As our castle was only a one month rental, and showing its age, we found a new home. I’m sure Asheya will give you the voluble version, but we performed a swap: we’re taking over the casa that was used for a daycare, which will be starting up in the new year in our old castle.

It’s the nicest casa we’ve seen so far (though after only 4 years since being built, the plumbing and electrical have already fallen into disrepair), sadly missing the luscious garden (we’ll be investigating sod), and with some security liabilities, but with a really tremendous second-story view (the pictures don’t do the view justice). The view is an elevated panorama of the lush, verdant hills with their many layers and textures.

Plus, the owner has requested internet on our behalf, so hopefully, after so many delays, we’ll be connected once again.

Cucaracha: a traditional Spanish folk corrido with popularity in Mexico OR
Cucaracha: a cockroach.

As night fell, the dark crawlers awoke. Pass one hour fitful sleep, to reveal the enormity of the horror. All that remained was hope of continued bed-island isolation, a hope forever mangled by a beastly bed-presence. Panic.

Small glimmer of brilliance ignited rooms with light, providing meagre respite for a broken, sad sleep. Come day, long hours of toil hung the net of peace henceforward.

After being totally bummed out that our last casa agreement was not honoured on the closing day, we’re trying again with higher hopes. We expect to move in tomorrow. Picture:

• Monkey
• Orange Tree
• Castle

More to follow.

I called my brother using our magicJack (very cool USB dongle that gives us a US number and free calling throughout the US & Canada, and actually works quite well), and he mentioned he was enjoying reading this travelogue. He said he classifies trips into vacations and adventures, and he guessed this was no vacation.

He’s right. This is no vacation, and our life is no paradise. I look back on photos we’ve taken…

…how could our life not be paradise? But the setting doesn’t make the reality. Think of the connection between poverty and latitude—nice weather doesn’t make nice life.

In just about every way, everything is harder than had we stayed home:

• food
  (no ability to cook, many food restrictions for sake of health, few restaurant options)
• shelter
• clothing / laundry
• transportation
• safety / safe play spaces
  (and therefore essentially no free time for the parents)
• communication
  (take a turn translating every little point of a Spanish rental agreement)
• …

When we move into our casa and find a full-time helper, we hope many of these points will become easier than had we stayed home (that’s been the plan). But, the undeniable fact will remain, we’ll always be real people living in the real world.

(Sigh…por favor, una otra $2 1L cerveza )

Prior to our departure, we asked a number of people for a quantitative assessment of what the mosquitos (and other flying insects) are like in Nicaragua. We asked questions like, “If you stood still on a city street, in a city park with trees, and in the country, in and out of the shade, how many mosquito bites might you have in a 15 minute period in each situation?”

The answers we received were all vague and provided no accurate information.

So here’s the definitive answer: during the day, there are essentially NO mosquitos in the city, in or out of the shade or trees, and we haven’t noticed any in our brief trips to the country. That’s right, NONE. It gets dark early (like 5:30), and I’ve hung out with the children on play equipment and on the porch watching the rain and banana fronds in the wind without any bites. We brought bug nets but don’t use them, often don’t even have screens on the windows, and often sleep next to naked with hardly a sheet, with no noticeable bites. Pretty amazing and surprising when one considers all the life here.

During the day, there are a few house flies (no more than in Canada), and at night there are some flies bumping against the lights. One large locust-like creature entered our room this evening (a few inches long), but everything is tiny compared to the plague of mammoths I met in Laos, which will persist in my memory for all time.

As one would expect, a variety of creatures exist in the tropics—but contact with them is infrequent.

So…compare this to the mosquitoes and black flies in Whitehorse (and don’t forget the aphid-covered aspen leaves) and, bug-wise, we have a clear winner.

Just try not to step on an anthill—boy, those tiny little guys are sure equipped to defend the nest!

We’ve had a couple of ridiculously busy days, and have since been trying to get a little settled. Here’s a long short summary:

We knew Sunday would be our last day south of Managua. Even though we have to enter Costa Rica in a month, the transportation will probably be direct (we forgot to make sure we received a 90 day pass, partly due to the crying ritual at immigration by you-know-who). So, against our better judgement, we endeavoured to fit in a stop by Volcan Masaya (an active volcano), Laguna de Apoyo (the cleanest swim in Nicaragua), and Granada, and be back by dark (very important for safety). This itinerary would be difficult enough even if we 1) knew more Spanish, 2) had a car, and 3) were childless.

San Marcos

San Marcos

San Marcos

First we bussed to Masaya:

 
Lots of Public Transportation

Masaya Market

Masaya Market

Masaya

We carefully chose a taxi driver who had the right look, but neglected to assess his vehicle at the same time. It groaned, squealed, and chunked up the volcano and down. I’m pretty sure the driver was continually checking his gauges with great concern, and at one point heading down I thought the brakes were sure to fail.

I had hoped to do a small hike on the volcano, but that wasn’t meant to be. At the top, you can look into the gaping spewing maw, though the lava is obscured by fumes, and a great column of gases ascends. There’s a short staircase up to a cross (as an aside, apparently a priest took a sample dish down into the chasm to see if the lava was gold), but at the top the wind changed and the gases washed over me. I’ll research how many years of my life I just lost, once we have better internet access. Needless adventure tourism, but our thinking has been pretty muddy with all the various factors playing into many decisions, and so little time available in the day to organize thoughts…

Volcan Masaya—Beware!

View from Volcan Masaya 

We ditched the cab back in Masaya, and found another for the remainder of the trip. The Leguna was a soothing balm—a beautiful natural place, remnant of a volcano, and we found a well-maintained restaurant at the shore. I gave Elias & Eowyn a quick swim.

Next was Granada for a glimpse at the colonial architecture. We knew we had to get back before the vampires awoke (seriously, the feeling is pretty much the same), and dark was fast approaching. We were directed to the bus station, but people were deserting the streets as we walked (have you seen Spirited Away?—same feeling, again). The warning bells were ringing and we both turned tail and skittered back to the centre. A cab query indicated the buses were done for the day, so we had no choice but to accept the risk of a cab after dark, and paid for a ride all the way home through the country, breaking one of the critical safety rules we had set for ourselves.

As an aside, we’ve had nothing but positive experiences with people here—to make a broad categorization, I would use the words quiet, friendly, very helpful, and honourable. Every money transaction we’ve entered has been entirely respected, and money dealings are separate from personal encounters, if you know what I mean. This is absolutely, entirely different from my short experiences in Vietnam and India, where there was virtually no personal encounter independent of money. However, bad stuff happens in Nicaragua (as it happens everywhere in different ways), and so we try to be ever-cautious with respect to the most common threats.

The next day, we had a similar hurry—get to Managua, buy a phone and lunch, and get to the bus for an arrival before dark. We had a sketchy start, with the ATM required to pay our hotel being broken (as predicted)—leaving this to the last moment is an example of our brain-fuzziness. Fortunately, I ran into the owner of La Casona while I was buying water at the supermercado, who directed me to another ATM at the university, and after misshooting (the cemetery sure was busy that day—actually, we later discovered it’s a half-holiday in honour of the dead, an interesting juxtaposition against the North American version), I got the money, we caught our bus, found a taxi for a lunch at La Pyrámide, got the phone we needed for our international calling needs, and landed at the bus station, narrowly missing the bus we needed, catching one to Matagalpa instead, and later catching up to the Jinotega bus and hopping over. We arrived with time to spare and were able to peruse a few hotels before settling on the room of beds (yes, 5 beds in a kind of shack—and shouldn’t those electrical wires be behind the walls?).

The park is in a sad state—picture holes and jagged metal in the middle of the slide, and mud bogs under the swings. Elias & Eowyn were blithely happy, of course.

We fortuitously found a restaurant, Soda El Tico, with an amazing feature, an enclosed outdoor patio in the back with play equipment! Oh, what amazing joys for both parents and children! Finally, during a meal of 45 minutes, where the kids eat for about 5 of those minutes, we no longer have to spend the remainder chasing after them around the premises. Too bad the food is no La Casona.

We also coincidentally met Gustavo, who studied in Canada for about 10 years before returning to Jinotega to take over his family’s coffee plantation (his young girl was also enjoying the playground). Gus gave us a tour of the town, and mentioned many ways in which he was willing to assist us.

If the climate of Whitehorse, San Marcos, and Jinotega are the three bears, Jinotega is “just right”. Being in a valley, it has the all-important views of natural beauty from every part of town, and has an easy feel to it (Jinotepe was way too busy, San Marcos a bit too busy). We are comfortable 24 hours a day in a light-weight long sleeve shirt.

The word is out that we’re looking for a casa para alquiler. On Thursday we met a new friend and entrepreneur, Fernando, and his wonderful assistant Heilym, who took us to view his empty casa in el campo (the country).

Unfortunately, it was too far from town for us (yes, that picture above is a double bus break-down on a hill, necessitating a return by a route twice as long, all the way around Lago de Apanas).

Finally, the pressure is off—failing a large change of plans, we could live here, and though there is pressure and we’re investing ourselves in finding a casa, we can safely get sick without being stuck in limbo, and can continue to work towards our future.