A Feminine Touch: Allison´s Point of View

The empty beach stretched out in all directions around us, encapsulating us in our little paradise world. In an all too fitting series of events, we had come full circle, and were relaxing on the very beach, at the very break, that we had ventured to on that first fateful day of the trip, when our boards were still delayed in Panama City, and when a whole two weeks lay before us, like an artist’s empty canvas. As a contrast, I now sat on the sand, feeling much less a visitor, and more a traveler with 2 weeks behind me in this land of lakes and volcanoes.

It is appropriate, therefore, that there’s no real good starting point for the retelling of our adventure down in Nicaragua. In certain ways, the trip bleeds together into mirages of traffic circles at night, window washers at light stops, narrow cobblestone alleys in search of hostels, and van rides to a mixture of dubstep, Britney Spears, and Led Zeppelin. But then there are also the unpaved roads, encroached upon by blindingly vibrant earth, leading to desolate beaches. There are the markets, the desayunos, the unclean kitchens, the rum fires, the city views from atop cathedrals. The names of places reverberate with tones of familiarity after two weeks of leap-frogging buses and moto taxis along the main carreteras; names like Leon, Chinandega, Niquinohomo, Asseradores, Poneloya, Playa Maderas, Villa el Carmen, Granada; highlighting the foreign yet somehow reassuring relationship we had forged with our surroundings.

I attribute most of the smoothness of the trip to Sam, our Nicaraguan expert, who, after 8 months in country volunteering with the Peace Corps, kept us on the good road to authentic towns, secluded beach breaks, lively markets, and spectacular hikes, and (nearly) out of the corrupt hands of pre-pubescent cops looking to impress their girlfriends while making a buck of some Cheles (and una China). I must also credit the group for the vibe of the trip. Going into this not knowing the 5 other guys I’d be spending days and nights with, I harbored a small sense of uncertainty with how we may serve as each others’ travel buddies. Turns out, we all were on pretty much the same page with regard to what we wanted to spend our time doing, and by the end of the trip, I felt I had made new friends with whom I shared the same sense of fun, adventure and entertainment. While it’s true that boasting a half-mustache, shoulder-tapping strangers as they peed in the street, stripping down to my birthday suit on a whim on a daily basis, or shouting “SENOR CINCO CERVEZA POR FAVOR!!” as if reading from a Spanish 101 guidebook across a restaurant are all things that I not only stray from, but even go out of my way to avoid doing in my normal life, I found it perfect and irreplaceable during our sojourn around Nicaragua. Besides, these more ridiculous stunts were outnumbered by the other activities we did: finding a perfect rock-jumping spot during an hours-long walk along a coastline perpetually changed and altered by fluxuating tides; riding moto taxis haphazardly to a trailhead entrance on which we embarked to a freshwater volcano crater lake, which we later learned is frequented by banditos with machetes, hungrily awaiting passersby to loot; surfing some of the best waves any of us had experienced; and building rum-fueled beach fires to burn Medusa-head remnants of tree roots as the sun dropped down beneath the sea.

Having returned now back to the States, and to what feels like my painful incarceration in a cubicle with fake light beaming down on documents and computer screens in the capital of This Great Nation, I am torn. While I have all the takeaways that I expected to have before embarking on my first trip to a third-world country, most namely a certain cynicism regarding American waste and gluttony, and also a greater appreciation for a pared down life, a broadened sense of the value of a dollar, an enlightened view regarding the lifestyles of those in another culture, I also am struck by a surprising sense of nationalism, for lack of a better word, which I did not expect to have after such a trip. It’s a notion of pride I have for the opportunities I have been afforded, tempered also by the realization that to whom much is given, much is required. The Peace Corps seems set out to act on precisely this perhaps idealistic sentiment, and I wish Sam and his co-volunteers, some of whom we met (chmm, CHMMMM…), the best as they fulfill the rest of their time with the Peace Corps.

In honor of the trip, and of the memories I hope do not fade, I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner the other night, if only to remind me that during a moment when our lives were simple and unworried, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was all we needed to sustain us through to the next surf session, the next town, and to another unforgettably amazing adventure in our lives.