Two lucky ones (May 2 – 5)

Leaving El Salvador towards Honduras worked out easy and fast. We arrived already around 10 a.m. at the border. There we met right away two Mexicans, which were heading towards Panama. We asked them for a ride, on which they agreed immediately. We had a nice small talk with one of the men, and waited patiently until their immigration process was done. Suddenly, there seemed to be problems with registering their car, thus they suggested to go ahead, trying to hitch-hike a ride at the end of the border crossing. If we do not find a ride, they will later pick us up. That sounded fine with us. We tried to hitch-hike, but the next half an hour nothing happened. Then we saw the Mexicans arriving and felt relieved. But, who had thought about that, they drove by sneering at us. We could not believe it. We were cheated by them, creating a reasonable way to get rid of us. Oh, was I furious!

Instead of calming down, my energy level rose at three times the normal, and made us find a ride with a nice truck driver soon. We continued with smooth hitch-hiking through Honduras, until we ended up in the last car for the day.

Carolina on the left

Carolina, accompanied by her mother Rubia, picked us up. They were on the way back to their village, about 10 km before the Nicaraguan border. Within a short time Carolina invited us to stay in their house, which we happily accepted. She mentioned we might pass a funeral, taking place in a neighbour village. When we arrived at that village, we first wanted to wait her in the car. But an invitation from her side made us have a short look at the funeral.

Two white, unknown persons getting out of the car and joining the burrial ceremony was not easy to understand for the village

having a last look

inhabitants. We “Norteamericanos”, as they called us auricularly behind our backs, did not really belong there. We were watched with rosen eyebrows, seeing question marks in most people’s eyes. Some of them, though, were grateful that we showed our respect for the person being burried. They greeted us from far and when leaving they wished us farewell.

Carolina did not mind about anything. She walked us right up the hill onto the grave, shared the story about her new found friends (us) with everybody, and told us about herself. Carolina is 27 years old, moved a couple of years ago back to her parents’ house, opened up the first and only Internet cafe in her village (which she already sold), is starting a food selling business with her mother directly from out of their house, and is still searching the one to fall in love with. “It does not lack of opportunities, but I do not want to marry any village man, who still thinks that women are made to serve him, and that he has the right to beat me with his belt. If somebody beats me, I am definitely beating back!” With this attidude towards men, admits Carolina, she has really bad cards in her region. Anyway, she is dreaming of a North American, as they are well educated and know to treat their partner in a human way, as Carolina puts it.

Carolina offered us her little apartment to stay in, prefering herself to sleep in the parents’ house. We had lots of space, placing our belongings with joy all over the room. We could sleep on our mattresses, which later turned out a bad decision because mosquitos quite liked our sweet blood. Thus we built in the middle of the night our tent inside the apartment, sleeping well until late morning.

Before we went to bed, we needed to still our hunger. While preparing delicious noodles with soy meat, all children, adults and even the dogs made our little stove be the star of this evening. I guess, the dogs rather praised the delicious food waiting ahead than our stove, but anyway they payed it attention. Interesting was how we offered apple to the children. We had ten apples and every child sitting around seriously wanted an apple. One of the ten tasty fruits was left at the end, which Augustas and me shared with each other. The funny thing was that the children, all reaching out for an apple, did not even bite once into it. We assumed that probably it was polite to take what they were offered, even if they did not want it.

Rubia, Carolinas’ mother, told us about her five sons, all being in the United States already 10 and more years. Only two of them she had seen since then, as it was risky for her sons to get out of US. Three of them did not have any stay nor work permit, although two were already in the US for about 20 years. We also learned that only those people in the village have beautiful and modern houses, which have relatives in the US or work(ed) over there themselves.

Mario, our funny truck driver

In the morning we arrived at the Honduran-Nicaraguan border. It did not feel like the best border we had passed, thus we tried to leave soon. We managed well, being invited by Mario, a Guatemalean truck driver, for a lift towards Managua. The ride was slow, thus long, but in all very pleasant. We had a nice rice-beans-salad dish together and said good-bye in Tipitapa, from where we would try to head towards Granada. We had to walk quite a bit, until finally getting a ride to the main road towards Granada.

other vehicles use the beach road, too

There, Aracely picked us up, driving us not only until Granada, but also inviting us to stay in her house. Getting to her house was interesting, as we took a non-existing road along the beach of Nicaragua lake. What a great experience! Left from us were a lot of beach houses, on the right hand side the lake. Along the beach we passed cows enjoying a late afternoon walk to the lake, a couple of kids playing, a bunch of people hitch-hiking right on the beach!, and cars coming across us. I imagined already to hitch-hike the next morning along the beach, when leaving Aracely’s place. But it did not come so far as we were invited to stay a couple of days longer.

Aracely and Lewis, our hosts in Granada

Aracely and her husband Lewis were living about 13 km North of Granada. For four years they are working on building their Mediterreanan style house, which has just one floor and reminds a bit buildings from the Middle East. The finished parts of their house look beautiful and differ a lot in atmosphere and style to all the others we have seen in that area.

In the area of Granada, people are supplied with running water from Monday to Friday only between 6 and 10 o’clock in the morning. That meant no water on Thursday evening. Thus we used the chance of having a bath directly in the Nicaragua lake. Walking into it felt so nice, warm, and soft, so much different to any salty water we had experienced during the last months of our trip. It took some time to get deep into the water, and we had great fun soaping our dirt soaked bodies.

eating the first vegan and greatest ever pizza in my life

The following day Aracely invited us for a little trip to Granada. We had hardly time to enjoy the beauty of this old town, but we got a glimpse in it. Granada reminded us a lot San Cristobal de las Casas in Mexico, a city where we easily could get stuck for a longer time. That day Aracely went for lunch with us, into a pizza restaurant. With amazement I noticed that they had a vegan pizza. I

ordered the biggest size and I felt like in heaven when biting into the first piece of my vegan pizza. At least 2,5 years had passed since I had not tried any pizza, and now such a dream of vegan pizza was sliding down my throat, passing all possible taste nerves along my mouth before. I believe this will be the second dish during our trip, which I definitely will not forget anymore.

orphanage on Ometepe island

Saturday morning the Ometepe-Island, placed right into the Nicaragua lake, was our goal to reach. We arrived in the afternoon, starting to hitch-hike right after the arrival with the ferry. Once Ronaldo, a grown-up orpan, was giving us a lift to an orphanage founded about 13 years ago. Ronaldo spent half his life over there, meanwhile working for the orphanage. He invited us for a small sight-seeing tour through the orphanage area. One can meet orphans there or children whose parents are too poor to ensure a good education for their kids. There was a house for all the volunteers in the orphanage school, but as we came while everybody was attending the mass in the nearby church, we did not have a chance to speak with them. Actually, we thought it might be interesting to stay in the orphanage over night, but though giving hints to Ronaldo, it did not come to any invitation. Thus we continued hitch-hiking, landing up in a smaller village called San Francisco, where we built our tent right on the beach.

The coming day we went further North-East to Altagracia . We did not really feel like staying there and as we faced quite some difficulty in hitch-hiking that sunday, we decided to go back to the harbour, leaving the following morning with the ferry back to Riviera, to continue travelling towards Costa Rica.