Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Come Go With Me

Tomorrow we hit the road. Angie, Osman and Kaiden are seeing us off from León, a colonial town an hour northwest of Managua. We'll jump on a bus and head north, crossing through the Honduran border two times (Nicaragua/Honduras and Honduras/El Salvador) before we eventually land in Alegría, El Salvador.
Here is our rough draft schedule of the next 10 months, meant to entice you into keeping track of us and possibly buying a spontaneous plane ticket to adventure with us:

March: El Salvador, Guatemala (southwest)
April: Mexico (primarily southern, week in Cancun), "Q-ba"
May: Belize, Guatemala (northeast), Honduras
June: Honduras, Nicaragua (Granada, Carribean Corn Islands with Megan and Brock)
July: Nicaragua with family
August: Nicaragua (southern), Costa Rica
September: Costa Rica, Panama
October: Costa Rica, Panama
November: Nicaragua with family
December: possible return to real world

We are hopeful that with all this travel comes bellies full of unique food, fluency en español, encounters with a new culture and people, and breathtaking views of mountains and oceans. Our ability to get to those mountains may be limited initially, though... We are sitting on the porch right now, soaking Micah's foot in a garbage can of luke warm water. Unsure of when we will see the ocean again, we decided to jump in the deep blue one last time. After 10 minutes of floating in the serene natural pool, Micah yelped and grabbed his ankle. We're pretty sure he was bitten by a man-eating shark, and he's lucky to be alive. That, or he stepped on a sedentary sea urchin or stingray and is paying the price. Avert your eyes from the next picture if you don't like blood.

Near death experience

**after note: once our exotic creature experts, Angie and Osman, arrived home and inspected Micah's wound, they stated it is definitely the markings of a stingray. So as Micah was hobbling home and said his hip was starting to ache and feel tight, that was the poison traveling up towards his organs.**

Oh well, guess Central America still feels it needs to toughen us up a bit.

Will write soon from El Salvador!
Buen camino.





Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Nomenclature

We are passed the 4 week mark. We have gotten into a routine. Now that we are the only 2 visitors left, we have moved into the 2nd bedroom and the painting of inside the house has begun. It has been good to stay busy and feel like the swim at the end of the day was well earned. 
                     Julia applying the first coat

One of our other jobs is to collect sea shells to put around a planter. My dedication to this caused my first sunburn of the trip. We are watching more TV (I have caught most of the Kansas Basketball games) and are also getting the chance to cook some meals. I got the little one to call me "Gringo Micah", mostly because I like the way he says it but also to toughen me up. Another way we are toughening up is by slowly getting used to the tap water. When we first arrived, we dove right in unfiltered, but were quickly shown how weak we are. Now we are mixing the tap with the purified and so far feel pretty darn good. We have purification tablets that we will use on the road, but figure it is good to get our stomachs acclimated to handle everything that we plan to throw at it via markets and street venders. 

This past Sunday we hit the bird sanctuary called Montibelli, where Osman and Angie used to work. Osman is a pro at spotting birds and knows all the names. It was peaceful walking around the forest and stealing limes. 
                                            You can see a Toucan in the middle

Julia is a time-share owner, so we exchanged one that was about to expire and booked a week in Cancún, Mexico in mid-April. It will be a mind blowing amount of luxury about 1.5 months into our backpacking venture. We are also close to buying a plane ticket from Cancún to an island due east in the Carribean. I shall refer to it as "Q-ba" because I live in fear of the US government. We are doing all of our research first because initial searches have revealed that they are now stamping US passports there instead of on a separate card, and upon arrival back into the US, we could face some scrutiny if discovered. This probably won't stop us, but it is always good to look first before dropping $600 on plane tickets. 

Otherwise life is good. We have had a few days with some heavy clouds, but no real threat of rain. Always kind of hot but dry. The constantly blowing wind makes time outside in the shade perfect. We stroll down to the office about once a day to check email and other internet stuff. I download new Spanish apps to help me study along with the outstanding free Duolingo app that I try to keep up with. I am also making decent progress on the book I have been reading for almost 3 years (It is not that long, I am just not much of a reader). 

We will write again soon, hopefully from the peaceful mountains of El Salvador. 

Cheers, from Gringo Micah

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Pink Houses

I write to you as Micah and I sit under a ficas tree with a cool breeze blowing, next to the 4th hole at the golf course. We are volunteering at a scramble golf tournament, The Chocolate Open. Apparently un hombre (Senõr Chocolate) who owns property at Gran Pacifica turns 62 today, and 20 of his friends have flown from multiple countries to play this game in his honor. This is, by every definition, a Nicaraguan shit-show. Tee time was set for 10am.... It is now 11:05am and we have seen four golfers, all searching for their first hole to tee off from in this shotgun start format. Micah is standing in clear view trying to herd the mostly Latino golfers to their correct starting position. Our job, once they arrive to the 4th hole, is to provide each golfer that donated to a charity five yellow driving range balls, each marked with a different number. All six men will hit five balls each towards the flag, a short 150 yds away from the tee, and we will mark the closest to the pin. And then we will search like crazy to collect the other 29 balls from the hole that has a water hazard in front of the green and an ocean behind.

This experience is a fair representation of this past week for us. There have been social gatherings and encounters with many types. On Monday, we did cocktail hour with a retired couple from Oklahoma; the man is originally from Texas and is the spitting image- appearance and mannerisms- of George W Bush. So we took his words with a grain of salt. After cocktails, we attended a potluck style dinner with 30 other gringos. It's interesting to be in a different country but to be surrounded by gringos.... as is the resort life, I suppose. Tuesday, we went for a four mile walk on the beach to collect seashells for Angie and Osman's home. Wednesday, Micah golfed with my dad and two men who work for Gran Pacifica while I spent a few hours helping Angie in the office. Thursday night we found ourselves in la casa de Angie's boss, grilling the mackerel and sting ray he caught the day before, and drinking wine with 15ish other gringos, some we knew and some were new. We've enjoyed the stories, mostly retired folks who were wise to invest in an area like this and live a life by the ocean for a fraction of the cost. And there's a handful of young kids here too, either teenagers visiting their parents during school break or post-college resort workers who aren't sure yet what to do with their degrees. It's been a busier, more social week than previous weeks and we can definitely appreciate the differences between here and home; punctuality is nearly non existent in Nicaragua, laid back is the only life style, 75 degrees and a harsh sun are considered "cold", and resorts are a very secluded misrepresentation of a culture.  Stats about Nicaragua: although it is more stable today than it's been in previous decades, it remains one of the poorest nations on the American continent; roughly 1/3 of the country survives on two meals or less per day; 46% live below the poverty line; minimum wage in the tourism sector for a good job with benefits is $7/day. We enjoy waving at those we have met as we wander the property and feel as though we've found a bit of a family here, but are looking forward to exploring Cental America, unfiltered.

Houses along the beach, south of Gran Pacifica
Kaiden helping wash concha and add to our collection
View from our patio.... (Not real Nicaragua)

The family headed out yesterday for a bit of an adventure, one last hurrah before my parents head home tomorrow. We spent a few hours at Laguna de Apoyo, an old volcanic crater that is now a natural lake. Think Crater Lake, but less crystal clear, slightly heavier wind and that you can swim in. It's an option to rent kayaks but we opted for the cheap fun; jumping off the 20' deck in to the blue and sunbathing on the floating dock. It took me a few minutes to actually jump off the deck, since I could see the bottom of the lake where I was sure to land... and when I finally jumped, I bounced right off the soft floor. Apparently I don't jump very far, as my family observed. Weird.

Micah, in flight
Las Smetana chicas sunbathing
La Abuela, hostel and restaurant at Laguna de Apoyo

Driving home yesterday, we heard rumors of an earthquake hitting around 4pm. None of us felt it, but we were in the car and people drive pretty crazy here, so hard to say whether the swerving and potholes were really an earthquake. The center of the quake was Chinadega, 4 hours north of us. It was rated a 5.2 and could be felt in Honduras and El Salvador; luckily no structural damage or injuries were reported. Imagining that won't be our last earthquake here!

We are fairly confident in our plans for the future. We will catch a ride to Managua in 2 weeks or so, where we plan to bus north. We're not sure whether we'll start Pacific or Carribean coast, but we'll head up one, either through El Salvador or Honduras, as far north as Cancun. And then we'll come back down the other side, spending 4 months exploring everything north of us. That should put us back in Nicaragua mid-June, in time to pick up our friends, Megan and Brock, before spending a week in Nicaragua with them. Come fall, our explorations will take us south to Costa Rica and Panama. 

Kaiden and his Tia at the infinity pool
The whole clan, now missing a few. Thanks Mom and Dad for the fun!

Sunday, February 1, 2015

High Tide or Low Tide

Here are some more stories about resort life:

Tuesday was the kid's birthday. Cakes and gifts were brought over by workers at the resort. He is a rock star here. Whenever we take him to the pool or restaurant, all the staff and residents stop and say "hola" to him, and if he responds by calling them by name, they go crazy. The Nino is a bit of a chica magnet. 


As my compadre wrote about in the previous post, we are trying to become decent surfers. Thursday we headed to the beach again, hoping to build on what seemed like great accomplishments last time. Unfortunately, we were doomed from the start. It was low tide and although there were some crashing waves, they were in very shallow water. Now, it should be noted as I continue that I know basically nothing about surfing, but these conditions made me nervous. I cautiously walked out into the ocean, examining each break and trying to learn something while watching Osman ride. The water was only up to my waist and I faintly attempted to lay on the board and ride, never really giving serious thought to standing up. The thought of crashing into the sandy floor and breaking my neck seemed like a real possibility. 

After a brief period of calm water, Osman whistled and pointed at an incoming wave. It looked big, but I consider myself a man and thus had to go. I laid down and paddled my heart out. The wave picked me up and started to break over the top of me. Then the nose of the board went under and I fell over the front of it. I felt the board go behind me and in this shallow water, knew it would come right back over me. I raised my right arm to protect my moneymaker, but it was too late. The fin grazed the back of my well sculpted head before running across my right forearm. No blood was shed, but pain and bruising followed. I later felt a sense of pride in my first surfing wound. As I glanced at the swelling, I was happy with it's location and hoped that a permanent scar would be left behind. Just a little something I could show off at parties with the line "I got this while surfing in Nicaragua". 

But alas, as you can see from the photo above, the colors are already fading after 2 days. I was beginning to wonder if the whole reason I wanted to surf was just for the scars or because I think I will actually enjoy it. It appears I will have to get back in the water and give it another try, but next time it will during high tide. 

Speed round:
-- It is the windy season down here. It keeps it fairly cool and the bugs away. 
-- There is a small skunk that wanders around at night. We hear it fighting with cats and then the smell comes into the room.
-- I shaved off my beard on Tuesday. It was weird at first, but now I like it. 
-- When we played golf on Friday, Julia hit a hybrid from 140 yards out to within 3 ft of the hole. And... she made the putt for par. It was one of my prouder moments. 

We plan a little more each day. The timeline is mostly set and we are getting a little anxious. Tonight there is a Super Bowl party by the pool, and we will continue to enjoy these luxuries while we can.