Settling In

So, since my crazy weekend of seaside fiestas life has settled down significantly and started to take on a welcomingly calm rhythm. I can now officially call myself a local as I now know enough taxi drivers to occasionally get free rides and I can no longer leave the house without expecting to run into at least 3 people I know. This change has not only altered my social life significantly, but has changed the pace of everyday life.

One of the very first days that I arrived in Bluefields, I accompanied one of the other volunteers downtown to do a few errands with him and stop by the bank. At the time, I became rather frustrated because doing errands entailed walking around in circles and checking every single shop to see if they had what we wanted. This also meant spending a few mins in each shop chit-chatting with the owners. Not to mention the fact that everything closes between 12 and 2pm, so we also ended up going to a friends place to hang out for an hour while we waited for things to open. Needless to say, I found this a rather odd routine and was somewhat putout by spending 3hrs doing something that typically would have required less than one. Of course, I now understand completely as I am now in precisely the same place the other volunteer was when I arrived. Here's a quick sample of a "short" trip into the city...

I went into town one day to copy keys and get a few food items. Only, when Steph and I arrived at the key shop, we were informed that the woman who normally copies them had gone on vacation for the summer. So, we went up the street to the only other place in town that copies keys. We showed them what we needed and were informed that they didn't have those blanks and we'd have to come by another time. Slightly frustrated, but with no other options, we headed on our way. Since my cell phone had gone missing and one of the people I needed to get in touch with had had their service disconnected, I headed over to their office to see if I could get in touch with them that way. On the way, I ran into a guy we'd met at the pool hall, who did an about-face and walked with us for awhile to chat. Then we came across one of the BSS boys who asked us to come by and say hi later. When I got to the office, the man I wanted to meet wasn't there. I left a message that I had come by and headed back across town. On the way, I passed a mechanic's shop with a pile of used tires out front. Since I may be needing a large number of tires for my construction project here, I stopped to chat with the thoroughly inebriated old man to determine how many tires he had and how much he would want for each of them. Then we noticed that the stationary store across the street actually had real books in the window, so we had to stop and take a look since I had yet to see a bookstore in town. Walking out of there, we ran into another friend who happened to be passing through. We chatted with him for a bit and then ducked back into the key store to avoid spending the rest of the afternoon with said friend. Since we were there, we figured it wouldn't hurt to ask a different employee about the keys we needed copied. He took one look, nodded, pulled a few blanks off the wall and started cutting. Who knows what the woman before had been thinking.

Nearly an hour later we emerged from the key store with a new sets of keys and headed down a few streets to get the food we had come for. Of course, this involved going down to the market to find nuts, to a different store for drygoods, to the only store in town that sells yogurt (when he happens to have it) and another stop at the only place in all of bluefields that sells real chocolate. In each store, we had to go through the same rigamaroll of small talk, comments on the weather, discussions of what we'd been up to recently etc. Then we'd pick out what we wanted and wait 10mins while they looked around the store for their receipts (a nearly unknown item that can often be a serious, but necessary process). Once they found their packet of receipts, we waited while they reverse-calculated the tax so they could write down the price they'd already told us as the final one. Sometimes, we'd also have to wait while someone ran next door to get someone else who happened to be literate enough to write out the receipt in the first place.

Walking out of the last store with all our goods in hand, we were finally ready to go, so we flagged down a taxi and hopped in back. Only, there was already someone in front, so we drove all the way across the city to drop them off in a different neighborhood before we could turn around, come back through the maze of one-way streets that make up the town center and head back towards our house. Only, on the way, we picked up another passenger who was only headed a short distance, but in the wrong direction. So, we drove across the bridge to Santa Rosa to drop them off, drove through the entire rest of the neighborhood just to be able to turn around, then got stuck in a line of traffic while someone stopped in the middle of the bridge to unload their truck and everyone else simply waited since they couldn't go around. 20mins later, we finally crossed the bridge and drove up to the house. Hence, what we had anticipated to be a short (hour or 2 at the most) trip into town ended up taking the entire afternoon.

Welcome to life in Bluefields. =) I have to admit, I'm starting to really love it. There's a pace to life there that forces you to relax enough that simple, personal interactions start to have more and more significance while the larger, stressful issues fade a bit. There's always quite a delicate little balance to be maintained between knowing how much to push to actually make things happen and knowing when to let things take their time. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.

Seaside Sweetness

So, as most of you are aware, Sunday was my 24th birthday. Having kept up a tradition of memorable events to mark the occasion over the past several years, I felt that this year needed to be equally entertaining. Hence, Stephanie and I organized a BBQ on the beach. As you've probably picked up from previous blogs, organizing anything here is something of a challenge, but either the gods were in our favor for the day, or we're finally getting the hang of life in Bluefields cause the day went off without a hitch (well, without any major hitches to speak of).

Having invited 3 very distinct groups of people to celebrate with us, we had a bit of coordination to do on Sunday morning. The night before, we had arranged a time to meet all the bE folks down at the docks, so Steph & I left our house sun morning to pass by M's place with our chicken for the BBQ that he had offered to help us marinade creole style. Floored to discover both him and his friend awake, showered and ready to go when we arrived, we caravaned our way through town with cooler, grill and supplies in hand. On the other side of town we didn't even have to knock when we arrived at the BBS boy's place (who had just come from a 2 month vacation to the States a few days before). They were up, dressed and ready for a day at the beach. Once again, we were thoroughly impressed having prepared ourselves to have to drag them from their beds.

We were getting close to the time we'd set to meet the bE folks, and we needed a few last min supplies, so Steph and I left M & company dutifully cutting up chicken while we went to check up on the rest of the party's status. Arriving at the docks, they were nowhere to be seen, but as soon as we'd finished buying supplies and returned, half the crew was already there. Wow. Once again, we were both impressed that everyone actually showed up at the time and place they claimed they'd come.

At that point, Steph headed back to the BSS house to commence herding her cats down to the dock while I awaited the stragglers from bE. A little while later, the majority of our crew was loaded into the panga, but Steph's group had yet to appear. Choosing not to hold up the rest of the passengers, we headed off across the lagoon.

Arriving at the other side after a pleasant and thankfully event-free trip, we headed through town towards the beach. Along the way we passed by crowds of children happily playing soccer in the streets, mostly in their skivvies. We also wandered pass large petrol storage tanks, a very loud diesel generator and many small, brightly painted houses.

Arriving at the beach we were greeted with nearly vacant stretches of sand with waves lapping lazily at the shore. The few people we passed along the way were out to collect wood, sell coconuts or, like us, spend a nice relaxed afternoon on the beach.


Arriving at one of the cute little wooden huts that line the beach, we stripped down, dropped our belongings and headed into the waves. The next few hours were spent body surfing, swimming and enjoying being fully immersed in cool, refreshing water.

A few hours later Steph finally showed up with boys in tow and we set up the grill for a meal of exquisitely marinated chicken complimented by homemade cookies and plenty of rum. It was a fabulous way to spend the day.

Good Vibes

So, I'm gonna go ahead and skip a few really good stories for the moment in the interest of providing a more up to date blog entry. I promise to go back and write about the 2 different trips I'm currently missing, each of which has a plethora of good moments, but that will have to happen sometime in the near future.

For now, I want to tell you about a beautiful sunday afternoon. First, I need to back up at bit. About 2 weeks ago, two of the long time volunteers took off for vacation, leaving their house empty. Not wanting it to get robbed for the 5th or 6th time, Steph and I offered to move out of the now thoroughly crowded main house in favor of the 'pequeño casa' down the road. We couldn't have made a more perfect decision had we arranged it in advance. After a couple months of living in a bustling metropolis of people coming and going and never having a minute to ourselves, we suddenly found ourselves in the quiet of a private home. Immediately, we knew we had to take advantage of our new found freedom before we loose it again upon Seb & Juli's return. So, when our musician friend came by and offered to teach us to cook Rondon on sunday, we were happy to oblige.

Sunday morning dawned sunny and calm. Waking up and making ourselves a yummy breakfast of fresh mangoes, yogurt, fried eggs and homemade bread, steph and I waged bets on the probability of our friends actually arriving. We also set a time to commence our back up plan of heading out to the bluff should the boys not show (which is generally what happens around here). To our very pleasant surprise, the boys showed up 20mins early ready to hit the market for some supplies.

We strolled down to town, chatting and enjoying the sunshine the whole way there. Once at the market, we followed D & J around as they picked out the best coconuts, plantains, and yucca. Then we came to the fish counter and discovered that they were also offering conch, a delicacy that we just couldn't pass up. Fully loaded, we wandered the long way back through town and up to the house. When we got there, the boys took on the tricky tasks of peeling the coconuts with a machete and scaling and filleting the fish. Steph and I opted to work on the veggies.

I should probably mention at this point that I had tried a variety of different Rondons since arriving, but had yet to taste one that really knocked my socks off. In fact, I wasn't even sure I really liked the stuff, but considering that cooking Rondon is roughly equivalent to having a BBQ in the States, I wasn't about to refuse the offer. Man, am I glad to have made that decision.

Once the coconuts were peeled, we cracked them open, drained the juice and put chunks of luscious coconut in the blender to make coco milk. Three coconuts later, we had a wonderfully thick bowl of frothy cream-like milk. In the meantime, we had put the conch on to simmer and soften. Only, somewhere along the way, the boys forgot about that part... Suddenly the kitchen was filling with smoke and the conchs were beginning to fuse to the pot. Undeterred, we dumped some more water in, added the coco milk, veggies and spices and sat back to wait and see how much damage the fire had really done.

Not too long thereafter, the fish got dropped in for a few minutes and the meal was ready. We sat down to enjoy the fruits of our labor and each took a small sip to sample our concoction. Moans of enjoyment confirmed we had a done a fabulous job. Honestly, I had no idea that Rondon could taste even remotely as good as what we had created. I don't know if burning the conch helped, or if it was the fabulously thick coco milk, or what, but that soup was DELICIOUS!!!!! Cleaning out our bowls despite each being stuffed, we sat back thoroughly contented with fat, happy bellies.

Bugs

So, there are a few things that I may have mentioned in passing, but have yet to really explain the full ramifications upon daily life. One of these topics is that of bugs, or insects if you like. Living in the middle of a jungle, there are a LOT of bugs. They range from tiny little ants that you can barely see to giant red ants that bite with a vengeance. From miniature beatles with flashy green wings to enormous cockroaches the size of a small cell phone.

When you wake up in the morning and reach for the honey, your arm is immediately covered in tiny crawling creatures you can feel, but rarely see. When you pick up the sugar, you have to sift out the black ants that have died overnight. As you sit down to enjoy your meal, you find ourself absently waving your hand over the table trying to keep the houseflies from contaminating your food. When you turn on the lights as you enter the house, you are greeted by a flurry of scurrying as all the cockroaches run for cover. Looking for a new outfit in the closet, you come across spiderwebs that you could have sworn weren't there the day before.

All in all, bugs are a fact of life here. If you leave food out on a counter for longer than 5 mins, it's a sacrifice to the bug gods. If you forget to put on long pants before commencing to cook, you find yourself doing a ridiculous dance as you hop from foot to foot attempting to continuously kill mosquitoes as they munch upon your sweet flesh.

On a grander scheme of things, bugs destroy everything here with a surprising rapidity. Wood succumbs to termites, any abandoned space is invaded by hornets, carpenter ants carry away plants piece by piece. In short, it's a jungle out there!

Kakabila

Two weekends ago, I decided it was about time that I make a trip out to one of the communities and find out what life is really like for the people we are doing our best to help. One of the other volunteers was headed up to Kakabila for a rather long stay, so I opted to join him for the trip up and a few days in the jungle. It was a rather astounding journey that began with an early morning panga ride to Pearl Lagoon. Luckily, it wasn't raining when we set off, but a few hours later, as soon as we entered the Lagoon itself, our boat engine cut and we started drifting. luckily, our panga driver had done well enough for himself to possess a cell phone and was able to call around to some friends in the area. Just as we began drifting dangerously close to the shore, an empty panga showed up to give us a tow.

After a few false starts and some hard tugs that nearly dipped the edge of the boat below the waterline, we were on our way, securely tied behind our savior's vessel. At this point, a woman towards the back decided that she couldn't hold it any longer and asked the driver if there was some way she could pee. He told her to climb back beside him and hang off the back with one hand on the motor. Not too excited by this prospect after a brief, failed attempt to balance, she asked for another option. The driver scrounged around until he found one of his bailing buckets and handed it to her with the instructions to clean it out when she was done. Adamantly asking that he stay facing forward, she crouched down and relieved herself, dumping the contents of the bucket overboard and deftly rinsing her container. Much happier, she clambered back up to her seat and the driver settled back into his space.

Pulling up to a nondescript dock on a desolate strech of land, we all climbed out and huffed it out the road. Apparently, we hadn't quite made it to Pearl Lagoon. Instead, we were in some small town a few miles out and the panga driver was busy arranging transport the rest of the way. He had us set our things down in front of his house while he went to scrounge up some 3 wheel, semi open air taxis to get us on our way. Happy to take in the sights and chat with the small children that suddenly gathered, we hung out for about half an hour while two taxis ran shuttles of 2 people at a time over to Pearl Lagoon.

The drive over to Pearl Lagoon revealed a new view of the countryside. There was a surprising mix of homes along the edge of the road, ranging from tiny wooden shacks to McMansions of concrete. Interspersed were patches of lush tropical rainforest dense with jungle vines and riotous symphonies of birds. Eventually arriving in Pearl Lagoon, we got let out down the road from the dock and continued on foot through the torn up street they were in the process of repaving. The first dock didn't yield any boats headed towards Kakabila, so we went around the corner and down an alley to a small bar that happened to have a dock. Or maybe it was a dock that happened to have a small bar. Either way, we asked around and were pointed to a table of young men who were evidently headed to Kakabila at some point that day. Judging by the beers in hand, that didn't appear to be any time soon. We asked if we could hitch a ride and were welcomed to do so for the price of gas. Happy to know we had a chance of making it to our destination, Josiah settled in make friends and I headed off to the local power plant for a slight bit of research.

The journey to the generator turned out to be significantly longer than expected, but that gave me a chance to see most of the town along the way. Having gotten the info I needed by hollering at the top of my lungs over the roar of the diesel generator that powers the entire town, I found my way back to the dock. There, Josiah was well into his 2nd beer and there was a fresh one on it's way for me. Despite the early hour (I think it was about 10:30am), I couldn't very well be rude and hence accepted the nicely chilled bottle of toña that arrived shortly. At the time, I had no idea it was to be first of at least 4 more. Apparently, this was the regular agenda for the day. The boys we were chatting with had been out at the crack of dawn to lay their fishing nets and were now waiting for the evening when they would head out again to retrieve their blunder. Having nothing else to do, they typically spend the day drinking in town before driving their boats back home. Thankfully, one of the 3 guys we were with had opted to be DD and hence switched to soft drinks after his first beer. Rather surprised, but very happy to see such responsibility, both Josiah and I were quickly feeling our early morning booze. We were both drinking pointedly slow so as not to have too many, but every time they finished a bottle, they automatically ordered a full round, despite our protests. Not wanting too many to stack up and keep us from leaving, we dutifully kept pace the best we could.

A few hours and plenty of beer later, we all piled into a large dugout canoe. The majority of the boat was carved from a single trunk with a few extra boards added to each side. Unfortunately, the seams were unsealed, so water gushed through the gaps on every wave or turn. This made things more interesting as the bottom of the boat continually collected water. When it started to get too high, one of the boys would start bailing and the water level would reside. In this manner we crossed Pearl Bay and arrived at Kakabila.

Pulling up to a white sand beach with a long dock, we stepped through the last bit of water and onto shore. Just up the beach was a large, circular thatched roof structure that used to be a mini-bar and now functions as the teenage hangout. Beyond were towering coconut trees, spreading mango boughs and a collection of varied houses ranging from traditional wood and thatch to concrete block with tin roofs. I won't go much further into the architecture at this particular moment, but lets just say I was fascinated by what I saw during my stay and by the way people spoke about their homes.

That afternoon we shared a rather meager but delicious meal with our hosts of fried dough, beans and rice. Afterwards, I took advantage of some beautiful weather to stroll through the village. In total, there were only about 75 houses, each with anywhere from 2-14 people living in it. As I wandered around, various men (never women) would come up to introduce themselves and ask me what I was up to. Happy to chat, I asked lots of questions about life on the coast, about perceptions of materials, the history of the region etc. As the light began to fade, I headed back to our host's home and shared another simple meal of fish and rice.

That night, I watched the sun go down over the water with white sand stretching in a thin ribbon in either direction, framed by lush green trees and clear blue skies. I couldn't help but feel how incredibly lucky I was to be sharing this little slice of paradise with such generous people.

As the light faded completely, the true extent of our isolation became immediately apparent as the world turned pitch black. The moon had yet to emerge, so the only light in town came from one house with a generator. The only other glimmers were flashlights turned on and quickly off again to save their batteries. Suddenly, the work that blueEnergy does took on a much more personal significance.

Managua Trip - Part 5: La Laguna del Apoyo

On our way out of the hostel, we asked the doorman where and when we could get a bus to La Laguna del Apoyo and were informed that there were 2 options. #1 wait til 10am and take the tourist bus to the private beach or #2 take the public bus to the intersection, get off and catch a different bus the rest of the way. Having no interest in waiting 4 hours just to pay twice as much to get to the same place, we thanked the doorman and headed towards the local bus stop.

We found the bus with little issue and once again ademantly informed the driver that we wanted to get off at the intersection to La Laguna del Apoyo and nowhere else. Nonetheless, we still had to holler and shout as we passed by in order to convince them to stop. We disembarked with our bags of goods from Masaya and rather blurryvision due to the lack of sleeping the night before. Crossing the street, we asked the sweet little couple on the corner if the bus was coming and were told yes, but they didn't know when. Not really wanting to stand still and wait, we started walking on the theory that we could just flag the bus down when it came by. Unfortunately, that never happened. Instead, we ended up hiking up hill for about 3 hours, hitching a ride for about 5mins of the way before hitting an intersection. I was truly surprised that more cars did not pass by, but it just was not destined to be our day. Instead, we got a lovely hike through the jungle whether we wanted it or not.


Finally arriving at the bottom of the monstorous hill we had just crossed and descended, we could see the water, but could not reach it. The entire beachfront was privately owned by various hotels and private homes. Slightly discouraged, but still persistant, we finally found an alley that led down to a series of restaurants right on the water. Not particularly in the mood for food just yet, we pushed through the tables and headed straight for the crystal clear lagoon. Despite the greywater runoff from the kitchen and washing stands that emptied directly into the lake, the water was stunningly refreshing. The whole body of water was ringed by hills covered in a vibrant green and rarely broken by human inhabitation.

Thoroughly refreshed and happy after our long hike finally bore fruit, we eventually climbed out and ordered some food. After a short meal of fried chicken and fries, we opted to take advantage of the hammocks hung about and each passed out in the shade for a couple hours.

When we woke, we decided we had had it for the afternoon as we were planning on catching the overnight bus back to Bluefields that evening. Hence, we decided that we would go ahead and pay for the first available taxi to take us all the way back to Managua. On our way back up the hill, we asked the guys on the corner where we could catch a cab and they waved down the truck that was just pulling out to take us out to the corner. Only, when we got in, we immediately hit it off with the driver, who had an easy laugh and was in a fabulous mood. When we mentioned that our final destination was Managua, he offered to take us the whole way. Weary and very greatful for the nice gesture, we passed the next half an hour chatting away with our driver. We did so entirely in Spanish and had a great time learning to really express ourselves only to find out later that he spoke perfect English and actually lived in the States. He was just back to check up on some business before heading back to finish a documentary on Kansas coal miners. After that, he was off to Hollywood to try his hand at becoming a movie star. I hope he makes it!

Getting dropped off essentially at our door, we came home to a mildly full house with Juli and Max having just arrived. We took care of a few last minute things before cooking a quick meal of pasta and making our way to the bus stop for another long journey back to Bluefields.

Managua Trip - Part 4: Granada

As we rolled into Granada, Stephanie and I were both amazed to discover that not only did the streets here actually have names, but that they were written on the buildings at every corner. Excited to finally have something by which to orient ourselves, we pulled out the only map we'd brought with us and started scanning streets. Not really having much idea where we wanted to go, we simply got off as soon as we knew where we were. From there, we headed in the direction of the central park with the idea that we'd rent one bed somewhere so we could drop off our purchases and lock up our passports before heading out to pass the night partying with all the city-slickers that travel to Granada specifically for that reason.

As we stepped off the bus, we found ourselves on a beautifully paved sidewalk that ran alongside a perfectly maintained cobblestone road. On either side, beautifully maintained buildings ran uninterrupted with glimpses into gorgeously furnished living rooms with leather chairs and mahogany bookshelves. Feeling as if we'd walked onto an alien planet after several months in the grit and poverty of Bluefields, we were astounded to be among such wealth. As we headed towards the center, the elegance of design and the level of detail dedicated to each building only increased. Soon, we stumbled upon a gorgeous old cathedral that was in some disrepair, but still stunning. A few more steps down the road we stepped into a small hostel to ask about getting a bed for the night. Finding the price of $6 to be worth our while, Stephanie checked in and took our belongings up to 'her' room. It was tiny little thing with 2 bunkbeds that must have been built in place as there's no way the could have been maneuvered into such a small space, but there were locking cupboards on the wall, which was all we really needed. Putting away our few belongings and locking up our passports, we headed back out to the street.

On our way out, we asked the guy tending the front desk if he knew of a place to shoot some pool. After looking at us as if we'd just asked whether we could buy cheese on the moon, he slowly responded yes, but why do you want to know? When we explained that we'd like to play, his face went pale and he seemed a bit taken aback. Apparently not that many young ladies come by and ask to play pool in this particular town (or in any other around here for that matter). In any case, he reluctantly informed us that the only pool hall in town was just around the corner and we took off with a spring in our step. Passing by the pool hall just to make sure we knew where it was, we headed off for a meandering walk through town to see where we had landed ourselves.

The further into the center of town we got, the more European the whole place felt. There were colonial style mansions, Roman-inspired promenades and French-style chariot rides through the central park. It was all a little disconcerting, but also equally refreshing. In any case, we walked the length of the main drag where every other storefront was a restaurant or bar with outdoor seating, and were about to head back up to make a dinner selection when Ricardo finally got around to calling. Apparently he'd actually made it to town and wanted to meet us for dinner. Hiking back up the street until we ran into him, we discussed our options for dinner and decided on pizza as the only affordable alternative in this true tourist trap. Luckily, it was the best pizza either of us had tasted in a very long time. Apparently the owner is Italian and you could certainly taste it in the food. Not to mention, the service was impeccable. I can't even begin to describe how entirely different dining in Granada is compared to Bluefields, or even to Managua. In Bluefields, you're lucky if someone comes to your table without whistling across the room repeatedly and possibly even getting up and going to the kitchen yourself. And god forbid you need anything in the middle of your meal. Basically, if it's not on the table when they bring your food, it's not gonna show up any other time. In Granada, the waiter stands just a few feet away waiting to jump should you need anything at all. You don't even have to ask for silverware, they just bring it!

Anyway, we followed up our delicious meal with some equally exquisite sorbe at a small shop just across town. I honestly haven't had sorbe that yummy since the last time I was in Italy. Not to mention, I ordered starfruit flavor, which I'm pretty sure doesn't show up on the menu most places.

Well, it was still kinda early when we finished eating, and we had a full night ahead of us, so we opted to shoot some pool before commencing the night in earnest. This was a truly entertaining experience. At first, Ricardo informed us that we couldn't go into the pool hall as it was 'dangerous' and the boys were gonna shout at us. Giving him a moment of consideration, we thought about this and then burst out laughing. The truth of the matter is, there isn't a single place in Nicaragua that Stephanie and I can go and NOT get hollered at. So, after confirming the lack of another location, we led our reluctant friend into the dark underbelly of Granada.

The pool hall was brightly lit with tables spaced perfectly to allow uninterrupted play. The tables were also reasonably flat and well taken care of, quite a treat in our experience. Watching Ricardo play on the other hand, was more than just amusing. I'm not sure if he'd actually never played or simply didn't care, but I've honestly never seen anyone play even close to that poorly. This fact produced quite a few grins from the boys at the table next to us as Stephanie and I repeatedly sunk balls and Ricardo was lucky to even contact the cue ball. Well, at least I think that's what they were grinning about. It could also have been the slew of pictures they were not-so-serupticiously taking of us with their cell phones...

In any case, we killed an hour or two at the pool hall before Ricardo's friend called and invited us all over to his house. We drove a little way out of town and pulled over in front of a rather non-descript wall just as his friend was pulling into the very, very narrow garage door. Surprised that he made it through without nocking off both rearview mirrors, we followed him in to the most magnificent home I may have ever been in. The garage was bordered by an open air courtyard with lush tropically shrubbery and a brillant green lawn. Through an archway a wide, covered walkway led around another beautifully landscaped courtyard with thick columns supporting the upper story(ies). As he led us in, we could see into a few of the rooms immediatly off of the veranda, each with at least 15ft ceilings intricately decorated with carved metal crates and textured plaster. The furniture was made of solid, hand carved wood and the floor was tiled in exquisite style. Settling into one of the many sets of seating arranged around the covered veranda (which must have been at least 20ft wide), we were introduced to our hosts and asked to make ourselves at home. Both Stephanie and I were floored by the opulance of our surroundings and weren't exactly sure how we had managed to end up there.

As we sat back, our host brought out his laptop and set it to play a political documentary that discussed Nicaraguan history. Although I was only able to understand a small fraction of the film, the discussions the flew back an forth among our friends were tantilizingly interesting. Again, I wasn't able to catch quite enough to relate those conversations, but they covered every angle of politics you could imagine. Not to mention, everytime a new specialist or political figure appeared on the documentary, our host would point to him or her and relate some story of personal connection. I'm still working on figuring out exactly whose house we stumbled into that night, but I have a feeling they hold quite a few strings in this country.

Eventually tiring of politics, Ricardo invited his friends to join us for a night on the town, which they unfortunately refused, and we headed back into the city. Our first stop of the night was Cafe Nuit, a flashy little place with some live music and all the tourists you could stomach. We ended up at one of the only non-tourist tables with some people Ricardo knew from Managua, but they had all been educated in the US, so it wasn't a particularly 'genuine' Nica experience. In fact, the whole scene was a little odd. The entire time I've been in Nicaragua, I've only really spent time with people who exist relatively low on the economic food chain. Here, I was surrounded by young, rich blooded, college-educated individuals. It was a bit of a culture shock to see these very latino guys talking an acting like US frat boys. Not to mention, they weren't really interested in talking or getting to know us, just in convincing either Stephanie or myself to 'go for a ride' with them. Especially uncomfortable was the indifference they exhibited as to which one of us they wanted to take home. They simply tried one and then the other when they were refused. For the most part, we managed to ignore this and chat with the lovely girl from Argentina that was also at the table, but when they asked us to go back to Managua with them to party there for the rest of the night, we opted to decline. In fact, we were kindof hoping they'd take Ricardo with them when they left as he was getting progressively drunker and more annouying as the night went on. No such luck. They headed off and Ricardo stayed.

Then the lights went out.

Taking this as an omen, Stephanie and I discussed how we might be able to ditch our now inebriated friend without too much bad blood, considering he's a friend of our 'boss.' Just as we had decided to use the power outage as an excuse to call it a night and run, they got the generator going and the music came back in full force. We danced a couple more songs then told Ricardo we needed to drop off a few things at our hostel. He very reluctantly walked the 4 blocks with us after we refused to ride in the car with him. It was really interesting to see how uncomfortable he was with being on the streets. I have a feeling that being wealthy in Nicaragua comes with its own dangers, possibly even more so than being a foreigner. In any case, we made it back to the place we had rented with only a minor detour due to poorly recollected directions. Once there, Steph went up to the room and informed me that it was my job to get rid of Ricardo so we could go back out and enjoy the rest of the night. Using her as an excuse, I lied through my teeth and told him we weren't up for anything else that evening and we were gonna call it a night. After a very akward conversation, I finally managed to say goodnight and proceeded back up to the single bed we had rented. This was accompanied by a few odd stares from the young man at the desk, but he thankfully didn't say anything.

Hanging out in our room for a few minutes to give Mr. R a head start out the door, we started chatting with our bunk mates, 2 gorgeous European guys who were on backpacking trips. Despite our best efforts to rouse them from bed and have them accompany us to go dancing, the were insistent on calling it a night. Instead, we regaled them with tales of Bluefields and the Caribbean Coast. Pretty sure they only believed half of everything we told them, and I'm positive they thought we were drunk beyond belief, but we were just high on life by that point in time. In any case, after a very amusing little while, we decided the coast had to be clear and snuck back out into the night.

Finding ourselves quite to be rather starving, we wandered around town for awhile looking for some sort of food, but to no avail. It being well past midnight by that point in time, everyone had closed up for the night, including most of the nightclubs. However, we had heard that the real party got started down on the lake front when the town center shut down, so we flagged a cab and made our way to 'Kayak.' This place was a really cool little spot with a thatched hut bar and dance floor accompanied by seating scattered along the beach. Some of the tables landed beneath a beautiful old tree whose branches easily spread 40ft across with gorgeous, dense leaves of a rich, dark green. Kayak also served food, which made us exceedingly happy.

Stephanie and I sat down, very happy to have a private table a good distance from all the oggoling men across the way. No sooner had our waiter returned with our drinks than he informed us that the guys over yonder had asked permission to come join us. Amused, but not interested, we refused their offer and managed to make it through our delicious meal of frijoles cremas, fried chicken and plantains relatively unmolested. Of course, our privacy was too good to last. Not 5 mins after we'd finished eating, a very talkative young man approached us and began chatting. When he realized we both spoke Spanish, he sat himself down and entertained us with non-stop chit-chat. Luckily for him, he was thoroughly amusing and spoke very clear, fluid Spanish, so we let him stay. Then we discovered the real reason for his approach when he called 2 of his friends over to join us. We all chatted for awhile until the first gentleman, who was by far the most interesting, mysteriously departed and left us with his two rather inebriated companions, both of whom were more interested in convincing us to come back to their place than actually talking to us. We tried switching to dancing, but that didn't last long as both of them were more interested in feeling us up than actually dancing. Instead, we both ended up being informed we were the most beautiful women in the world and that our respective boys were each desperately in love with us.

Watching the sunrise over the lake, we decided it was probably time to ditch the guys somewhere around the 7th time they tried to kiss us. Telling them we were gonna walk back to town, we started heading up the beach accompanied by their incredulous stares, but thankfully not their presence. Wandering back along the beach and through the back streets to our hostel, we got a very different view of Granada than the one presented by the main streets. In the back alleys, there were no grand homes with tiled roofs and porches that spilled onto the street. Instead, there were the same ramshackle wood and tin structures that we had become accustomed to in our less touristy travels. Happy to see that Granada did in fact have real residents, and not just foreigners passing through, we eventually found our way back to the hostel. There, we each passed out for a few minutes in the hammocks swaying in the foyer before rising again and getting on our way.