My Second Nica Trip
on day 2 we went and visited peter’s lot at the beach. this beach is about and hour or so outside of managua.
we stopped at a road side stand to get some quesillos. it’s pretty hot during mid-day, so the dogs were just chillin out on the floor.
it’s pretty common for kids to work down there and here we’ve got some kids running cattle down the street.
the next day we visited matagalpa. we visited a community on a mountain side that had some of the most extreme poverty i have ever seen. here a woman washes her children in a bucket.
and a woman carrying a tired little one home.
we ended up going back to esteli for one more night with maricella and then went out to hit a slot canyon she had recommended. this was a bit of a sketchy experience as you basically turn off a road and have people running up to you offering to be your guide. now, you see NO ONE else there who’s visiting the canyons, and you’re pretty deep in. we figured we had at least 90% odds of surviving and 80% odds of our truck being there when we got back from the canyon. we took the odds and went with my trademark approach: be sure to reference that we’re visiting people with fabretto and mention that we will likely be sending others to come visit the same place.
here we are with our guides.
and here was a woman washing clothes in the river there.
john and i paused for a team photo in the canyon.
after the canyon we went back to esteli for the opening of some new buildings with fabretto’s esteli center. the japanese embassy had contributed substantial funds for the opening and they had some ambassador (who looked tremendously like one of john and yoko’s kids) there for the ceremony. here’s a picture from the new building at the center of a house across the street.
here’s a picture of one of nicaragua’s famous “widow maker” shower heads. the water is heated in the shower head, and yes those are electrical wires sticking out of the shower head.
that is from a hotel on top of a hill in matagalpa.
we went back there for one night to meet with maricia (john may have to correct me on a couple of names) and to get a little better feel for the city. here we are out to dinner with her and her kid. he and i function at about the same level, so it was a pretty fun dinner.
here’s a church in granada “in the gloaming”
and here’s another church in town.
a side public service announcement. the number of beggars and hookers has doubled in the last year down there. this is a direct result of american and european tourists giving money to both groups of people. i would challenge any of you who visit here or anywhere else to give money to organizations, not individuals there on the streets. there are obvious exceptions, but in general giving people money in the streets just encourages more people to hang out in the streets and ask for money. at a minimum, it is better to provide a bottle of water or a banana versus a dollar. that’s my brief visit to the soap box. anyway, back to the pics….
this guy was just driving around on his way out for a date.
so, i might as well mention that we set a new record for getting stopped for driving while white (or DWW). we were actually pulled over four times and bribed our way out of it twice (once with five bucks and once with a bottle of water). there are three potential “outs” for one when pulled over for DWW. one is to pretend you have NO understanding of what they’re saying and hope they get frustrated and leave you alone, one is to try and rebut everything they say and the final option is to pay a bribe. john and i always went with option two until it became obvious that option three was necessary.
anyway, we spent one last night in granada visiting el club (http://www.elclub-nicaragua.com/) and polishing off a bottle of flor de cana.
as you might imagine. we were pretty beat by the end of the trip, but not as tired as this guy.
Thanks for the update. Very cool what you guys are doing.
Cheers,
Drew and Blake