refer to it as, “a bad headache - like nails are gouging your eyes from inside your head,” and other such advice is not something you will EVER find in a LP or Fodor’s guidebook.

Also, the author’s general assumption that you know some conversational Spanish. And that you should not just pass through Nica on the way to somewhere else, but should spend some time exploring and traveling slowly. The descriptions are flavorful! Useful! The advice is for MY kind of traveling! They give the recipe for homemade suero for when you get traveller’s diarrhea or have a super bad hangover for crying out loud!



So I flipped to the back to read about these two awesome authors, Randy Wood and Josh Berman. And wouldn’t you know - the two guys who wrote this brilliant guidebook - MET WHILE SERVING TOGETHER IN THE PEACE CORPS IN N ICARAGUA!!!!

No wonder I like the damn book. Truly, though, it is a great resource and I am so thankful that I bought it. I now have a MUCH better idea of what to expect, what to pack, and what I can look forward to in the Nica next week.

Eee now I’m soooo excited!

---