Jess and Stacey’s Travels

Volcano Pictures-click on photo for more pictures

We elected to act as tourists one day this week . We took a guided tour of the Masaya Volcano.  The tour left from Granada around 4 p.m.   We traveled by minibus through Masaya and arrived at the volcano about 4:30 p.m.   Our official park guide was a bit late so we just wondered about for a bit.   We saw a lot of gases emanating from the bottom of the crater.   We could also hear a lot of birds coming from somewhere inside the crater.   The birds actually nest in the interior walls which is interesting as the guide will later tell us that the gases erode everything in sight.  These birds appear to be black while in flight until you get a closer look when they angle off and we find they are green parakeets.

Our guide ‘Oscar’ arrived and gave us some history. Seems the locals used to believe that the volcano was a god and sacrificed virgins and small children.   Oscar took us to several vantage points that overlook the crater, two other craters, [read on]

This week took us away from our normal routine of sleeping, eating, and learning Spanish.  On Tuesday afternoon, we took a little tour of a nearby town with a volunteer organization called Esperanza.  The organization was founded about 8 or 9 years ago to help in the schools.  They provide both monetary and volunteer assistance.  For example, they pay a local nurse to do weekly rounds at the schools in the poorer communities, they sponsor some kids to go to high school, they work in the schools themselves tutoring children, teaching hygiene, providing physical therapy, setting up libraries etc.  Esperanza requires volunteers be here at least two months.  They have a few volunteer houses where the volunteers live.  I think there are about 35-40 people volunteering right now.  We’re thinking about volunteering here or somewhere at some point.  We walked back to Granada from the little village and were sweaty, dirty and tired, but it was a great change of pace.

On Saturday, we joined up with Femke (Dutch student) and rented a car and head out of Granada to some neighboring towns, known as los Pueblos Blancos.  They used to be strikingly white from the materials they were made of, but now [read on]

Lucila and Stacey (yes, a picture of Stacey!)

Just another day at the beach. No, I (Jesse) do not normally get up at 5 a.m. but then I do not normally have a rooster crowing outside my bedroom window either. Actually, there are 2 roosters, 8 hens and 2 ducks. This is our first overnight stay at our host family’s beach home. We attended Spanish classes yesterday morning, as usual. Then we gathered at the house. The family was busy getting the provisions necessary to feed everyone over the next couple of days. Their beach home is about a half hour outside the city and the last 20 minutes is on a dirt road that runs about 300 feet from, and parallel to, the waters’ edge. No stores out this way so, we carry in all the provisions we will need. Diana, from Oregon, and also a student at Femka’s school had visited the house a couple of days earlier and was invited to join us. Last time we crammed six adults, the driver and one child into a taxi. This time we had one more person and, thankfully, we took 2 taxis. Cost of taxi was 250 cordobas or about 14 dollars.

This is our 3^rd time to the beach and this is the first time there was a police roadblock at the entrance of the beach road. Because it is Easter weekend everyone goes to the beach. The roadblock is to pay for the additional police presence. Our [read on]

Palm Sunday photos-click on photo for more pictures

On Palm Sunday, we participated in one of many processions that are taking place every day around the city. The pictures in this posting are just a few representative of what a procession is. Lots of people follow a procession of a group of people carrying a cross or statues of Jesus from one church to another.  They usually stop at a few houses of important people. You can probably easily spot the tallest, grayed haired man in one of the crowd photos.

Sunday afternoon, we went back to the beach. We are headed there again this Friday and Saturday for an overnight stay. We decided to cut a potential 4 day beach vacation down to two so that we would study more.  Everyone around Nicaragua heads to the beach for Holy Week. We are now in week two of Spanish. For those keeping score, we have reached a milestone in that the number of Spanish words we know now exceeds the # of times we have eaten beans and rice.  Now that is progress.
On a completely unrelated note, the city got it’s first bit of rain this past week which was unexpected since the rain doesn’t usually come until late April, early May. It didn’t cool anything down but at least it was something different than the sun -(Don’t be bitter Seattlites).

A little about our host family for those of you following at home.

Our host father, Guillermo Gomez (55ish) works with his mother in the market. We haven’t pieced together everything yet but so far we understand that they were affected by the war but were subsequently able to regain some of their property. He has the house that we stay in with them, another bigger house where his mother and sister live, a beach house with his siblings, and a house that he rents out. He worked in California for several years and has a house there as well. He also has some siblings and at least one child who are in the states. His wife, Lucila (34), is a lawyer specializing in domestic abuse, divorce and property laws. She works in Managua but also works for free for people who cannot afford a lawyer. (i.e. she is a do-gooder). She cooks for us, does our laundry in the washing machine, and tries to understand our terrible Spanish. She has been at home the whole week we have been here because they are getting ready for holy week next week. Normally, she would be in Managua for part of the week. Their daughter, Maria Auxiliadora, is seven. Don’t know much about her except that she loves sweets and dancing.

We also have a man named Julio who lives at the house, who is kind of like the resident handyman or jack of all trades. He is 53. He is always ensuring that we’re doing ok. He took Jess to get his hair cut, he runs errands, makes sure the fan is always pointed at us at all times, helps Jess with his Spanish, etc.

The sister of Guillermo is late 40’s or early 50’s. She is a pediatrician – neo-natal specialist. (Yvonne/Steve-if you come visit, the Muenchkin will be in good hands). She isn’t maried and works all the time. She also runs several miles every morning at 5am (Betsy, a partner for you). She looks like she is in great shape and is evidently picky about eating healthy and taking care of herself. We’re not sure how she gets around the rice and beans here.

There is another young woman who lives with us from Australia. She’s only here for two weeks with the family. She is also learning Spanish. We don’t see much of her. She has been traveling through South and Central America for seven months now. She has two more to go.

Scorecard (to date): 

# of naps:  7

# of Spanish words learned:  20

# of times we have eaten rice and beans:  30

Our first month is dedicated to learning some Spanish.  We are taking classes at a school called One on One tutoring which is one of many schools here in Granada.  It literally is 1:1 with one instructor per student.  You can sign up for as many hours as you’d like in the week.  We take 4 hours of classes per day – a different subject each hour – grammar, vocabulary, exercises and conversation.  We each have a different instructor for each hour. 
We decided to take two hours in the morning and two in the evening so that we can study in between (i.e. nap).  The first day, we did 4 hours in a row, and it gets to be a bit much in this heat.
Every weekday, we wake up about 7-7:30am which is later than everyone else.  We have breakfast prepared for us by Lucila, host mother (35) which includes fruit, rice, beans, sometimes eggs, usually  a meat and a several varieties of juice.  Breakfast also involves a bit of conversaton between Lucila, Julio (resident handyman) and us-the majority of which we don’t understand.
It usually involves asking us what we will want for lunch when we will come home. 
We then walk to school about 12-15 min away for our classes, which are from 9-11am.  The journey takes us through the center of town where there is the central park and a cathedral.  For the way home, We try to take a different walking route home to see more of the town.  We get home about 11:30-noon and have lunch about 1pm which also involves rice and beans and some sort of meat. 
We try to study between 1-4:30pm but are usually overcome by the urge to nap.  We study in the living room. Julio has taken Jess under his wing to help him study.  Unfortunately, while Julio is a great guy, he doesn’t appreciate the need for some quiet study.  He hovers next to Jess repeating Spanish words over and over.

We take our two hours of class in the evening and then head back home.  Sometimes we stop at a cafe called the RoadHouse for a cold lemonade.  Lucila serves us dinner at 7:30 or 8pm.  Our host father (Guillermo) is already asleep by that time since he gets up at 5am to work at the market.  We always eat alone, just the two of us but Julio is usually around trying to talk to us.  The daughter, Maria (7), usually keeps to herself.  We’re not that interesting since we can’t talk to her.
The family has two TVs and cable.  Sometimes we indulge and veg out watching CSI, Cold Case, or one of many other US shows.  I am very excited that Dancing with the Stars is on here as well.  🙂
At night, we try to do our homework and play cards.  The hum of fans is a constant since it is hot all day and all night. 
We go to bed about 11pm.  The rest of the family is usually in bed by 9 since they get up so early.

Notes for fellow travelers:
in Granda it is easy to use ATM card to get Cordobas or dollars at the BAC near the central square.  Maximum withdrawal is $400. 
Wifi is accessible at several place that we’ve found so far- one to the right of the cannon in Independence square, at the hotel across from the main cathedral, and at Kathy’s. 
Internet access is everywhere but some places are slower than others.  We were told that the cafe to the right of the cannon is a better one – faster connection.  That’s where we have been going.
Don’t bother with traveler’s checks. 
Can use dollars just as easy if not easier than Cordobas.
We were able to get a 6 month visa in Managua at the Immigration office for $35/visa.  They only take Cordobas or dollars – no credit cards or travelers’ checks.
We were suprised since we heard that we would probably only be able to get 3 month tourist cards.
 

Lake Nicaragua with the family-click on photo for more pictures

It is the hottest part of the year right now – 90+ with 48% humidity.  Luckily our host family has a beach house that we went to on Sunday.  We are supposed to spend Easter weekend there as well.  Easter is huge down here.  We are expecting limited sleep and lots of food and alcohol.   We are on day 2 of our Spanish classes which amounts to us being able to ask for things but not understand the replies.  Maybe that is week 2.   We are eating well – too well.  So much for leveraging Nicaragua as a fat camp.

We arrived in Managua on Wednesday evening and spent three nights there at Joe Sinclair’s (Microsoft) in-laws bed and breakfast.  In Managua we were able to extend our ‘visa’ to six months which should cut down on our need to renew while we’re here.  Since we know about as much Spanish as a 1 year old, the experience at the immigration office was trying on both sides.  Noone spoke English but we muddled through both the conversations and an 8×14″ form.  Good thing the administrator had a bottle of white-out to undo all of our mistakes. Our taxi driver tried to help us but he also spoke only Spanish and mime only goes so far to explain fields on government forms.  On our last day, Joe’s mother-in-law was kind enough to drive us around Managua so we got some local perspective. 

We are currently in Granada.  We spent one night at our home-stay (Justin – shocking but they didn’t lock us in the basement yet).  We have Wi-fi access at a couple of cafes.  The internet cafes are about $1.25/hour without wi-fi.  They actually have Office 2003 on them – not sure if legal or not.  We are going to the beach today with our family – The Gomez’s.  Tomorrow we start our much needed Spanish classes. 

We’re also really excited because we found a great set of couples with whom to have a Hearts’ tournament. (just kidding Sara and Dan).

We’re really leaving this time.   While living at Jeana’s for the last couple of weeks has been great (for us anyway), we’re ready to go.  Bags packed and ready for our 8:05am flight today. 

Since we are still sitting here in Seattle waiting for Jesse’s flu to flee, I thought I’d pass on the answers to the most common questions we get from friends.

– When is the rainy season?   July-Nov

– What is the average temperature?  82 degrees (70 in the highlands)

– When should we come visit you?  When we run out of money.