Tales of a Traveling Maymar: There is Always Another Way

Buenos dias y feliz compleaños a mi hermana Leslea!

I am now in my last week of Español lessons and I still can't understand most of what people say to me so next week will be muy intersante. To help me get used to the sound of people speaking quickly, I'm listening to music and watching movies in Español. It seems to me that you can only buy pirated CDs and DVDs here. There are tons of street vendors selling them in every town and they usually go for 20 Córdobas aka $1. So far I've bought a few movies and watched them in Español with English subtitles. The house had a few CDs kicking around so I've put them on my computer. Most of them are really upbeat and will make for some awesome gym music in the new year.

This weekend we ended up staying in Jinotepe and going on day trips. On Friday night we went for drinks at a bar called “Friends” that is just around that corner. They actually have a picture of the cast of Friends drinking Toña (one of the two Nicaraguan beers, the other being Victoria) on their sign. On Saturday we wandered the market and then headed to Huehuete, which is the beach associated with Jinotepe, about 45 minutes away. Huehuete was deserted when we arrived so we quickly claimed a spot on the beach and headed into the water to jump in the waves. I've swam in the Atlantic Ocean many times and I do love it, but I must admit that warm water and not having to worry about jellies was rather delightful. After our swim we began to work on our tans... until a huge wave came and washed over us. We were pretty far back from the water so the wave came as a shock to us unsuspecting sunbathers.

Since our towels were soaked and the beached was deserted, we took a short walk to find some shells. Long story short, I noticed a man walking close to where our stuff was and I had a bad feeling about it, so we headed back and guess who's bag was missing?!!? Mine! We spent the next hour or so searching for it by asking the locals if they'd seen the guy. A white girl being robbed was obviously the most exciting thing that has happened there in a while and the people were all very nice and helpful. My bag was then found and all that was missing was the equivalent of $6 (I had taken my camera on the walk with us). All is well that ends well, so we joke about it now and had a pretty interesting adventure for only $6. The best part is actually that Matt and David actually had nicer looking bags with more money and valuables in them than mine, so I suppose we are all really lucky that the guy was dumb.

On Sunday we went to the small town of Catarina, which has a view point of Laguna de Apoyo. It was a foggy day so my photos are not as good as they good have been. There was a booth collecting a toll to enter the viewpoint. For Nicaraguans, the price was 2 Córdobas and for foreigners, it was 20 Córdobas. You may think we should have just paid it, but the principle of charging visitors to your country 10 times more than everyone else is just wrong. Not exactly a good way to encourage tourism. David always says “There is always another way”, and of course, there was. We walked down a different street and found another entrance to the same lookout and didn't pay anything. When we had walked close to the original entrance, we noticed the toll guy looking at us and he knew we hadn't paid. Too bad for him, he couldn't leave his post to chase after us! Catarina also had lots of stores with handcrafts so I did some shopping... now I really want to go to the Masaya Market (the biggest handcraft market in the country) and have a shopping spree. The only problem is I don't know how much I will be able to fit into my suitcases when I'm packing to go home!

As usual, there are some pictures of the weekend below!

Maria