Monday, April 30, 2012

Las Fiestas

The last 2 weeks of April is when Muy Muy celebrates their fiesta patronales and honors San Benito. For those of you at home I´m comparing it to the local hometown festivals (CG Fireman´s Festival) and St. Patrick´s Day but for the span of 2 weeks!! If you´re thinking OMG! you´re absolutely right! The celebrations consist of multiple rodeos, lots of bombas (fireworks, but not pretty fireworks just loud booms), hipica (horse parade), processions where the saint is carried throughout the streets and a gaggle of people follow, music and lots and lots of drinking.
It is an interesting cultural experience, but once is enough for me. Over the course of the celebrations, my phone was lost, my pictures on my camera were erased and no I didn´t have them backed up on my computer, I was stared at and touched more than usual since people from other towns came and aren´t accostumed to seeing a blondie, and I was constantly told to change clothes because my clothes were not ¨pretty¨ enough to go to the rodeo or party. I ended up buying a pair of jeans that are bedazzled beyond my liking and I bought a plaid shirt to ¨fit¨in to the cowboy culture I´m living in. The overall consensus was my outfit was finally approved and now I´ll probably be expected to wear that to every event from here on out.
It was fun and I´m glad that I was here to experience it, but I´m also glad it´s over and hopefully life can continue on it´s normal schedule. It´s such a big event that classes were cancelled for the whole week, so I had plenty of time on my hands, too much time. I spent most of my time reading and laying in my hammock and have a couple experiments going with my garden and seeds. I´m hoping they will be successful. And I´ve started to create my lists of things to do while I´m home - get ready people because it´s going to be a long list and I´ve only got 2 weeks to check everything off.
72 days!
I´m sorry I don´t have more to say but words wouldn´t do it justice. If you want to experience it for yourself, you´re more than welcome to visit me next year at this time. And I have a few videos that I´ll be posting to Facebook of the rodeo, so you can get a taste.


Saturday, April 7, 2012

Planes, trains and automobiles....wait - taxis, buses and pangas

It´s my voice once again. Justin has returned home to the US and I hope you enjoyed reading his perspectives on Nicaragua and his experiences. Now some of you who thought I was exaggerating will know I´m telling the truth.
After dropping Justin off at the airport, I went on my own vacation to the Atlantic Coast to celebrate Semana Santa. Semana Santa is holy week leading up to Easter and in the US it´s acknowledged by church services and family celebrations for Easter, here is a week long party. Entonces, when in (Nicaragua) do as the (Nicas) do. The journey out the the coast is not quite easy. It includes a 7 hour bus ride to Rama, followed by a 2 hour panga, boat, ride to Bluefields and another hour panga ride to Pearl Lagoon. Somehow while Justin was here the travel gods were on his side, unfortunately I lost all of that luck for this trip. It included long periods of waiting, extreme fatigue and dehydration. But it ended up being well worth it.
The coast is like a completely different world when compared to the rest of Nicaragua. It´s got the relaxed vibe of a Carribbean island and it´s a paradise. I will be posting pictures soon. Most of the time was spent relaxing on the beach and soaking in the sun; unfortunately I soaked in a bit too much sun and am returning a little more red than I would like. While there we visited the Laguna keys and it´s literally private island paradises. The views look like some of the screen savers and backgrounds that Windows supplies users with. I´m really not doing the coast justice with this post, but it´s just something you need to see and experience for yourself. I absolutely love the coast and want to go back again, but I may have to fly next time. I enjoyed every minute of the trip up until the night before we had to leave because I was dreading the journey home.
Coming home was the longest day of my life. I was exhausted from a lack of sleep during the week and dehydrated for the entire week. A 7 hour bus ride is not fun, especially if you have to use the bathroom and can´t so I started off the week with a lack of water and no matter how much water I drank while there it wasn´t enough since I sweat most of it out. We successfully made it to Bluefields, but had to wait for a few hours until the panga filled up. Then we made it to Rama to find out that no buses were running. Good Friday is a big party day here and no one seems to work. Rama was like a ghost town, minus the 20 or so passengers looking for a way to Managua. After waiting, again, for hours the bus finally agreed to drive us to Managua, but for twice the price. I could barely keep my eyes open for more than 5 minutes at a time and when finally arriving to Managua, I somehow lost my desire to sleep. I stayed up much longer than I should have and today will finally be making my way back home. Once home I will hopefully sleep for a complete day to rejuvenate myself before classes start up again.
Hopefully I won´t find any critters, like the scorpion Justin and I encountered, waiting for me when I get home.