Nicaragua

The paved road ends in Tola. As you head north and west along the dirt road toward the coast, you are immediately struck by how simply the people live. Indeed, at first you are struck by how poor the people seem to be. It takes awhile to look beyond the tin roofs and dusty rock hard dirt courtyards and chickens and cows to see the people. It takes a few days to understand that the people live differently but not necessarily more poorly. Merely poor by material North American standards. Those standards do not really address contentedness and community. It takes a few days to see the simplicity and beauty of the people. They gather at all times of day in front of their houses or along the road. Children smile in the campo.

Whenever you drive somewhere on the dirt roads, dust envelopes the vehicles. It is hard to get away from the dust. So far as I can tell, the people who live here are immune to the dust. What must they think of two cars full of gringos roaring along the dirt track like something out of a movie? As you drive, you share the road with oxen and donkeys pulling wagons, people on bicycles, cows, horses, chickens and goats grazing slowly on the shoulder or moving glacially across the road and pick-up trucks with the rear so full of people standing up that they look as if they will topple over. Mountains rise in the distance. It is not everyday that we see a bus with live hogs tethered to the roof back home, or more properly, never. Somehow that seems normal here. The hogs don’t appear to mind. Cowboys herd cattle from horseback. A boy on a bicycle leads a horse on a halter. Acres of banana trees grow in rows. Did Ed just hit a piglet?

We enter the town square in Rivas, looking for the supermercado. The lead car stops to ask the policia for directions. “Izquierda, derecha, derecha, izquierda”. We head off and after a few turns are back at the same corner with the same policemen. Once more they tell us which way to go and again we make a mistake. By the third pass through the same intersection, the men are rolling with laughter and pointing by crossing their arms and sticking an index finger in each direction. In Rivas, the policia are still probably talking about the idiots from the Estados Unidos.

Suyen is a very sweet girl of nineteen. She has a beautiful smile and a soft manner. She comes to the house everyday to do light cleaning and to cook. Suyen goes about her day quietly. She scrambles eggs for desayuno and they are hard to beat after two hours in the water. Suyen seems amused when Rick boils pasta for breakfast. Comida always consists of rice, maybe red beans. Nobody speaks Spanish well enough to carry on much of a conversation. ¿Puede usted escribir su nombre para mi, por favor? She does so eagerly. She gives the impression of being thankful for a job. She does not kill herself in the afternoon heat.

Tomás is the best gatekeeper in all of Nicaragua. He takes his job very seriously. He is always at the gate to let us in or out. His son keeps him company. One morning he is excited and pointing into the trees. A band of monkeys is in the canopy. He gets really excited when Jeff and John take a mattress out the second story window to transport it to the condo. Hard to make Tomás understand that they are simply hot and will bring it back. “La cama” over and over. From time to time, Tomás will move a sprinkler around the grass fronting the beach. He has the art of moving slowly down to a science. He likewise smiles incessantly.

Gigante is a fishing village a few kilometers away, barely visible around the rocky point nearest the house. Small houses clustered around the one road that runs through it. Fishermen mend nets in their yards. Fishermen haul a boat from the water in the afternoon sun by rolling it over two large logs that must continually be moved to the front. The heat beats down. We seek shelter in a small bar y comedor right on the sand with cold beer and chicken and rice. Make mine a Toña. You eat and drink well for nothing here. An ex-pat with a made-for-TV name strikes up a conversation. A lone dog lethargically moves around our table. A rooster chases a chicken beyond the concrete floor. Travelers gawk at a young girl with a woman’s figure, always good for a few crude jokes. Apart from the working fishermen, no one else in Gigante is moving about.

Roberto “Lucha Libre” Garcia is our twenty-two year old photographer and amigo. Roberto knows everything that is worth knowing. He shepherds us around. One day, after a trip to Popoyo for comida y cervezas, Roberto takes several of us to the hot springs in Las Salinas. The water is hot. Springs is a little strong. Three concrete pools catch the hot water as it comes out of the ground. In one, five men stripped to their work pants are soaping themselves and rinsing off. In another two women wash clothes. In the third young children play. A fetid ditch full of soapy runoff drains the area. We reluctantly put our feet in the pool with the men. Roberto’s photography is great. He makes everyone look like a star. He has an eye for the water. Roberto laughs a lot and is good fun to have around. ¡Deacachinba!

Our favorite restaurant is Yolanda’s in El Limón. Yolanda is a diminutive grandmother with a playful personality and hearty smile. Her restaurant is clean and spacious and she is very proud of it. She serves up the best bean paste imaginable that you dip on fried plantains. Her seafood soup is delicious. Pescada con arroz tambien. She has only a concrete pad next to the road with a roof and plastic furniture. Bring your own beer. A light breeze keeps it pleasant at night. You are in your own little lighted world at Yolanda’s. Nicaragua is dark at night. She is happy to have us and treats us graciously. Ten men eat for $28US. You would be hard pressed to find a better outdoor venue for cena. El Limón is just a collection of houses and several bars along both sides of the dusty main road. Village does not really describe it.

We stop the car when Bob spots two little boys that he wants to photograph. The younger brother, maybe four, wears a T-shirt with the word “Baseball” printed on it. Allen takes a wiffle ball out of his bag and hands it to the older brother, maybe six, who holds it overhead to proudly show the world. Both boys smile from ear-to-ear. I hope that the photograph is as charming as the event in real time. The joy was infectious. They run off toward their house with their new prized possession. These boys are not jaded by the excesses of our society.

We ponder which way to go at the rotary in Rivas. We accede to Chuck’s insistence to go right although the rest of us think straight. Soon, we are in the lovely town square of San Jorge opposite the catedral and turning to retrace our steps. Outside Nandaime we look for route 6 but the sign says route 4. We motor on and soon retrace our steps. Four, six, no importa en Nicaragua. In Masaya, Allen makes a U-turn after we take the wrong prong of the rotary and are headed for Granada. Returning to the rotary, he slows to ask the policia for directions. They ask for his license and do not seem amused by his laminated fake. Soon, we are forking over a $20US bribe to get back on our way to Managua. The smiling policeman helpfully tells us to turn right at the next rotary. Maybe next time we shouldn’t stop for directions. The legal system is a bit different. How did Rich make it back to the aeropuerto alone when we take six wrong turns with four navigators?

The world’s coolest cantina sits on Magnific Rock. One of them anyway. Sitting 150 feet above the water on a rocky point with unencumbered views up and down the coast. Swells roll in as far as the eye can see. Cold beer in a cool place. Sweet. And it’s all ours, two amigos with three señoritas to wait on us. If there is a bar with a better view I haven’t found it. How could it be undiscovered? Should have gone boys.

After the shameful history of American intervention in Nicaragua, it’s a wonder that the people are friendly in the least. Instead they are warm. Jose Daniel Ortega Saavedra smiling from posters in Tola gives notice that El Frente did not disappear just because we wanted it to do so. ¡Vota Sandinista!

Oh, yeah, the surf was big, the swells consistent, the water beautiful and warm. Very little is visible from the water except vegetation. Kick back with a Flor de Caña Siete Años rum drink and watch as the sun slowly sets and melts into the Pacific Ocean beyond Punta Caballito to the north. Playa Colorado.

Photographs courtesy of Robert Morecock except self-portrait and “derecha” courtesy of Roberto “Lucha Libre” Garcia