The heat and the Cardenas adventure.

It was another beautiful day in San Juan del Sur yesterday.  

Blue, blue skies, fluffy white clouds ...

The beach in town gets very busy on the weekends so it's a relief when the weekdays come and there's hardly anyone about.

Apart from the locals going about their daily business - here's the local transport business in the middle of town.

April is apparently the hottest month here, just before the rain starts and it certainly seems to affect even the locals.

I went to buy some fruit and veges and had to smile at this puppy flaked out from the heat (at least I was able to smile after I had made sure that it wasn't actually dead because at first glance it certainly looked that way!)

Remember the little boy in the bucket the other day?

Well here's an adult getting in on the act .....

This lady decided that it was just too hot and she was going to call into the petrol station to make use of their water, forget cleaning the windscreen, she just started pouring bucket loads over her head!

This morning Porl and I headed into town to catch the bus to Cardenas which is about 40 km away.

A lovely lady called Arlene lives just out of Cardenas, she has been attending the meetings in Cardenas for a while but they are in Spanish so when she heard that we now have our meetings in San Juan in English she decided to travel to us once or twice a week to attend the meetings.

Every Saturday she comes in early to the meeting and comes to our place to study the Bible and then we head up to the meeting afterwards.  This makes it a long day for her between the bus trips, the study and then the meeting so I thought it would be a good idea for us to visit her for a change and have the study at her place.

As we waited at the bus, Porl was eyeing up the little food parcels that a local vendor was selling - yucca (a root vegetable), chicuron (pork crackling) and coleslaw, wrapped in a banana leaf.  But as it wasn't long after breakfast he held himself back.

Arlene told us that the trip involved two bus trips and should take about 2 to 2.5 hours to get to her place.  We caught the first bus without any problems and got off at La Virgen, about a half an hour trip from San Juan.

There we waited by the side of the road for the next bus ....

Arlene had told us to only catch a bus that said 'Cardenas' or we would end up on the Costa Rican border town of Peñas Blancas - we will need to be heading down there in a couple of months to renew our visa but not today.

The first bus that came didn't have Cardenas written on it and when they stopped for us we said no thanks, that we were going to Cardenas, sí, sí Cardenas said the attendant, no, no we said, sí, sí - he was insistent ...  so  ....  on we hopped, ah well all part of the adventure.

I explained where we wanted to go and he nodded his head 'sí, sí está bien' - 'yes, yes that's fine' - after half and hour or so I got up and checked with him again and yes, you guessed it, 'sí, sí vamos para allá' - yes, yes we're going there.

But before long Porl saw a sign to Cardenas, the road on the left that we were just passing!  We got up and after some back and forward discussion between ourselves, the attendant and the driver we all agreed that they weren't actually going where we wanted and we should hop off.  So off we got and we joined the other travellers also heading to Cardenas, sitting ourself in a very civilized bus shelter.

We met a friendly man who wanted me to take a picture of his grandson, he was rather cute, so I did (the grandson that is ;)

The time started going by and gradually the shelter started to fill up,  we also started to notice that the main road (behind us) that we had been travelling on before was starting to fill up with big trucks.

Quite a lot of time had gone by now and still no bus.  A discussion started at the shelter and from what I gathered there was some kind of strike going on that was affecting the roads around this area and it seemed the buses too.  Apparently some of the truck drivers belonged to a co-op and others were self employed.  The Co-op was striking (if I got this right) but the self employed drivers didn't want to, this was causing a conflict and there was a roadblock in this area and no one was being allowed through.  Especially not the self employed truck drivers.

We waited for ages, the discussion got quite heated, one lady with a basked of vegetables saying that no-one should be able to stop people working, she for one had children that were sick and she needed to feed them, if it was her she wouldn't be able to afford to strike.  But a group of workers didn't all agree, they thought that the drivers should all show solidarity.  A couple of the men were very outspoken but the little vegetable seller held her ground and got quite vocal too.  Quite an interesting discussion.  Very fast Spanish though and lots of colloquialisms so I may have got totally the wrong end of the stick, who knows!

Either way, the bus finally arrived much to everyone's relief.

As usually it was fairly cram packed although I was lucky enough to get a seat.  Porl on the other hand wasn't quite so lucky jeje.

By the time we arrived at Arlene's the afternoon was getting on and as I had to get back to San Juan to teach my English class we couldn't stay long.

Arlene kindly made us a cup of tea and gave us some pineapple biscuits, we got to meet two of her lovely grandchildren who with a Canadian Dad and Nicaraguan Mum are totally bilingual.

Then we headed back out to wait for a return bus.

As you can see the skies looked a bit threatening and we got excited that we might get the first rain since we've been here ...  and we did.  About three seconds of rain drops!  Ah well, I'm sure we'll get plenty of it soon enough!

A cowboy with his cattle passed us by while we waited.

The kids kept us entertained.

Joaquin and Porl had slingshot competitions.

And eventually the bus arrived.

Porl got a seat this time but it was right behind the driver and he had to clamber over bags and buckets and all sorts to get into it.  I should have taken a few action shots as it was rather hilarious!

The bus seemed to have some gear box problems and there was a lot of graunching going on, I'm not sure if it was that that was making Porl look so worried or if it was the effort that it took him to get into his seat, lol :)

As we headed back onto the main road, it seemed that the road block / strike situation had escalated. There were lots of holdups and rather than just the few trucks at the intersection there was now about 5 kilometers of big trucks backed up along the road.  

The people seemed pretty relaxed though, some of the drivers had slung up hammocks under their rigs and were just patiently waiting.

On the road between Cardenas and San Juan there are lots of big wind turbines ....

If you look in the background you can see the two volcanos side by side.  There's a big lake between them and the land in the foreground.

We must have just timed our trip with the prime time to move cattle as there seemed to be lots of them about.

And then we got stopped again, more cones across the road!

We were thinking that perhaps the strike (huelga) had spread to the road into San Juan but after about 10 minutes out toddled a little road sweeping machine and that had been the reason, so off we went again without any more holdups.

You can see how dry and dusty it is here, this must be nearly 6 months without rain!

It doesn't seem to bother the kids though and here they are having an informal after school game of soccer.

Finally we were back in San Juan and had about half an hour to wolf down some dinner, photocopy tonights lesson and rush up to the hall for the English lesson.

(to be continued)

Another skate park, a trip to San Jorge and a new family arrive

This week Kieran and Porl went to visit a nearby skatepark.  It was pretty hot for skating but they were wrapped to be able to skate a bowl for a change.

Meanwhile in town there was some street repair work going on.

I love these paved roads!

Some of the locals found the weather just a little to hot for comfort and came up

with some great ways to cool down.

It seems like we're coming to the end of the mango season here as there aren't so many at the markets, but perhaps it's just because the wind has died down and they fruit aren't falling from the trees anymore?

The avocados however are still plentiful and they are beautiful, one lady at the market seems to take real care with her avocados, they're huge and each one is just perfect when you cut it open.

When you go to buy them she asks you - for today or tomorrow?  and depending

on which you choose she gives you either a perfectly ripe one, perfect for slicing or for making

delicious guacamole or she'll give you a slightly firm one that, sure enough, will be

perfectly ripe the next day.

This week for witnessing we headed to San Jorge which is near Rivas - moving people and goods around town is shared between the trucks and the horses.

Now these are what you call papayas!

They're enormous - great for smoothies.

This is at the entrance to San Jorge.

It's a lake side town and is the access point to La Isla de Omotepe, where they have the floating kingdom hall that was featured in the Awake a while ago.  

We hope to visit Ometepe some time soon,

Porl is just working on his public talk in Spanish and when he's got that sorted

we have an open invitation to visit and Porl can give the talk.

The welcome placard to San Jorge left us wondering a little ....

Any guesses as to what's being promoted here?

We're hoping it's cacao (the fruit cocoa comes from) although given the number of

horses we came across in the town Porl had another suggestion.

This was just a home that we walked past, sitting on the table is a mass of dough, perhaps

for making pupusas or some other lunchtime meal.

A new family has arrived in San Juan del Sur from Australia.

Peter, Sam & Ben Scott and here's Sam buying some 'pera' from a 

gentleman by the side of the road.

He said they had no other name than 'pera' (pear) but Porl said they

were a type of jambu.  The first mouthful didn't exactly make you go 'mmm yum' but

they did grow on you and were quite nice.

Actually a few new people have moved to San Juan, it seems to be a bit of a tourist destination and as there's an English group here quite a few people come down for a month or two at a time.  A couple of new young brothers have moved in, Anthony and Dio - I'm not sure how long they plan on staying but the more the merrier - we're hoping that our Mexican friend Joel is going to turn up soon too.  Although we've only got to know him online he seems like a real dag.  He's been to Nicaragua before but is currently serving in Honduras for a while - murder capital of the world apparently.

But back to San Jorge, it turns out that we chose to visit the same week that they celebrate their 'fiestas patronales' - (Patron Saint celebrations).  The locals get into the spirit by putting mortars in the middle of the street and letting off deafening exposions.  Here's a young man in action with his homemade bombs.

A bit further down the street a lost lizard ran crazily along the pavement with us until he came to a dead end.  Poor thing was a bit freaked out - probably fell out of a tree with one of the explosions!

After spending the morning in San Jorge we headed back into Rivas for the afternoon and 

had our study with Jesus and his brother Gustavo - we sit in their bicycle repair shop with them.

They're both so lovely.  

Jesus, in the foreground, is studying English and he came round to visit us today too so that we could help him with preparing for his English exam.  Some of his material was very advanced, I pity anyone learning English really.  The verb forms might be easier but learning how to speak and read English must be a nightmare!

We often walk through the market in Rivas and try to end the day buying our fruit and

veges there as it's much cheaper than the little market in San Juan.

Here's those big blocks of holey cheese 'cuajada' that I was telling you about the other day.

It seems to be quite a staple here in Nicaragua and is served with many meals.

We had it for lunch too, baked in tortillas (repochadas) - quite yummy!

When it's good it's nice but every now and then you get a batch that has a definitely off taste, perhaps sometimes it gets to sit in its glass box a bit too long before it gets sold.

I love the way that the horse and carts so naturally fit in with all the modern vehicles on the roads in the towns around here.

Most people seem to get along fairly well, but every now and then we see the sadder side of life here.

On the way home the bus had a different set up than usual, usually there's two rows of double seats with an aisle down the middle, or every now and then there's a row of double seats on one side and triple seat on the other side.  This bus however had a row of double seats and and just a seat and half on the other side.

The bus was fairly full when we hopped on but there were a few seats so we took the first ones we came to.  Porl and Kieran took the double side and I sat opposite on the seat and a half.  Bad idea!  As I sat there I was thinking - if there's even half a seat people are going to sit on it and whaddya know - next minute a lady and a half sat on me!  Well I guess a little of her was on the seat but I'm sure more was on me.  That was one long ride home.  Not only did her ample hips and thighs pin me to the side of the bus and spill over to sit on top of  my leg, the lady decided that she needed to hang on to the back of the seat in front of us, not on her side however, but on my side!!!  So that meant that I had her hot, sticky arm resting right on top of mine and basically tucked under my chin!!!  Ayayay  Thankfully about two thirds of the way home she got off and a nice slim school girl took the seat so we fitted on it quite nicely, the last bit of the trip was so much more comfortable.

When we got back to San Juan we went to the Scott's for dinner and Sam made us a lovely fish and vege dish with salad (complete with sun dried tomates and all, such a treat)  and then we had home made pana cotta with fruit sauce to finish off.  Yummo, berries!!  Another treat - they did a big shop in the main city of Managua before they came down here and were kind enough to share some of those goodies in a delicious meal.

We headed home straight after dinner as another young man who is learning English came round for his study but the boys stayed a bit longer and had a bit of a jam on the guitars and with the drums and other instruments on Ben's garage band on the ipad.  

And that was the end of another Tuesday.

Today I had the day at home but I'm not sure where it went, between cooking, cleaning and a bit of English teaching it soon disappeared.  

Porl and I popped down to the beach for a quick dip this arvo but it was fairly traumatic as there were things attacking me.  We waded out and next minute there were creatures flapping around my ankles so that of course had me shrieking and running out of the water.  Porl came out too but it was so hot that he decided to brave whatever it was and headed back in.  I watched for a few minutes but he seemd to be surviving and it was stinking hot, so I headed back in too.  I wasn't keen to put my feet on the bottom though so I just ran in and dove in as soon as it was deep enough, then I got Porl to tow me back in when it was time to hop out, jeje. Porl said it was just plastic bags wrapping themselves around my ankles but I'm sure it was something alive as when I ran around trying to escape it, it was definitely following me!  Anyway I like my version better, much more exciting ;)

To finish off here's a shot from tonight's meeting, Suraya is getting pretty big now, not sure how much longer she'll be able to sneak into the meeting.  She used to sleep quietly the whole meeting in a sling kind of setup that BJ has for her but she's much more active now, soooo cute though, I want one!

Well that's about all for this week, until next time, but if you don't hear from us again you'll know we went swimming and something got us, and it wasn't a killer plastic bag!

Our New Place

OUR NEW PLACE

So we're settled into our new place now.  Pretty flash compared to some of the options available.  Rent here is quite reasonable and we're paying $350US per month.  Utilities (power and water) cost between $20 - US$40 per month.


It came furnished which was great but we've bought a few essentials such as a blender, for lovely fresh fruit smoothies, pots and pans, crockery and cutlery and a printer.  We have the internet on which seems to work pretty well most of the times although it often drops in and out even if only for a few minutes at a time.  I'll see if anything can be done about that but I guess we are living in a 3rd world country.  If anyone is planning a trip and working out a budget, the internet and cable tv, lol - cable, we've never had it in our lives, comes as a package for US$34 a month.


This is the block of apartments that we live in, we're in the bottom right hand apartment.

One block in front of us is the sea.

Porl, Chase y Jovany.  It's not huge but has two bedrooms and everything that we need.

The white tiles are a bit of a nightmare with all the dust (no rain for 5 months means lots of dust) - not to mention my hair everywhere - the boys love it when I ask them to sweep, not!  Seriously, I should be bald the amount of hair that's everywhere, thank goodness it seems to grow faster than I can shed it.

My washing machine :)  Which I actually don't mind, who needs a gym for nice firm arms - but I have to admit that towels and sheets are not my favourite.  The washing part isn't so bad it's the wringing out that's a mission.

Well nothing too exciting going on here today, so until next time, chaito :)