Goodbye Nicaragua, hello America.

Apologies for the lack of updates – life is so busy here in the surreal dream world that is our trip. Mostly we’ve been religiously watching the pundits on CNN and BBC World News argue in circles about whether Obama is God himself or only half-Kenyan and half-deity. I fully expect that by the time I get back he will have raised the economy from the dead, solved global warming and found world peace just by sheer will-power. Seriously though, I’ll just settle for another economic stimulus package while I consider whether I look better in a Subway or Quiznos uniform.

The day after the election, which Matt and I watched crowded around the television with people from all over the world, we took off for the Nicaraguan highlands – Esteli, Matagalpa and Jinotega. We needed to kill a little time before my parents arrived in Costa Rica. The highlands were beautiful on the way down from Honduras and we figured we could find some good coffee near the plethora of coffee farms in the area. On the way up we figured out the reason it was so green – it rains a lot there. We ruled out hikes in the nature reserves and tours of coffee farms for that reason. We did get plenty of views on the bus rides to and from, however, and had some memorable times in hotel rooms along the way. Though we’d loved what we’d seen of Nicaragua (if I had to pick a country to live down here, Nica would be it without a doubt), it has one thing in common with the rest of the continent – a tourist track. Sometimes it’s a relief to see white people, but other times you hardly feel like you’re in a third-world country. It’s a delicate balance – a few days of one extreme occasionally needs to be tempered by the other extreme. Thankfully, we were just about the only white people for miles in the highlands. Locals gave us the sorts of looks we hadn’t seen since rural Guatemala – the looks that make you wonder if you have a tail and antenea. They don’t see many white folks in these parts.

BBQ ladies cook on the street sides in Leon. Don’t know what took us so long, but street food is the way to go. A giant pile of rice, beans and chicken tacos for $1.50? Yes, please. Once your digestive system goes through a few ugly, uncomfortable weeks of adjustment, you’re safe to eat just about anything down here. The key is to only buy from people you can actually see cooking the food.

Matt says hi to a turtle wandering around the hostel.

Matt plays cat billiards.

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Jeff shows off his freakish metabolism by overdosing on cookies in Esteli.

Jeff shows his feelings on Caballito, which sells for about $1.80 a fifth. For that price we couldn’t afford not to drink it, while watching The Rock (featuring the talents of Nicholas Cage) in Jinotega.

Caballito wreaks havoc on Jeff, causing him to break out in hives. It also caused him to remark, “Let’s go out and start a fight,” in rural Nicaragua. Matt and I babysat.

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The end of the Caballito night.

“The Rooster More Rooster,” which inexplicably sells kitchen appliances.

The highlands out a bus window.

Jeff proudly shows off the 2/3 of a liter of urine he created in the back of a school bus.

We stayed in Granada again after heading south, since it was a good halfway point to Costa Rica. We arrived at the Bearded Monkey at about 4 p.m. that day to learn that because of the upcoming municipal elections in town, we could not purchase alcohol past 6 p.m. Nicaraguans have a nasty habit of rioting during election season and alcohol doesn’t help. The ban lasts from the night before, all of election day and into the day after. We made use of the two hours we had that night. The next day much of the town was shut down, making getting a bus out of town even more difficult. Cassie, the manager at the Bearded Monkey, entertained us by showing off the amazing colonial house she was renting from a Brit named Tavin. The fact that she paid as much a month as we paid for a tar paper shack in Bellingham made me feel like I’d been wasting my life. The next day I decided that a locally made guitar was going to be my single souvenir from this trip, so Cassie and I went to Masaya, a town known for its local handicrafts. I found the most beautiful six string I had ever seen, but couldn’t bring myself to pay the $400 for it, even though it probably would have been three times that in the states. My next choice for a souvenir, a hammock, was also out of the question because the market was still closed because of the election. Looks like it’s only Che Guevara shirts for me.

I want banana trees in my house.

Cassie and Matt lounge in hammocks.

A young girl, friends with the girl (yes, she insisted she was female) to the right, takes a picture of Matt, Cassie and I while playing with my camera while we sat in Parque Central.

Her self-portrait.

“Testiculos” are just what you think they are.

A local television station covered the riots happening in Managua due to the election. That’s a truck you see burning. Several people ended up being shot. Good call on not travelling.

Jeff and Matt had already headed south to Montezuma, on the south end of the Nicoya peninsula in Costa Rica. So I said goodbye to Nicaragua (hands down my favorite of the countries we’ve seen so far) and headed south to Playa del Coco, near where I would meet my parents the next day. As luck would have it I happened to run in to Ode (of Ode and Tina from Utila fame) in a coffee shop downtown. Like me, Tina’s parents were also staying in the area and so Ode and Tina were taking advantage of a “vacation from vacation.” Their parents place had a pool and about 80 pounds of fresh caught Mahi Mahi and Red-fin tuna. We caught up with each other’s stories from the last few weeks (turned out that Ode and Tina had been to all the same places that Matt, Jeff and I had, but in a different order.)

Ode and Tina, goofy as always, get in a food fight.

Now Matt, Jeff and I are staying with my parents. It’s nice to live like an American again after some of the places we’ve been staying in, though we’ll probably be high-tailing it south to Panama as soon as we’re done here. The tourism here has brought lots of money and political and economic stability to Costa Rica, but it also means everything is twice as expensive as we’re used to. For now, Jeff, Matt and I will enjoy feeling like we’re living like kings. From there, Jeff and I have a week and a half before we fly to South America. I wish I had the words to describe this trip thus far, but they really fall short. This blog just scratches the surface of the beauty of the places we’ve seen, the character of the people we’ve met and the joys of the times we’ve had. It’s been two months out of my life thus far, but it’s felt like a lifetime in all the best ways.

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