Through The Eyes of Francisco

About a year ago to the day I arrived in Nicaragua, Sam and I were sitting in a restaurant outside of New Haven, CT for DJ Harris' wedding.  It was snowing outside so badly we were concerned about how we were going to get from the rehearsal dinner back to the hotel only 2 miles away.  Sam told me he was heading to Nicaragua, not sure where in, for a stint with the peace corps.  His spanish was ok, he was clean shaven, very white, wearing a tie and while he did not seem frightened of the prospect of going to Nicaragua, I don't think he could picture himself where I saw him 2 weeks ago.

Allison, my girlfriend, and I saw Sam for the first time pounding on the glass at the airport when he spotted us.  He was shaggy haired, sun kissed (almost burnt really), had a mustache (which he later shared with he had been working on for some time) over his massive grin, rocked his classic Hawaiian shirt, and was spouting spanish at the rental car people before I had a chance to use my awful Spanish.  This was still Sam "Sambo" Shepard but he had added an additional 50 blades to his Swiss Army Knife persona which has also been wet by the Pacific Ocean and dried in hot as Hadies Nicaraguan air for the last 8 months.

Our plan was to grab our surfboards and head north on a surfing expedition for a week before scrambling back to Managua to pick up more Richmond grads for the second portion of Allison and my Vacation and Sam's break from school.  After dealing with a baggage delay we headed west, to the hottest place I've ever been to, and picked up more surfers/peace corps friends and then headed to.... a secret place I'm not going to tell you the name of....

Everyone kept telling us, "eh waves aren't good there" or "tides all wrong" or "check out the bay" or even (to paraphrase) You must not be surfers if you're about about that place.  Allison, Sam and I were all dead set on checking this place out.  Allison had been looking at pictures of it when the wave was great, I'd gotten nerdy and done some swell and ocean research, Sam had talked to some friends in Nicaragua about the wave.  We had put all our eggs in one basket before we got there and after driving down a road that required everyone to get out of the car so I could blast through a creek bed, destroyed the shocks on the car and maneuvered around multiple cattle herds we were not going to turn around.  We got out of the car, set up the boards, and walked down the small rock path to the beach.  It looked ok from where we popped out on the beach.  The sky was over cast and we were still about 100 yards or more from the water.  Finally, we were doubting our decision to scope the wave out.  Once we got to the waters edge the sky opened up a little and we saw this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75470591@N05/6786374183/sizes/z/in/photostream/

We had this wave all to ourselves for the remainder of the day.  It was world class.  We were paddling out easily. Catching wave after wave. Joking about how wrong everyone was and enjoy the ocean and beach alone.  Rather than gamble on another spot we stayed at our mystery spot for a few days.  Thanks to our friend Philip, we were able to walk from our hostel in the village to the wave via an old jeep trail in the woods/jungle then through a hole in a barbwire fence and lastly a romp between beach reeds which popped us out next to the wave.  The hike itself was almost as amazing and fun as the wave.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75470591@N05/6786457703/in/photostream/

oh yeah. AND the waves only got better throughout our stay.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75470591@N05/6786461705/in/photostream/

Now, when are we going back to this spot?

Into the Nica Wilderness

It was two seemingly distant weeks ago that the first familiar faces I have seen in over eight months out of the country touched down in Nicaragua. I didn’t know what to expect of what the future held in our adventure. But now being on the other side of this two week vacation, my Spanish is a little worse off, I’m out of (running) shape, and more broke than I was at the beginning. And every part of if was worth it.

The trip was broken into two parts: surfing and everything else the country has to offer. My first guests were Frank and his girlfriend, Allison, surfer enthusiasts as well, and after a slight mishap with some luggage we headed to north to… well I guess I forget the name of the beach… to seek out a fabled wave I had heard some grumblings about. What we found may only be described as heaven on earth for some surf hungry travelers like ourselves. There we were in the middle of nowhere on a beautiful beach with no one else on it, staring at a wave that could only be described as first rate, with hardly anyone in the water. We spent the next couple of days there as well as the more popular beaches of Leon, enjoying an incredible swell, and the a simplistic lifestyle. Our days revolved around surfing (dawn patrol, sunset sessions, and everything in between), eating (taking advantage of local cuisine and fauna), and playing cards when we were too tired to paddle any longer (which was usually accompanied by a Tona or two). After a week of a simplistic lifestyle such as that, I was arguably in the best shape I’ve been in awhile, and tan/blond to top it off. Plus, we met a handful of characters along the way to liven up our experiences and make things that much more interesting, which include but aren’t limited too a strung out water salesman we dubbed Mano Derecha, a young Nica named Marino obsessed with throwing the “frixbee”, and the Burrito Guy.

But that holistic lifestyle quickly came to an end with the arrival of the rest of the Richmond grads, and this is when the real “adventure” began, as we focused on a less surfing oriented trip, which wielded some unforgettable experiences and stories. Cruising around the landscape in our rented minivan, listening to the likes of the latest Britney Spears, the Beatles, and anything else you may imagine, we found ourselves in a variety of situations which involved spear guns, volcanic lagoons, climbing dangerous rock formations, cliff jumping, and singing “It wasn’t me” and “Bailamos” in karaoke bars across Nicaragua’s Pacific coast. It also may have involved someone in our group losing in a game of cards and having to wear half a moustache for a number of days, a moustache he may or may not have worked on for weeks, and was very proud of. And all in the name of fun and good times I may add. After 8 months of being out of the states, I couldn’t have asked for a better vacation, and a reminder of the life I used to life back in the states. It made me realize what great friends have I (they beat my family down to Niaragua!), and everything I have to look forward to on my eventual (permanent) return. It’s tough going back to site after a trip like that, but with the school year about to start and a half marathon to start training for, things are about to get a lot busier back La Villa!

Also, it’s tough to chronicle two weeks of excursions and adventure into a couple of paragraphs, and with so many of us (seven at our peak), it’s tough to say what happened and speak for all of us in many situations. So rather than bore you with my sole perspective, we’ll see some guest writers over the next posts detailing what they saw, felt and lived through over these past two weeks, with pictures I hope as well.  

Danger Zone

Since getting back to the Villa from San Juan del Sur things have been less than exiting. Well, a better way to put that is things have been slow. The only things that have been on the agenda, outside of football sala everyday at 4pm, has been to continue to hand out business surveys, and start to write three in-depth reports due today. I’m telling you, real fun stuff, it’s like I’m back in college! Unfortunately, it’s not the part of college that I so fondly remember. It’s quite the opposite. These past couple of days reminded me of staying up until 3-4am writing papers, or jamming last minute for a big test. But instead of a paper on the arbitrage of international exchange rates, corporate social responsibility, or the decline of Stalin, I’m writing about the business environment of Villa el Carmen, a Community Analysis Report, and my bi-annual report that gets sent to Washington. Like I said, really fun stuff. While it meant going to Managua for the day to take advantage of the free internet, I’m happy to say that those three reports are now behind me.

            I guess one “exciting” event happened this past week, although exiting may not be the best word. Scary would be better, and that’s probably how my mother would describe it. While returning home from Managua after an afternoon filled with extra language lessons, I was hit suddenly with a bad stomach bug, literally seconds before I was about to step on an hour and a half long bus ride. It was so intense, that I thought about walking to a corner of the market to go puke and get it out of my system. But I thought to myself, “Sack up, you’ll be fine,” and stepped onto a very, very crowded bus. We’re talking three to a bench, and the people in the aisle are packed as tight as sardines, which caused the bus to be about 10 degrees hotter on the inside. I believe this had a catalyst effect for my sickness, as all of a sudden, about 15 minutes into the ride, things started to get weird. And not the fun kind of weird. Suddenly, the urge to vomit becomes intense, and all I can do is focus on breathing steadily, and position myself in a way, where I could jump over the people sitting down in front of me (I’m one of the sardines in the aisle) to puke out of the window if need be. So my body is all tensed up, knees locked, and arms braced against the ceiling railing, and in a matter of seconds my head is spinning. For the first time since being in Nicaragua, I’m a little scared about what is going on around me. The sensation to faint is starting to creep up my spine – a sensation I’ve never experienced before – and for whatever reason I’m having trouble controlling my hands, and slightly lost feeling in them. My fingers, against my will are curling into a fist, and I need to exert a lot of effort to open them all the way to take money from my wallet to pay for my fare. In retrospect, I think that tensing up my body prevented the blood from flowing properly, but who knows, I’m ain’t no doctor (or a botanist, right Nate?). Pretty terrifying situation, made worse by the truth that I will be stuck inside this bus for another hour or so until arriving back home. Had it not been for a kind Nica that noticed something was wrong and offered me his seat, I’m not sure what would of happen. Once seated, I had better control of things, and things slightly improved. What was the strangest part about the whole episode, is that I woke up the next morning, and minus not wanting to eat anything, I felt completely fine. No head ache, no stomach pain, no fainting sensation. As mysteriously and quickly as it came it left, and I will forever be in the dark as to why it happened. I suspect a store bought donut that I ate, simply because my body has been so unused to that sort of food after so long.

            But now that that episode and my reports are said and done, I have nothing but fun to look forward too. Tomorrow marks the start of a two week vacation, where not one, not two, but six friends are coming down for a two weeks of surfing, exploring, and I’m sure shenanigans. Probably lots of shenanigans. And covering for my amigos since they speak little to no Spanish. I mean it when I say, It’s gonna be fun.

Sam´s Nicaraguan Fishing Adventure!

I’d like to start this post off with saying the New Years down here in San Juan del Sur was wildly fun. So wildly fun that we ended up staying an extra day out of site to regain our energy. So out of control fun that I am unsure if I should share all the nitty-gritty details. But I will tell you that the night included a party on the beach, a roof top balcony, Swedish House Mafia, shirts on, shirts off, swimming, braces, lost shoes, lost people, inside-out wrist bands, and possibly a Russian Spy. Well, definitely a Russian stripper. And not all at the same time.

Instead I’m going to spend my time writing about my fishing trip to San Miguel that happened two days before the New Years with some of the professors I work with at one of my rural schools. Also know, that I am writing this post without the use of the buttons in between x and b. And of those letters you that had been posted already were auto-fixed, so if my writing is out of the ordinarily strange, that is why. And it may be why you’re seeing more Spanish words. For some reason those two buttons figured they didn’t want to work anymore. So my friends, the professors told me about this trip weeks ago, but after not hearing anything for awhile, I sort of forgot about it myself. They – three professor friends, one of their fathers, and other friends of theirs – make the trip 3-4 times or so a year, as sort of a guys only weekend. So I was pretty pumped up when they asked me to join them again. What happened next was not only an unforgettable series of memories, but my first glimpse at a Nica “wolfpak”.

 So San Miguel is about a 20km bike ride away from town, almost entirely on dirt roads and trails. Along the way, you must ford two rios, meaning putting your bike on your shoulders and wading through, in water sometimes that got up a little higher than your belly button, as well as bike down a 2km path that really isn’t a bike path, but more of an animal trail that has almost disappeared to the rapid plant growth. Glad I put my pants (on again) for that part, as they plant life was thorny and beat up your legs. To get to our homebase for the night, we had to surpass an estuary. This estuary, is where we did the majority of our fishing, and it runs parallel with sea, separated by big ole Sand Dune, that at its end dumps into the sea. Take a look at the “boat” we used to ford the estuary that at different points was too deep to walk. This ingenious work was dreamed up by a fisherman in the area, as a free way to go to and from the playa. All of the materials at one point or another were washed onto shore by the tide! This is also the gang with whom I shared this amazing trip:

Rio Number One

The Boat and the Boys

 By the time we got to home base, the sun was almost down, and I figured we’d make a fire, and make it an early night, in order to wake up order in the morning. Boy was I wrong. What happened next was the fishing in a way that was absolutely foreign to me, and a way I would not had imagined. We do make the fire, but simultaneously we start dragging out the nets. By the time we take our first step into the water, the sun is down, and we’re operating on moon and starlight, and it was pretty bright that night. So what we used - instead of a pole, or line and bait, or a personal net - was a 50 yard long net (four feet wide), that we set up against the tide of the estuary to ensnare fish that were being pulled to and from the sea due to the tide. We would take a look at the nets on the hour to see if anything was trapped in it’s small gaps. This required us stripping down to suits, or tightey whiteys if that’s all you had (to not get snared yourself), and wading/swimming through the dark of night water along the path of the net. It was a surreal experience and I oddly thought about Apocalypse Now, fording up the rio during the safety of night. I wasn’t spooked or anything, and the whole thing felt oddly normal. Like the kind of thing I would be doing any other night if I wasn’t preparing a lesson. What amplified the experience was the phosphorous in the water, that would light up anything you made a sudden movement. It was possible to see anyone walking/swimming towards you, as the water around them was glowing. Reminded me of the swamp monster from Scooby Doo. As they told me later, fishing was done at night, so there was time to go shrimpin’ in the morning.

Shrimping Nets in Hand, Big Nets in the water, tied to the branches sticking out of the water

What a Sunset

Shrimping started out harmless enough, tossing the nets from the banks into the shady, shallow waters of the nearby streams. But that would be too easy right? My buddies, these real salt of the earth guys who know this area and it’s animals inside and out, ran out of suerte, and jumped right in, and started wading upstream. Well, I wasn’t going to look like the yuppy gringo who didn’t want to get his suit dirty, so I jumped right in after them. But I jumped in, and got stuk. And then I started sinking. From the bank, it seemed like the water was about 3 ½ - 4 feet deep, but in reality the water was about 2 ½ feet deep, and that the stream bed was all clay. The clay made the sinking sensation, and made the experience a bigger workout that I was looking forward to.By the time we finished, about an hour later, I felt like I was had been running the stairs at the Robbins center again. But, well worth it, as I learned how to properly throw a shrimping net, and pulled in a few of my own. The whole time felt like a father-son fishing trip, as they walked me through the motions, step by step, and showed genuine happiness and pride when I threw the net the right way after two throws. And I was pumped to finally make a bond with these two guys, the father and his friend on the trip. They spoke real rural Spanish, and I had a tough time understanding them. But sometimes, words aren’t needed.

The real highlight of the trip is that it turned out we were on one of the playas where Sea Turtles swim thousands of miles to lay their eggs. And that night, as we were walking about, we stumbled upon a protection group that had identified a nest that was ready to be released. These baby turtles were literally pouring out of the sand, and we helped this group gather them together, and bring them too the tide line, to ensure they at least got to the sea. So there I am in the middle of no where, guiding these baby turtles, by hand and flashlight (the turtles follow the light) to the sea.  I swear, between the turtles and the bright moon, had I had a girl with me, it would’ve been too easy. CHeck out the photos below.

I was almost sad to take off the next morning and return home. Everything that I experienced that night was absolutely new to me, and I learned so many things, its mind blowing. But I left on a high note with the guys: they invited me to be part of the wolfpak.  

The Catch!