Day 2 Nicaragua

Day 2 July 4th, 2007:

Waking up to Isa’s yelling and running around was the beginning. I don’t even know what time it was. The light was beautiful though: sun shining, a light breeze rustling the trees. Walking out of the bedroom I share with Jason and Amy the house was quiet, everyone was out on the deck. Amy with a book, Lee and Velvet talking while Isa and Jason were looking at something by the pool, Akhil no where in sight. Taking a closer look around I noticed the dozens of crabs crawling everywhere. They are black with purple claws and orange or yellow legs. All sizes but the same kind. They are everywhere and always moving. If you stand and listen to the woods you can hear them moving around on the ground. Even the bigger ones fit in the smallest little holes, like in the side of the stone walls there will be a little crease that they just slip into. They made me jump though because they sit still until you go near them and when I wasn’t paying attention it was like random things start moving around my feet. The first look around in the daylight was gorgeous! Standing on the driveway above the house we could see the beach. The waves crashed on the rocks that are on the far side. To the left we could a few of the other houses. The landscaping is phenomenal. I laughed because planted in the garden are a lot of the tropical plants we sell at work. Everything is so well maintained by the people that work in the little community (Arenas Bay, Tola).

Finding whatever we could to eat (only what we found at the supermarket the day before) we ate a little breakfast and decided to head to the beach. Walking down the road my hips were screaming from absorbing the shock from the incline. Down the concrete road, onto the pathway that leads to the beach. The pathways are all stones laid in concrete, they’re beautiful but bumpy. Very easy to trip. It was all downhill all the way to the beach which is nice, until you come back up. As we went down further there were hermit crabs everywhere. It looks like the ground is moving sometimes. At the beach there is what can only be described as a hut. It’s roofed with palm leaves and has a floor that is like a deck. It was open and looks right out onto the beach. Large rocks on the left of it, waves crashing against them, creating white spray each time. To the right is the beach, the smooth, dark sand stretching between the hills and cliffs. The blue, almost green ocean rocking gently up to the shore where the small waves rolled into tubes and became white and bubbly, like boiling potatoes. Walking along the beach my toes burning in the hot sand, my back warmed by the beating sun. Standing at the edge of the water the tide washes gently over the tops of my feet, revealing how much warmer the water is here. Walking further in is cooling but not near cold, couldn’t be more perfect. Everyone swam for…I don’t even know how long, hours at least. As we walked back up we stopped at Ak and Lee’s house to see how everything was going. We didn’t know why but there was almost no one there, one guy working on roof tiles. The house was beautiful in the daylight though. Two stories, wrap around deck on both floors, the downstairs very open. The kitchen counters topped with marble. The deck partially 12” x 12” cream-colored tiles. Upstairs there is at least one bathroom, two big bedrooms, even incomplete it was gorgeous.

Back at the house we were all ready for lunch, we were going to go into town and eat at a restaurant. Akhil wanted to walk so we all headed down. About five minutes in Lee thought that it would be better to grab the truck in case people didn’t want to walk back after. Amy, Lee and I went back and got it and our suits because there was a beach down there. Amy and I climbed in the bed of the truck, once again, and headed down.

When we got down there I didn’t even realize it was a town, it was a few buildings with some nets everywhere (it’s a fishing village). As Lee parked the truck and we all got out I could see the pigs and chickens roaming around the street. I could hear the ocean crashing on the beach but it was below eye level. The restaurant we were going to eat in was actually some woman’s house too. Ak poked his head in and shouted “Hola” but no one answered and it sounded like someone was in the shower in the back. We walked down the street a little more to see if we could find another restaurant to eat at but there wasn’t one so we headed back to that one. We passed a monkey on a leash. He was tied to a tree but climbing on the side of the building next to it. He kept looking at us with those tiny little black eyes. The dogs that are everywhere seemed to leave him alone although they were always getting into fights with each other. Walking back up the street (a dirt path through the houses) we saw all the animals and once again got stared at. Back at the restaurant (about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes later) we still couldn’t find anyone but whoever it was, was still in the shower. Ak explained that they had just got running water, the man who built the development we are living in put water in for the whole town. They’re still getting used to the luxury. Finally a woman came out of the back. She looked fairly old. She was wearing a bright yellow apron and had spaces and metal where her teeth were supposed to be. They were all very crooked. Lee and Velvet (who speaks fluent Spanish) asked if we could get lunch and what there was. She replied “Pollo o Pescada”…chicken or fish. Everyone but Velvet got chicken. I expected to just eat the rice and beans that it came with. As we sat and waited someone was outside with a loudspeaker saying something in Spanish. We went out to look and realized that it was a truck with fresh food. Fruits, vegetables, fresh chicken…Akhil went to buy things. He bought potatoes, chicken, butter, onions, some squash-type things and some other stuff for the next day or so. The woman who was cooking our food ran out and bought chicken, the chicken we were about to eat it turned out. This made me even more weary of eating it. We waited for a while and then she came out with big plates of food for each of us. The chicken smelled delicious! There was chicken, a bowl of beans, a lot of rice, fried plantains and a bowl with tomatoes, peppers, and onions in it. It looked amazing. Knowing that I couldn’t eat tomatoes because of the water thing was annoying since they looked amazing. So I figured I’d try the chicken just so I could say I did. Hands down, it was the best chicken I’ve ever tasted. All white meat in some seasoning that was incredible. It was salty and almost spicy and…I can’t explain it. Anyway I ate the whole thing and everything else but the tomatoes. We’d had plantains in the airport that were gross so I was weary about trying these but they were fried and they looked better so I tried them. They were good, kind of tasteless but not bad. We were drinking orange Fanta which, down here is made with all real sugar instead of corn syrup and it is so much better. Jason had Fresca which is amazing when its not fake sugar like we have. For seven of us to eat these huge meals was about $35 dollars, which is outrageously expensive for them but is only $5 per person. Jason, Amy and I headed to the beach before everyone else. This beach was much bigger and had much bigger waves. There are a lot of their house along it and all their boats are up on the beach, they take the motors off so people won’t steal them but theft doesn’t seem to be a big thing down here. Everyone’s houses are open, the few cars that are in the smaller towns are just sitting.

Down at the beach Amy and I say we’re just going to wade because we didn’t have our suits on and it’s so much of a hassle to try and find somewhere to change. We end up getting soaked by waves and going swimming in our clothes anyway. As we swam we saw a bunch of pelicans fishing. They are huge.

Back up at the house I took a nap and woke up a couple hours later, went in the pool and wrote some in this journal. All of us then watched a movie on the TV. Something called “Brassed Out” I watched about fifteen minutes of it before I gave up on it. I was tired so I headed to bed. Isa however, had other ideas. She was screaming and crying for about twenty minutes before I got up to see what was going on. I guess she felt sick, poor little girl! I put some headphones and my ipod on and went to sleep.