Ometepe is the first place Jen described to us when she starting laying the plans for this trip.  It is an island with twin volcanoes rising  more than a thousand meters out of the middle of massive Lake Nicaragua.  On the map the figure-eight-shaped land mass seemed very remote and exotic.

Nice view from the bar, eh, Tattoo?

From the ferry,  taking in the imposing cones draped in their own cloud tops, we felt like we were arriving at Fantasy Island.  Those of us who are older than 40 felt that, at least.

The port city of Moyogalpa welcomed us with a few blocks of multi-colored houses and a very Carribean feel.  Our hotel was less than an hour away, on the south half of the island.  It is at the base of the shorter, dormant volcano, Volcan Madera.  It is the most posh place we’ve stayed at during our time in Nicaragua.

Straight from the guidebook?

We did not find Mr. Rourke at the Hotel Omaja, but after a quick glance at the infinity pool with the cone of the the larger volcano, Volcan Concepcion, strategically placed in the background, Jen realized that the scene was familiar.  “I’m almost certain that this was in the one of the Nicaragua guidebooks I used,” she said.  It definitely was a view worthy of a guidebook cover.  Anyone who wants to check up on Jen’s suspicion can visit the travel guide section of the Durham Public Library and compare it to the pictures in this blog.

The sun sets; Lanie snags the hot tub.

The hotel treats us to sunsets that compare to the sunsets from the surf camp in Jiquilillo.  It also has plates of pasta that the girls can’t finish, which is impressive.   It has satellite tv with gloriously unadulterated, non-subtitled English programming.  And, an almost complete novelty for us in Central America, when you turn on the left handle of the bathroom sink, hot water comes out.   The shower has hot water, too.

Jen takes a break from Mojitos.

So there’s not much more we can ask for.  But here’s what we do ask for:  mojitos for Jen (this is her new favorite drink); fruit smoothies for the girls (the restaurant in the pueblo at the bottom of the hill has two types: one mixes the blended fruit with milk and another mixes the fruit with water.  They are both very enjoyable.);  pancakes (the banana ones at the restaurant in the pueblo are world-class, particularly with local honey on them; and extra towels.   Also, the girls don’t ask, but they wait patiently for the heat to be turned on in the hot tub — then they wait no-so-patiently for the 20-somthings visiting from Canada to get out of the hot tub.

Did we mention there are volcanoes on this island?

Mostly, Ometepe has simply been a pleasant place to be — more than worth the uncomfortable ferry trip from the mainland.  We have hiked around a little, once to a waterfall on the side of Volcan Madera, and once through the pueblo to a few beaches on Lake Nicaragua.  We’ve gotten to know the pueblo, Merida, a little bit.   The girls have a favorite little tienda where the lady is very nice and has lots of candy on her counter that costs a half cordoba apiece.    She also sells these fried round pastries with sugar on them.   I asked her what they’re called.  She said donuts.

This is a seriously tall waterfall.

Today was a rest day.  We’re recovering from yesterday’s six-kilometer hike to and from the waterfall (possibly the highest waterfall I’ve ever seen) and preparing for a summit attempt of the mighty  Volcan Madera, 1,400 or so meters above our hotel.  We currently have no plans to take on 1,600-plus-meter Volcan Concepcion, but we’ll see how our legs feel tomorrow.  Actually, we’re not sure how far we’ll make it up Madera.   Several people have suggested a lookout point about half way up as a good stopping point for us.  Then again, they don’t know about the boot camp training Lanie went through this winter.

Beautiful views of La Miraflor as we head for Esteli.

We started yesterday in the grey mist of a Miraflor morning. One last batch of pancakes, then a short walk to the main road for the 6:30 bus back down towards sea level. Despite multiple offers of substantial money — up to $70 that we would have split equitably with our friend and fellow Lindos Ojos guest Senor Joe — our hosts could not find anyone with a pickup truck who wanted to bring us to Esteli. I even heard Marcial call out to one friend in a coffee finca while we rode past on our horses the other day, but the friend’s truck was out of commission, or so the friend claimed.)

Zoe’s LL Bean thermometer, compass, magnifying glass zipper pull is being a little generous here. It was in the low 60s when we started our trip.

That means we sat at the bus stop with six legs of transportation between us and our hotel in Granada. At least we hope it was our hotel. Without Internet (and without cell phone service due to the poor communication skills of Mobal International Telephones) we had to ask the finca’s owner Katharina to call hotels for us when she went home to Esteli on Sunday. She sent back a note with her ever-dutiful daughter that said Granada was almost full, but there was a hotel with room of five. We would have to call and confirm before we got on the bus in Esteli.

One hint that my backpack made it inside the bus: the Main Street Makery luggage tag hanging from the overhead rack.

Leg 1: Although there would be an express bus later in the morning, we chose the 6:30 bus because it was more likely to have space for all five of us (six counting senor Joe) and our luggage. We get up early here anyway, and we pack up quickly. Not only did we not have trouble finding seats, our luggage got to ride with us in the main cabin. (You may remember that my backpack had to ride on top of the bus on the way up to La Miraflor.)
Two and half hours later, leg one was complete. In the hubbub of the Cotran Norte bus terminal — very near the spot where Jen was kidnapped a few days before — we tried to reach the Granada hotel on Katharina’s daughter’s cell phone. Nobody answered. Cue suspenseful music.

Leg 2: Ok, now back to the peppy Benny Hill music to accent our travels. A short walk out of the terminal to a crosswalk on the Pan American Highway. A man assured us that the cars would let us cross if we started walking into the road. Miraculously, no one even beeped. A small taxi stopped for us, even though the taxista’s girlfriend was taking up the passenger seat. All five of us sat in the back this time. The drive is only about a kilometer. It costs 40 $C. Why does every city in Nicaragua need multiple bus terminals? The taxi lobby must be very strong.

Greyhounds on the seat covers — a true mark of luxury.

Leg 3: A man in the Cotran Sur Terminal seemed interested in giving Jen a ride to Managua, then he saw the girls and me and pointed us to the ticket window. We bought tickets for 70 $C per person. The local to Managua was just about to pull out. No way, buddy. Tickets for us. Individual seats. Baggage storage below. An hour more of our lives to enjoy at the end of line.

We decide to break a $20 bill by buing something to eat in the well-appoined terminal. A few pieces of pound cake, a few tortas filled with pina and three packets of Ritz crackers peanut butter sandwiches leave us with plenty of change.

The seats on the bus recline and they even have arm rests. Observant passengers notice the cloth seat covers feature a greyhound pattern. No retired school bus this time.
We’re in Managua in just over two hours.

Leg 4: A few steps outside of our greyhound charriot, Jen encountered a taxista who could take us cross town to the Granada buses. But why not let him take us all they way to Granada? He offered $50. Jen declined. He comes down to $40. Legs five and six of our journey vanished into the air.

One of the nice things about taxi rides, and this should really be factored into the price, is that they become a Spanish lesson for me. I sit up front with the driver and we chat for a while.   It’s great practice with a captive audience.  The taxistas tend to speak a brand of Spanish that is more opaque to me than the Spanish our Mariposa professors used, and it’s a lot closer to what people speak on the street.  I nod my head a lot and say, “Si. si.”  Chances are that’s appropriate.

This ride was only an hour but taxista Edgar was amiable and informative. He drove us through the tony Managua neighborhood where foreign diplomats live. He pointed out the huge estate of a former finance minister who has opened up a chain of Walmart-like stores in Nicaragua in his retirement. I saw a fortaleza on top of a mountain that the Sandanistas liberated and turned into a boy scout camp. We looked out over the Laguna de Apollo from the opposite side from where we swam.

Edgar almost met his match finding our hotel, but after asking directions several times he got us there. Then he gave us his number in case we were ever in Managua again. And he took our names and phone number, too. Who knows when he’s going decide to go New England? I think he even gave his number to the clerk at our hotel. Edgar really gets around.
And guess what — it turned out to be our hotel after all. My new friend Mario had a room for five ready for us, with a/c and breakfast included. A big hurrah for the Posada San Jose, two blocks south of the cathedral in Granada, Nicaragua.

In the welcoming embrace of strong wifi.

Everyone quickly settled into the free wifi, but Mario suggested I go across the street to the Corral Restaurant (where, as guests of the Posada San Jose, we get 10 percent off) and watch the Champeons’ League match between Real Madrid — Mario’s favorite team — and Schalke from Germany. I only watched one half but there was plenty of scoring and the beer only cost 28 $C. It was a fine way to spend part of the two hours we gained through greyhound buses and direct taxis.

In Granada later in the day, it got well into the 90s.

Aside from the wifi and European soccer, Granada offers us many other luxuries. We noticed one of them as Edgar picked his way through the city. It was a laundromat and it will charge us by the pound to do our washing. Our clothes are certainly dirty, the only question is how much it will set us back to get it done.

How heavy does this laundry look to you?

What do our blog readers think? How many pounds of dirty clothes can a family create over two days in Leon, two days in Esteli and four days in La Miraflor? Post your guesses here or on Facebook. The person with the closest guess will get his or her name published in our blog in the form of a fictional Nicaraguan who crosses our path. and touches our lives forever.

The day started to clear up before lunch, so we took a walk to a nearby community

Here at 4,000 feet, still in the middle of this Honduras Clipper that brings clouds, wind and an inconsistent drizzle, you could look to the horizon the other morning and see blue sky.  It wasn’t raining in Esteli, maybe 25 kilometers away.  It’s probably been hot there all day.  In the Miraflor, we are learning why we’ve lugged these raincoats and fleeces around for three weeks.  We’re also very happy we have the use of some sturdy rubber boots, courtesy of the finca.  It would not do to wear our sandals around and get our socks all wet.

Making our way through the woods

The hope was that that the storm would pass overnight, but it’s still grey, particularly so in the morning.  The wind is probably not that strong, but because of the way our lodging was built — there’s between half and inch and two inches of open space between the top of the walls and the bottom of the roof — when the breeze picks up, it flows right through this gap and sounds like a subway train is passing directly above the cabana. It drowns out the rooster on the other side of the finca.

The strangler fig is empty because the tree it grew around died and rotted away. This left space for Zoe to climb in.

Marcial, our first day’s finca tour guide and our assistant host, said this morning that the day would calm, and it did.  After lunch, the girls were able to climb around in the 20-meter-tall strangler fig without fear of it toppling over in the wind.  This is actually a valid fear.  We saw several mature trees lying on the ground and Katharina, the owner of the finca and our guide for the day’s forest walk, says this is the result of an uptick in wind this year combined with an the emergence of a swamp in the middle of the forest.  Nobody can tell her why the swamp is forming, but the past three days of intermittent rain in the middle of the dry season will only contribute to the situation.

The outside of the tree was good for climbing, too.

The monster strangler fig is a major attraction in the forest here, and it sadly appears to be a candidate for windfall.  It was listing several degrees from vertical, but it did not lose its footing when Zoe managed to reach a window about 12 meters up.

Katharina points to the huge ant hill. The ants bring back leaf pieces to feed a huge fungus inside. Then the young ants eat the fungus.

When the climbing was done, we were treated to a wonderful display of nature in the form of a leaf-cuter ant highway leading to the ants’ huge colony.  Their order and economy among the chaos of the forest was incredible.

The afternoon held one more treat;  Katharina’s daughter saddled up her horse and let the girls ride around the yard.  Even Lanie got a lift.  They also got a brush to groom the horses as the horses grazed around the compound.  This was more than we could expect, and the girls enjoyed it immensely.

Next up is our big horse ride, possibly to a waterfall.  Marcial seems to think the weather will break and we’ll have a good day for riding.  Let’s hope he’s right.

I think that some poeple may be reading our blog and thinking: “Maybe I want a Loompa Loompa,” or “Maybe I want a trained squirrel.”

Now I’m not saying that all our friends go running around like Veruca Salt or undertake San Diego tennis lessons all the time; but it’s easy to imagine someone looking at this picture of Jen holding the sunset (no Photoshop needed — those are all Jen’s natural curves!) and then looking out their window at the snow drifts, and then wishing they were here.
But do they really wish they were here, or, in attempting to gain some respite from winter, would they find all this Nicaragua stuff is the equivalent of a bad nut (or a bad egg, if you’ve only seen the movie)?
Let’s find out. Here is a list of things that make our trip to Rancho Esperanza seem like the greatest beach vacation of our lives:

Really good sand and shells

Perfect climate — Will it rain tomorrow? “It hasn’t rained here in three months,” says Ross, who is kind of like the camp counselor here. Every day since we’ve been at el Rancho has been sunny and virtually cloudless. Even in Masaya and Leon, it was almost all sun all the time. It’s hot, but that’s what you want at the beach. There’s no humidity and very few mosquitos. And it won’t rain again here until winter, which for this place begins in April or May — some time after we leave, anyway.
Perfect beaches — Well, near perfect. The sand is soft (and very hot during the afternoon) and not rocky, but there is a lot of plastic stuff tumbling about in the breeze. Sunday also seems to be the day to burn your trash in the community surrounding the Rancho. But in general, it is a beautiful beach with lots of space to walk around and very few people getting in the way. To the north, towards El Salvador, you can see distant mountains, which I think are still in Nicaragua. There are also cool shells, but we’re not experts like my parents, so I don’t know exactly how cool they are.

Zoe surfs

Perfect water — The water temperature has to be in the high 80s. There’s no acclimation process needed for entry. Even Jen, who sometimes takes more than ten mintues to get herself fully submerged in the ocean, just walks right in here. The waves are strong but not threatening. There is no undertow. The sea floor is flat, smooth and gradual. We’ve seen no jellyfish or algae blooms, or seaweed of any kind, for that matter. No toe nipping crabs.

Nadia surfs; Ross cheers

It’s pretty cheap — I don’t know what the rooms cost, but it’s not terribly high given we can hear the ocean from our room when the roosters are resting (more roosters, I know!). The cooks will make you a peanut butter sandwich for $1. A big plate of gallo pinto (beans and rice) costs the same, and it’s terrific. Bottles of soda and cans of juice are 90 cents each. A litre bottle of cold beer big enough for Jen and me to share is $2.50 For that same price you can get five choco-bananas. The only thing that seems relatively expensive here are the breakfast items. Anything involving bagels reaches into the $4.50 range, but you get a big plate of fruit with it.

Good food — breakfast all day!

Plus, breakfast is available all day. Such an offer cannot be beaten.
You don’t have to go anywhere — There are several really cool-sounding activities available here, including surf lessons and horseback riding on the beach (both of which we have tried here) and they all come to us. The horses picked us up on the beach . The surfing teacher gave the girls lessons right at our complex. Actually, the surfing teacher is Ross the camp counselor. Zoe and Nadia had a great time with him today. The rest of us have our lessons tomorrow. (It should be noted that the lessons are cheap, too. An hour-long one-on-one lesson costs $10.) Also on our to-do list is a coconut tree-climbing class and a kayak tour of the mangrove estuary. We might have to walk to get to those. Although this doesn’t appear to be a highly developed area, we’re told there is a place that sells fried chicken a few doors down, and we passed a pizza place on our way in (though so far, the food they serve here has been excellent, inexpensive and easy to get our hands on).

Here’s another sunset, but don’t book your ticket ’til you read the whole post

Plenty of hammocks

Sunsets over the ocean — We have seen three tremendous sunsets so far here (Zoe and I saw this evening’s while we were in the water practicing her surfing skills) and there’s every reason to believe the next two will be just as good.
Ready to book your trip yet? Here are a few of the downsides that may make you decided to stay home and do a jigsaw puzzle of a Polynesian scene instead.
It’s tough to get here — We were fortunately able to meander our way to these parts. The drive from Leon was less than two hours. People who came here straight from Managua said it took them four hours and a few bus transfers. If you have the time, like we do, it’s best to make your way here in stages. Leon was a nice stopover. Also, there are not a lot of things to do in the area once you get here. There is a volcano to hike, but there are no notable cities. (Apologies to the residents of the city of Chinandega )
The atmosphere isn’t totally family friendly — There is a pleasant goofiness to how the Rancho is set up. If you’ve been the the Fabulous Umbrella Factory in Charlestown, RI, you might recognize the hippie vibe these two places share. But the clientelle is decidedly younger. One guy visiting from Colorado seems to me to be in his late teens, though I am looking though the fog of age. This might not have effected us as much had we not spent much of the last three weeks at the Mariposa School, which didn’t have a lot more kids as guests while we were there, but it did have a guest community that was decidedly more interested in us and our kids. A few people have talked to us here, but mostly we’re ignored. Except by Ross, who has been saying nice things about Zoe and Nadia all evening long. While we’re comparing it to the Mariposa School, we should say that the organizational setup is different. At the Mariposa, they scheduled excursions and you signed up for them if you wanted to go. Here you have to request the activities, and negociate the timing of them. There are benefits to this latter system (just ask the poor Mariposa students who didn’t get to hike the Volcan Masaya), but Jen and I found it less stressful having it put up on the board all laid out for us.

Practicing for the coconut trees

Internet access is limited and not free — That is why our blogging is not as consistent as it had been. As I’ve been writing, Jen has taken two trips over to the one computer on the compound that is connected to the Internet. Both times someone else was using it.
Finally, and this may be the deal breaker for you Veruca, there are neither flush toilets nor hot showers — Remember the hippie vibe thing I was talking about? It goes pretty deep. Actually, the composting toilets are good for the environment and are probably necessary here because of the scarcity of water. Also they don’t smell and you can throw your toilet paper in them (which you can’t do in many of the flush toilets around here). The showers haven’t been a big deal at all. The air is pretty warm here and the water that comes out is room-temperature. Showering has not been unpleasant, which is good because after a day in the ocean, it is necessary to rinse off pretty well.

Our room features multicolored mosquito nets.

So there you have it. Do you value flush toilets over predictable sun and warm, comfortable surf? Does ease of access trump a low bar tab?
Whatever you decide, I hope you find your oasis from the snow drifts. And if you decide to stay with winter, I hope our blog is giving you a warming glimpse of the summer to come. Short of that, have your Loompa Loompa bring you some hot chocolate and set to work on that Polynesian puzzle.

To all of our friends at the Mariposa school who saw us off yesterday, particularly to Helen and Rodney, who walked us to the bus stop and helped us carry our things, and who witnessed the dramatic swooping u-turn executed by the microbus to UCA, the rapid loading of our family and posessions, and the hasty departure toward Managua, we’d like to say that we’ve made it to Leon. Thank you for your support.

Plenty of space on the Microbus

The travel was actually quite comfortable and efficient. The frist microbus didn’t stop often, but it did roll to an almost stop frequently while the man with the pot-leaf baseball cap whistled and yelled out the window to potential passengers. Even when people were getting on and off, the bus frequently kept its forward progress. We paid of an extra space for our backpacks — and luckIly there was space in this van for us and our stuff. We only had to wait at the bus stop five minutes!

The porter on the bus was effective at drumming up business — there was standing room only for much of the trip — and he was honest and efficient in giving us our change. (I was not entirely sure how this would work out because he waited until almost the end of the trip to collect from us and never actaully told us what the fare was. I noticed that almost everyone else paid with 20-cordova notes and got a pair of one-cordova coins back. We would need seis por diez y ocho. I gave him 150 cordobas and he took pretty great care, given he was half-way hanging out a van door, to get me correct change.

It is also probable that he gave me good directions to the terminal of the Leon bus. A few weeks of practice with our patient teachers La Mariposa did not really prepare me to understand this guy, though. To his great credit, he did give us a few sentences of direction before hoping back on the already-departing microbus. It turned out to be not too hard to get to the Leon bus. (Cost for traveling from San Juan de la Concepcion to Managua – UCA: 108 $C; time of travel, 12:30 pm – 1:25 pm.)*

The Leon bus was palatial in comparison. It was about half again as big as the first microbus, and it had room for luggage. As it happened, we still ended up with backpacks in the aisle because our big bags took up most of the storage space and there were a couple of seemingly European tourists on the bus who had all of their possessions with them as well. All the people on the bus got seats, though, only back packs were in the aisle.

As this bus was a little more comfortable — it had air conditioning! — and the trip was a little longer, the cost was a little higher — 51 $C per person. The best part was the we avoided waiting again. They squeezed our bags in, ushered us to seats, dealt with my ineptitude in with practicing Spanish and math simultaneously (for this bus, you pay before the bus leaves the terminal), and pulled out within 20 minutes of our exit from the Concepcion – Managua bus. We didn’t even have time to takea picture of the terminal, which was a chaotic sprawl of shed-like garages peppered with people trying to sell food to travelers. I don’t think we can hope for such timing for the rest of our bus journeys across Nicaragua. (Cost for travel from Managua to Leon: 51 cordovas times five people 255 $C, plus 20 $C tip; time of travel: 1:40 pm – 4:15 pm.)*

From there it was smooth sailing. Not a lot of stops. Good roads. We were met in the Leon parking lot/ bus depot by a swarm of bike taxis and allowed ourselves and our baggage to be swept up by two of them. It turned out to be a pleasant, if expensive, way to get to our hotel, passing a few open air markets and lot of Leonites. It’s hot here and our bike taxi operators were moving a lot of weight. They probably deserved the 100-cordova tip that they helped themselves to. (Cost of getting from the bus depot to our hotel: 300 $C, including tip; time: 4:20 – 4:30.)*

Our hotel room has a beautiful front window.

Then, there we were, having completed our own multi-stage trip on Nicaraguan public transportation. The hotel is beautiful; the city is vibrant, and almost pretty after dark. We have pounded the pavement in typical Pavlik vacation style (Jen’s fitbit buzzed in the early afternoon today and we still had plenty of walking to go). On advice from a fellow hotel guest who’s been to Leon a few times, we walked for an hour in search of “Pizzaria Lebano.” After much searching and a few inquiries we found “Hotel Lebano” and were told that they got out of the pizza business and into the hotel business about six years ago.

Looking for pizza on the streets of Leon

Jen had read that Leon is a good city for pizza and the kids were excited for the change from beans, rice and beets. Plan B was Hollywood Pizza, just around the corner from our hotel. It is about as American as it gets, with pictures of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe on the wall. But even with the pizza and pictures, it didn’t really feel like home until I visited the bathroom, which is shared by a neighboring cineplex. No matter where I am, the smell of popcorn and artificial butter substitute food product will always bring me back to the USA.

Its so white up there that I had to adjust the camera.

Today we roamed the town some more in the morning, sipping juice in a high-end hotel that used to be a convent and climbing to the top of the Basilica Catedral de la Asuncion. It’s the biggest cathedral in Central America and its roof is amazing to behold.  Unlike other trips up bell towers, the view from this site is a secondary attraction.  The roof itself is very elaborate, and the most striking feature is its utter whiteness.

Thats more like it.

Juices at the hotel/former convent, with thanks to Helen for the suggestion.

Of course, it must be white to reflect the sun and keep the cathedral manageably cool, but the effect is stunning. The paint is pristine and completely devoid of any pigment. To walk on it, you have to take off your shoes (and you really should wear sunglasses). The surface seems much better tended than any other part of the cathedral’s exterior — or any other part of Leon, for that matter. The whitewashing is completely flawless, unlike the nearby Mausoleum of Heroes and Martyrs, which is derelect in comparison to the cathedral roof. It has to be the coolest roof in Central America. Our feet didn’t even get hot when we walked on it. That roof is amazing.

The UV wand got a workout today.

Back on ground level we worked on some school stuff, explored the extensive courtyard encompassed by our hotel, and recreated the famous Roman Lunch from our Italy trip. It is very hot here, and we drank lots of water.  Our life straw water bottle and magic want UV water purifier saw lots of action.  Truthfully, we don’t know if we can drink the water, but we’re trying to be safe.

At the supermarket

We also visited a supermarket and survived an ATM scare that threatened to eat our afternoon with us desperately contacting our debit card company.  It’s ok if only one bank in the country lets us use our ATM card, as long as that bank has plenty of branches. We need you, Bank of Nicaragua.

Historic reenactment of our Roman Lunch, this time in the courtyard

In the evening there was a trip to a museum of folklore that Jen can describe to you if she’d like. I’d much sooner not have to think about that place ever again. I wish I could expunge it completely from this blog and my mind, but this duty requires as many facts as I can muster.  I am hoping there isn’t too much scaring among our younger charges.  On the upside, Nadia found a nail clipper/bottle opener for 60 $C * that fits nicely in her collection.

Another one for the collection

Then, also on a lucky note, dinner was good enough to wipe out most of the evening’s earlier activities. Muchas gracias to the Nicaraguita Cafe. Eat here, everybody, when you’re in Leon. Our kids sure ate plenty.

We meet again, pasta and cheese.

Finally, I haven’t had the time to read Jen’s post about our trip to the volcano earlier this week, but I would like to say that I dedicate my accomplishments on that day to our Mariposa friends Melanie, Seker, and Bob from Wisconsin, who had the misfortune to leave the school before this particular outing took place, and whose self-organized expedition met with failure before the summit due to area wildfires. It was a beautiful trip, guys. Hope you have the chance to make it to the Masaya crater some time.

* Current exchange rate is around 27 cordovas to the dollar.

Here’s what happens when you don’t go on an expedition. Not all of us really needed to be out until 10 pm Thursday. The Spanish classses are fun but mentally taxing, and the need to fit in other academic stuff is pressing. Here is that day’s entry for the girls’ home-school journal:

Thurs., Feb. 19
Zoe: four hours Spanish instruction; daily math homework (percentages); trip to Masaya market
Nadia: four hours Spanish instruction; red math’s mate, math problem of the week, mystery book reading, journal entry on pinatas (started)
Lanie: four hours Spanish instruction; page of homework packet #16; math sheet (addition and subtraction); journal entry on pinatas (started); book group, Vacation Under the Volcano, chapters 1 and 2; violin performance for dinner crowd; journal entry (picture) on La Laguna de Apoyo.

Lanie was particularly busy, considering she also fit in a shower and was the very first person down for dinner (beets featured prominently again; beets are on the list of new Spanish words I’ve learned — remolachas). The girls managed to scrape together enough of a meal and hold on for dessert, which was bread pudding. None of them could get behind the rice pudding they were served the other day, and even the banana cream pie met a mixed reception, but bread pudding was very popular tonight.

Spending the evening at the school also gave us the opportunity to play a round of Horse Show, the card game Nadia got for Christmas. Lanie spent some time on her new hobby, building card castles.  We skyped the Zamanskys around dinner time to preserve some semblance of Potluck. We read a bit of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the girls were in bed by 8. We sleep an awful lot here. I waited up for the other two and thankfully they were not out much past 10. I wrote my Spanish paragraph and reviewed my notes from that day, then got a start on the next few chapters of Vacation Under the Volcano.

Yesterday I was compelled by my grammar teacher to ask a few of the staff members three questions. This being an exercise in using the subjunctive case, and since it was Friday, one of the questions was: “What do you prefer you students do over the weekend?”

The two teachers I asked said their students should take it easy and relax over the weekend, but the head of the school gave me an earnest and in-depth treatise that started with phrases like “have fun” but wound around through hours or study and asking ten questions of any Spanish speaker you can find.

While I appreciate and respect the opinion of Senor Marlin, head of the Mariposa school faculty, I think I kept closer to the advice of the two teachers.

Today we went to La Boquita, a beach about an hour away from the school. We set up camp in one of the restaurants on the beach, then hit the waves. The Pacific was warm and wavy today. We spent hours in the water.

We also ate a lunch so expensive that we had to clean out Lanie’s wallet to help pay for it. Even though $54 is very steep for these parts, even for a family of five, the restaurant did not charge us for access to the beach or for use of the tables and hammocks. So that factors in. The food was good, too, if not exactly what we thought we ordered. (These days the mere presence of meat earns a meal a few extra stars, but Zoe’s bisteca smothered in onions was truly very excellent.)

Jen and Nadia with their carne asada?

Nope, this is the carne asada. The other stuff was the tostones the waiter thought Lanie and I ordered.

And just in case Senor Marlin ever finds our blog, I did converse with several Spanish speakers today, including our waiter, the night watchman at the school, and today’s driver Jose. Thankfully, it’s all about the trying, because I had varying levels of success (take, for example the fact that I thought I was ordering torta con carne and instead Lanie and I got carne and queso con tostones). I did manage to coax Jose into the water — he was on the fence about swimming. Actually, it might have been the five or six international college coeds on our excursion who had more to do with Jose going into the water. He swam more with them than me.

Here is what I learned from talking to Jose:

• Like many people here, he says he would like the experience the cold of a North American winter some day. (Given that he thought the water was cold today, I don’t know how well he’d hold up.)
• He learned to drive when he was 15, and he started with a motor taxi, which is rather like a cross between a moped and a Winnebago, of you can picture that. I’ll try to get a photo of one, but I don’t expect we’ll ride one.
• He has a son and a daughter, aged 2 and 4 months, whom he helps care for when he gets home from work.
• He drives or he used to drive a bus route between La Concepcion and Managua.
• Even though the owner of the Mariposa School says he doesn’t have to, Jose takes great care in cleaning the microbuses. While we were swimming today — except for the time he himself was coxed into the waves — Jose was detailing the bus, inside and out. I shudder to think about all the sand we brought into the van he’d just cleaned.

Frequent readers of our blog may remember that during our equine expedition on Saturday we enjoyed a great view of a smoking volcanic crater from the top of a nearby mountian. This will not be our last mention of volcanoes by a long shot. In fact right before we leave our Spanish school here, we hopefully will undertake a night hike up to that very same smoking crater. Volcanoes on this trip are going to be like caves were on our cross-country drive in the Getaway Van.

Note the characteristically clear February Nicaraguan sky.

But we’re not diving right into volcanoes, we’re wading in slowly. Quite literally. Yesterday we drove to a nearby lake that has formed in a crater of a not-quite extinct volcano. La Laguna de Apoyo is known as the best place to swim in Central America that is not in the ocean. There is some volcanic activity deep down in the caldera here, the water is not very cold, but because there is not much volcanic activity and a lot of water, the water is not very warm either. It’s sort of like lukewarm water.

Coconut ginger (l) and mango (r)

It is also very beautiful and profoundly deep. The bottom of this crater is the lowest point in Central America (if you believe Jen). Something like 130 meters below sea level. The surface of the lake is significanly above sea level, so the lake goes down pretty far. The drop is pretty immediate, too. Five feet from shore and you’re in up to your knees. Fifteen feet from shore and you’re in way over your head.

You can probably see the chocolate on her face if you look closely. No, wait. You don’t even have to look closely.

We were driven inside the crater to a hotel on the water and paid $5 apiece to use the beach facilities, including kayaks and inner tubes. No one was brave enough to take the catamaran out, though there was a nice breeze. As nice as the scenery was, ice cream won the day if we consider the hearts of the girls. Nadia’s mango and Lanie’s chocolate contended for the title. Zoe’s ginger coconut wasn’t bad, either.

Our camera has a panorama feature. There are some Pavliks in the kayak on the left.  It really is a big round lake, although that’s not what this picture conveys.  Think of the milk at the bottom of your cereal bowl — if your cereal bowl were 500 meters deep.

Washing clothes this way was fun, if not completely effective.

It was a quiet day here at La Mariposa.  Lanie did get me up to run around the hotel this morning, but we only mustered two laps.  We all got back into our classes, and two of us — Zoe and I — got a fair bit of homework.  We focused on some homeschooling this afternoon, but the best lesson might have been what I’m calling the “experiential exercise” of washing clothes by hand.

It was not all work, though.  We got in a game of Iota, and girls finally found out that an ice cream cart swings by the front gates most days at about lunch time.

The jig is up. Ice cream can be had for Cordovas in the street.

Final Iota tally: Bob, 123; Jen 148; Zoe 158; Lanie 186.

Are we jumping into this head-first or not? It’s true that the going to the Mariposa School is a good way to ease ourselves into Central America. Most of our needs are taken care here at the school, and the excursions into the countryside are set up for us. There are plenty of people around for support.

Still we found ourselves yesterday, less than 24 hours after landing in the country, standing in the middle of a pineapple farm trying to follow along as Wilmer the campesino described (in Spanish) the ins and outs of the citrus economy of the region.

A little later on we were in a restaurant with a swimming pool, trying to decide whether it costs 200 Cordovas to swim in the pool or if you could swim in the pool if you spent 200 Cordovas on food (we’re pretty sure it was the latter, but the placard on the table was a little opaque). Our tour guide/translator had taken off on his motorbike and our driver stayed in the van. It was up to us to make our way through the dinner. Quite surpising to me, I was the most seasoned Spanish speaker (our group contained three extra adults aside from the five members of our family, but apparently they all took French in high school).

I had to come up with the questions for the waitress and manager, such as:
Can we swim before dinner, or do we have to buy dinner first? (This was largely a moot point because Lanie was 3/4 of the way into the water before most of our group was out of the van.)
Can we pay in US dollars? With credit cards? Separate checks?  Yes, yes, and yes.

Ordering from the menu was fine, except that we all initially failed to translate chicken wings despite the presence of a picture of a chicken wing right there on the page. The food was great — we got a family plate of plenitude; other people got big bowls of meatball and vegetable soup. (More details on the meal to come.)

It was my great pleasure when the manager hailed me as “Jefe” (“Chief” — I was chief among the foreigners this day), even though he continued to address me with a concern. Our driver had departed to run an errand and the manager seemed worried that we were going to stay in the restaurant all night. Indeed, the girls had become quite ensconced on the see-saws in the adjacent playground. On one hand, it was only 5:30 in the afternoon; but on the other, there were only two other customers in the restaurant besides us.  The Thursday evening dinner crowd didn’t seem to be happening, yet with a dynamic chief like me, our party could easily have lingered on well past 7:45, and the girls were going at the see-saws with gusto.

We worked it out. The driver returned, the bills got paid (fyi: in Nicaragua they add a 10-percent “voluntary gratuity” right onto the bill for you), and we were out by 6:15. As we pulled out of the driveway we saw them closing up the restaurant, even though the other two people were still hanging out at their table.

Jen’s classroom today.

Despite the manager’s temporary concern, it’s been pretty relaxed here. None of us panicked when the tour guide departed or when the driver and van took off. Nicaragua seems to value calmness. When someone asks how you are, you say “tranquilo”.

That sounds nice, doesn’t it?
We’re all tranquil down here.

Aside from the dogs, there are chickens here, too, including this one, which lives in the library/gift shop.

Particularly today, our second day at La Mariposa.  Today’s Spanish classes were a little bit easier (despite my teacher’s assertions yesterday that they would be less “suave” after day one). No excursions planned for the afternoon.  We worked on homework and music lessons.

This fellow also lives here, right next to the patio. It’s ok. The spiders here are tranquilo.

We had dinner at one of the big tables downstairs.  We played several rounds of Spot It!. We read a few chapters of The Prison of Azkaban.

Tonight I even took a shower and washed some clothes — at the same time!  Also at the same time I conserved water by letting it fall into a basin by my feet.  We’re supposed to use the water to help flush the toilet.  This would probably feel like a hassle at home, but not here. It’s tranquilo.

We actually did make one small excursion today, a quick walk into San Juan de Concepcion to check out a nature preserve.