I'm So All Over Nicaragua It Had to Take the Morning After Pill

I spent the majority of last week in Estelí. I loved it! I spent the time with my pal Ariel in the Global Brigades house with all of my new friends as seen here:

Whoops I totally forgot to get a picture with them. But if I had I know it would have been full of smiles, bunny ears, and some nudity (mostly from me). But for real they were an awesome group. I felt so safe there, it was the most beautiful old house:

 

I was alone in the house in the daytime and made friends with Hector, one of their security guards. He loved learning English and he taught me a bit of Spanish which I already forgot. One day he was trying to learn the word for "fast" and kept saying "fat fat fart fart." I explained to him what each of these crucial English words meant and wrote them down on his paper of English words with Spanish translation (fat is gordo and fart is pedo in case you were wondering (you were). The verb tirarse un pedo means "to fart" but the literal translation is "to pull out a fart.")

I went back into the dining room and a few minutes later he came in to practice his new vocabulary.

"The girl has very good farts."

I nearly peed myself. But in an effort to teach him proper English I corrected him just a little:

"It would actually be, 'The girl has very bad farts.'" I guess it all depends on your personal preferences though.

I stayed in Estelí until Thurs the 3rd and grabbed a bus going back to Leon where I caught another bus to the beach town Poneloyo:

 

I love the chicken busses. They're such a great experience of what it's like to really live here. People hop on all the time and try to sell foods to you.

 

They're so much cheaper than shuttle busses. Just expect to be Japanese-style packed into them sometimes. 

The only thing I don't like is that they often blast music right in your ears:

 

So I got to Estelí and then just barely caught the last bus towards Poneloyo. I really only had a vague idea of the area and it was dark out. I didn't know where I'd stay. I'd never felt more in the moment in my life. I just got out at an area I felt felt right. And it did, it was the perfect place to get off. A man came up to me asking me if I needed a hostel. He led me to his hostel where he and two other people lived. They were all from Italy and they were renting a huge house on the beach so I stayed there for a night. They made money playing movies for the locals on the big wall of the house, so I watched El Exercismo de Dorothy Mills with salamanders crawling across the character's faces. It was a good movie!

The next morning I wanted to find a place where movies wouldn't be playing right outside my room past 11pm at night, so I went for a run and came by this place, El Pulpo:

I knocked on the back door and this man (who I later came to know as Carlos) came out and told me there was no availability. So I continued on my run and looked for hostel after hostel. They were all much more expensive than the cinema hostel, so I headed back. On the way back, Carlos was outside the front door of El Pulpo and motioned for me to come back over.

He explained to me that he was looking for me ever since he told me there was no availability. "If you help me, I can help you!" he explained. He told me that he'd let me stay there at a discounted $10 per night (usually about $30 per night) if he could give me the keys to the place and leave. He needed to go to several appointments in Managua, which is over an hour away, and would be staying the night there. He told me that I'd be in charge of the place. Just had to let in 1 couple at 2pm who'd booked a room there, give his cat food, and water the plants if I remembered. I accepted his deal, him all the while laughing "This is so crazy! You must think I'm crazy! This is how we do things here!" and with me being very skeptical and rather nervous but feeling it was okay to trust him. So I did it and I loved it! It was such a damn nice place.

 

With a great beachside access:

 



 

I stayed there for 3 nights and when Carlos came home the next day he was such a delight! He was a hilarious laid-back guy, who spent much of his afternoons calling his friends on the phones and howling with laughter. I even lost the key to my room and ate all his granola while he was away and his response to each was "Oh. Whatever, man!"

It turns out that El Pulpo was also the place where Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki got the inspiration for VeggieTales:

 

 

Poneloyo was a very interesting place to stay because there is not a lot going on there as you can see:

 

 

 

This sign explains that this property was left in shambles as a respect to God who brings destruction like hurricanes and tsunamis to their country:

I love blaming natural disasters on God! It makes it easier to have someone to be mad at that way. Goddammit, God!!

 

The biggest restaurant across the street was El Pollo Negro:

 

 

It's an OK place. Every time I went there I was badgered by the owners' friend from Mexico who tried to convince me to order food from her instead of the menu (I guess she made money off it). She would go on and on in these food monologues about her dishes, which were much more expensive than the main menu and way more uninteresting. This one day she was going on and on describing potato wedges. "No, no, they're not French Fries," she explained in Spanish. "They're crispier, fried golden brown, with their edges burned just a certain way." I was like "I just want bacon and eggs, but fine I'll also take some potato wedges." She came back with a plate filled with potato wedges and 2 pieces of bacon and barely any egg. Arggghhhh!!!

 

This one day Carlos told me that the owners of Pollo Negro were getting married. When I walked past the restaurant I saw the male owner and said "FELICIDADES!!!" all loud and excited ("Congratulations!!") He kind of smiled and started talking about his truck. So I went up to the female owner and asked in Spanish "Is someone getting married today?" And she looked at me and blinked and said in Spanish, "Uhhh... Oh. Yeah. I am." I passed by later and their wedding reception was two tables of them and their friends/family watching soccer. Apparently this was his 4th marriage so it was super chill. Super chill...

It's ironic that Poneloyo, the most desolate place I've been so far I met some of the greatest people:

 

This is Dariana. She's a model. I KNOW A MODEL AND YOU DON'T.

 



 

This is Rubin and Roger, they're a couple of 12 years. Rubin's from San Fran and Roger's from here! They drove me to Managua at the end of my 3 day stay in Poneloyo. I've spent another 3 nights in Managua and tomorrow I'll take 2 chicken busses to Rivas, a taxi to San Jorge, a ferry to Ometepe, and probably another taxi to the south-east part of the island to my hostel where I'll be. (More on this in the next post!)  

 

Managua has been really enjoyable! It has a bad rep. People go on about how dull Managua is. It's just an urban center, nothing that big a deal about it, just a place to get to other places. But I love it! There are trees everywhere and it's beautiful at night!

 

 

  

 

There's even a big mall here! How bizarre to walk into a place with Subway, Burger King, and a shop called American Donuts:

 

 

It was very nice however there was Siman ALL OVER the place:

 



 

Yckk. And just like any commercial venue, they're pushing such unrealistic expectations of how a woman should look and behave: 

 

I just don't want young girl seeing this and thinking they have to act this way.

 

And even though it was a very "American" mall, they still kept their same Nicaraguan service level. Here's a video of the grocery store clerk and bagger totally chilled out while we waited in line... forever:



 

Stuff that didn't make it into the director's cut of this blog entry:

Here's a poster I found in Leon:

"We don't permit the sexual exploitation of boys, girls, and adolescents." So let's depict them in a poster as a bunch of lifeless submissive dolls!

And then there's this....

 

Something is very wrong here. I feel like I should be calling some government hotline number and reporting somebody.

 

But at least they represent multiple amputee children with leprosy:

 



 

Translates to "I heart Aspirin." There are these ads all over Estelí. Hey, Nicaragua, here in America we desperately love our medicines, but we don't advertise our pill addictions. Take a page!


Remember in my last post where I didn't have a picture of my volcano boarding excursion atop Monte Negro in Leon? Oh you don't? Well here are finally the pictures of me treating a volcano like a playground slide:

 

(I was just returning from my laboratory so had no time to change out of my orange full-body suit and goggles.)

 

Thanks for reading!! I have fun making this blog so please share it and spread it along. Until next time!