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!
No comments:
Post a Comment