Nicaragua

It's very rainy today. They even say that we're going to get floods...

Recently many interesting things have happened so...let's talk about it.

We got back from two beautiful weeks in Nicaragua a while ago. I had never been to Central or South America so I was very excited about this trip and well, here we go:

After a long journey up in the air, we arrived at the airport of Managua. We waited for our luggages for a while....then a long while. They didn't come. We almost missed our connecting flight before that so our belongings where stock in Florida. Thankfully I had my camera with me! Unfortunately, most of us (a nice and friendly group of seven friends from Rhodes Island---and my frenchy self) had our winter outfits on as we had just avoided a big snow storm

in Newport coming here. Then it was cold, and now it was HOT. I had my jeans on, a nice little dress and a black cardigan. Judging from the first Nicaraguan stares us lady received, I decided to keep the cardigan and the jeans. At least that first day because we then became used to it and it wasn't such a big deal, really. We surely heard lots of "tss tss, boomboom, and baby, oh

baby" while wondering the streets or going grocery shopping. Fortunately, we always had one of our man around, which might have disappointed a few locals. To get back to our luggage situation, after about an hour of registration and description of our precious belongings (surf boards included, because....oh yes...the hole Nicaragua experience was to be a surf trip for our boys, mostly) we got to the car renting place. Got two tiny Suzuki Alto cars. Tiny for American people but perfectly normal for europeans I must say. Everything is huge in the States anyway and in the U.S, people tend to particularly enjoy their comfortable hugeness (not making any bad jokes here if you thought about it...).

We got to our place after about 3 hours of driving throughout the country. During that drive we saw the real Nicaragua. The colorful but very poor Nicaragua.

Most people living in handmade "houses" in between banana plantations and the "highway". Hamacs everywhere, revealing nothing of the people sleeping in them but their bare feet. Kids playing outside, with dirty faces and pretty smiles. Goats, cows, pigs and chickens everywhere (off and on the road). Trash burning all over the place, "Viva la revolucion" signs on the walls and on random billboards, invisible speed bumps and potholes ruining our tiny wheels, police checkpoint that we got to know just too well. So you can understand, imagine seven gringos in two twin cars, with surfboards on the roof (once we finally got them back) and about four reflex cameras and two or three pocket cameras in hands, taking photos of EVERYTHING. Yep, we got gringo-taxed all over the place! Thank goodness we had one spanish speaker with us and we all could understand and speak at least a little too.

The hole photography madness felt very strange to me...

most of the time when I take photos, I pretty much wonder on my own or only with my boyfriend on my side. This time we where so many with cameras, and with such a big group I didn't enjoy taking photos as much. It was impossible to blend in and felt weird to take a photo and seeing everyone else do the same around me. It felt as if the moment wasn't as special. I'm sure my photo-friendly companions felt it too. I usually try to either be very discreet or to directly go and ask people if I can take their portrait. Neither was really going to happen as the first option was impossible and the second too personal to be accomplished in front of so many.

Now...where was I?

That first ride made it for me. I fell in love with the colors,

the dirt smell (yes, you read me), the grandmas looking at you like aliens, the kids hiding and staring with eyes wide open, the toothless smiles, the fruit stands, the re-masterised, unwanted American school buses changed into public buses, full to almost bursting with people in and ON the bus, the latin-american music you could hear everywhere, the animals, the sounds, the light.... All that was enough already for me. I saw Nicaragua and I think I understood it a little as well. But that wasn't it of course. Then luxury came in...we got to our gated community. We passed the guarded gates of the "Hacienda Iguana", drove in for a little longer, passing fields and waiting to behind groups of cows. Then we finally parked in front of our house. A big, beautiful beach house. ON the beach. That one considered as one of the best for surfing in Nicaragua. Holy moly, our boys where happy! Everyone was. It was exquisite. There we where for two weeks, in swimwear everyday (we got our luggages 2 days later...meanwhile I had made myself a sort of a swimming suit with an extra large t-shirt that I cut to make a top and a skirt). We had lots of rum, lots of beer, lots of sun and lots of fun. We met the local gringos that settled there and helped the Nicaraguan community with their businesses (little beach bars and restaurants). They gave back to the people for letting them live there with them. They are involved in all sorts of projects, such as building skate ramps and parks for the kids etc. Over there you can rent a hamac for the night for $4 and a bed for $7. You are living in front of one of the most beautiful beaches ever and you eat fresh fish everyday. Un petit goût de Paradis...

One night we came back from the bar after dancing on it and went straight to the see, all very alcoholized and very naked. Well, it was awkward and it was fun. Then one of us let his girlfriend transform his hairstyle into another one with a hair trimmer. Yes, the next day he did remember (the contrary would have been fun for us but probably not for him) and was very proud about his mohawk!

Between the surf, the sun and the fun, we also did lots of driving around to get to great villages and cities. We saw a huge, busy and messy market in Granada, and ate the best food at Yolanda's (she called us all "Mi amor", lovely little old toothless lady that we tried to understand as best we could while she would mumblingly tell us about her daily specials). We swam in a beautiful lake situated close to a big volcano on the Ometepe island, visited San Juan del Sur, a very touristy and commercial place...that day we headed back to our local villages pretty quickly!

We talked about life and how different it can be with the locals and laughed, got surprised and thought about those differences. Well I did, a lot. I have to say that I felt a little bad about living in such luxury over there. A luxury that cost us as much per night as the cheapest hotels in the States, maybe even cheaper. But for the locals, that meant five stars. Each time we passed the gates again, I felt as if I entered a fake world. A fake world that I enjoyed like everyone else, but still not the real world, far from it.

On the beach we had see turtles that crawled up from the water often to lay eggs! How wonderful isn't it? Except you would never see the baby turtles get back to the water. As soon as a "mum turtle" would regained her dear ocean, local men would come and dig the eggs out. Turtle eggs are a delicacy for them. It's terrible but neither I or you would do it differently if we lived their lives...

Anyway, I could write so much more about that place...but it would take me days to do so and hours for who ever reads this to read it! I think I described our trip shortly but pretty well so I'll stop there for today sending my good vibes to the world and thanking mother nature for the beautiful memories, the discovery and for giving me a lot to think about, once again.

Gracias Mama Gaia.