New Years, New Beginnings

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Friday, December 31st

Kawabunga DUDE! “Hang ten” off of Playa Maderas. For those of us who don’t have mom’s surfing lingo sophistication, hanging ten is when a surfer can let all ten of his toes hang off the front end of the surfboard. Maderas gave me the best tan of my life, didn’t peal once and I have no tan lines! As we ate dinner on the beach we remembered New Year’s past; last year on the plane leaving the Brazilian Amazon, Chile the year before that, Hawaii, Guatemala, Israel and then Guatemala for as long back as I can remember. In Chile the New Year’s tradition is to wear yellow underwear. In Nicaragua tradition manifested itself in the shape of everyday effigies. Some sported cigars, others baseball hats, sun glasses, and faces with sharpied facial scruff, but all were well dressed and sitting on the front porch seeming to watch the world pass by. At first we saw them on the truck ride back from the beach and thought they were fancy scarecrows, but after inquiring with our driver we learned these effigies were only in town until midnight the 31st. After dinner we sat on the beach, Flor de Cana in hand and finished writing our New Year’s Resolutions that we’d been working on (some of us all year). With one minute on the clock we asked a women from the house next to us if we could stick our resolutions in the shirt pocket of their effigy. Excitedly the women agreed, helping us add them to the stuffing – we might have inspired a new Nicaraguan New Year’s tradition! Then she lit the match and dropped it on the chest and we all saw our resolutions rise in smoke and reappear in the air all around us. While I filmed the burning, trying to focus my camera on the flame, a surprise fired close to the lens. “What the?!” I screamed as unexpected fireworks shot up out of our precious effigy friend, chasing us backwards. Behind and above us were more fireworks exploding. By the end, only newspaper scraps – or perhaps resolutions – were left on the ground. After we recovered from the noise makers, the Goodfriend clan made their debut at the infamous “Iguana Bar.”

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Photos

New Years Bonding
if only for a minute.

Playa Maderas
Gidgets' guy

Playa Maderas
Kim and her new traveler friend at breakfast

Comments

[Barbara Smolek]

wonderful blog
Happy New Year to the Goodfriend clan-the pictures and postings are wonderful- hard not to envy your worldliness All the best to you all in 2011 Love- Barbara

[Mickey Glass]

Great Pictures.I.m off to Florida for 11 days. xxoo, Mickey