Street Food in Nicaragua

The food here in Nica has been on a different carnivorean level than in Guatemala, or Honduras for that matter. I think that partially due to this the people here are much bigger here in Nica than in Honduras or especially Guate. This leads to all sorts of fights on the bus when people are asked to sit three to a seat to the point where I've seen the ayudante getting his fists ready. Back to the food - everything you order here comes with two or three huge pieces of pork, chicken or beef (occasionally lamb if it is the right area) and green cabbage salad. Then there are soups and tamale type things and delicious fried fish at the beach. This isn't to say that you can't be a happy vegetarian here in Nica because you can. The mangoes are ripe and we are definitely in the tropics now and they everything from carambola to mamey, to coco, plantain and a whole bunch of melon like things I that I don't know how to call them. Everyone sells refrescos, which are like juices with some sugar and the gallo pinto is enough meal for two (gallo pinto equals rice and beans together. Below are some of my favorite street dishes from Nica.


The first is a nacatamale. It is basically the same as a mexican tamale but it is soft. They fill it with corn or potato and chicken or pork or beef. You put some pica and vinegar onions on the top and it is ready to go. They cook it overnight to give the tamale that sort of gelatinous jellyfish look, at least I think that is what they are going for.


This is what they call vigorron and it is close to a national dish here. They get a bunch of mashed yucca, put cabbage salad on top and then cover it in pork skins and hot sauce. Yeah, and those are like pickled sweet peppers you see sticking out of the cabbage. They usually give a piece of real crackle like skin and then something a little softer with meat and fat in it. Not much else to say...I'll just let you enjoy the picture.


This one is called baho and I did not enjoy myself. When it was served to me instead of meat I got about six ounces of fat. The kid who served it even told me that it was fat but I thought he meant like this is delicious because we give you some fat with your meat. I mean, who doesn't like a little beef fat in their meal. They also have plantains and yucca and serve it with salad. They wrap it in a little plastic bag and you kind of slurp your bajo while hoping to not get it down the front of your shirt. It boils for hours and I wish it would have been better because it looks like it could be superb.


This last is the beef soup. I've found everywhere you go people say the soup is the special dish, the best dish, the one to try. Seeing that it is hard to muck up something you cook for 8-12 hours (the exception being baho) I usually find they are right. In this case the soup was great but the meat was 90 percent gristle and tendon. I felt like I was eating pho but I didn't order the tendon and it wasn't sliced so it was chewable. But check the spoon, way more useful than a normal spoon for cutting and eating soup. I think it is an old dried gourd.


Lastly, these are the fish we spearfished down in San Juan del Sur. Went out for snapper, came back with snapper. Snapper is in the middle and the left is a grunt and to the right is a juvenille hogfish.

First day in Nica

#lake at Jinodega

So I was awoken at 6 this morning by a man throwing buckets of water on the already clean patio. He proceeded to scrub and clean for the next hour at which time I finally made my way to the bathroom to a cold shower and a quick butt scrub and armpit rub. The Germans I had met were sitting on their bed twiddling their thumbs when I headaed back to my room and basically threw half of a pineapple at me that I promptly devoured along with two advil to combat the continual stuffed face I´ve had since I got to Nica.

After being locked int the hotel for about half an hour (I think dude had to go buy cigarettes or something) we made our way to the bus, they to head to selba negra, and I was on my way to Jinodega and fresh perch and tilapia at Lago Apanas. We waved goodbye at the decrepit long lost US tank that marks the entrance to selba negra and an hour later I was in Jinodega, the cowboyiest of cowboy towns. After waving goodbye to my two new Nicaraguan friends, that competed for my attention by trying to speak the best Englishthat they could ..one of them a preacher and one of them stinking drunk..I walked the town and then spotted a cross up on the hill. Having nothing better to do and not wanting to fish quite yet I laboured my sick ass for 45 minutes up the hill. Way harder than I thought and I wish you could have been there to make fun of me. At the top I was rewared with views of the whole mountain range of Nica all the way the Honduras and back. The cross was covered in grafitti and teh clouds rolled over the hills and into the valley towards the lake that was stretched out to the north sandwiched between the hills that circumscribed Jinodega.
#cross at Jinodega

I stayed for maybe half and hour and recovered my breath and then it was off to the lake, or so I thought. I bought some cow liver at the grossest meat market I have yet seen and then got on the bus to La Laguna. After an hour and out of view of the lake, I asked the nice lady next to me where La Laguna was and if I could fish there. She said, no you can´t fish there and it is a village in the mountains. I hopped off the bus, properly shamed in my spanish (Cual bus al lago es correcto no cual bus a la laguna), and headed an hour back to town and caught the right bus to the lake. 40 minutes later I was a twenty minute walk to the lake. On my way a couple people kinda smiled at me and said, sure you can fish, if you want. At the lakeshore a man was heading home and said, just wade in up to your hips and cast. I arrived at the lake with this image in my head and what am I confronted with but a marsh that extends maybe a hundred yards. I finally make it to the lakeshore to see that all the plants that line the shore are covered in thorns and that mosquitoes are swarming around my ankles. I took a quick look, opend my bag of liver, threw it on the ground and turned around and headed for home. I thought to myself that effort was enough.
#unfishable lake
A half hour into what was an hour walk back to the road, no buses at this time, I was chased by two drunk nicaraguans on a horse who either wanted me to buy them cococola or buy the belt they were whipping the horse with. I think they would have been happy with either. Once safe back in town I bought myself an enchilada and promptly ran smack into two gringos from Buffalo that worked on their Aunts organic farm up in the hills. We talked for a minute about this and that, it gave me a chance to eat my enchilada while standing and not walking, we said our goodbyes. I hopped on the bus to matagalpa and was rewarded with an amazing sunset that lit up four sets on mountains that led to the ocean (not visible).

A great way to celebrate my first day of semi'unsickness, full of walking adventure and the cowboys and lakes of Northern Nica.

#cigar factory in Esteli and the fat lady of Esteli

Old pictures to update

Kathleen: About a month ago, half of my post on Lago Atitlan mysteriously disappeared. The trauma of that happening has worn off, and I´m uploading the pictures again... with brief descriptions.

First, here is a picture of the bed bug or flea attack that happened to me my last week in Xela. OMG. It was horrible. Luckily, since Xela, I have not been plagued by these miserable creatures!

We arrived in San Pedro de Laguna, on the shores of Lago Atitlan, the day before Tait´s 30th birthday, and found a great hotel for $6 a night, including a private bathroom (although you could literally sit on the toilet and shower at the same time). Here is a picture of Tait on his 30th... notice the interesting decorative decisions made by the hotel owners... Also, a picture of the view from our hotel room.


To celebrate, we took a boat around the lake. Here are some pictures...


I´ve written about the Guatemalan enchiladas before, but San Pedro had the most amazing EVER... the first layer was half beans, half guacamole; a layer of beet salad and pasta salad on top of that; then a layor of carrot salad; then a slice of hard boiled egg, some onion, some tomato salsa, some cheese, and hot sauce to taste. A vegetarian delight!!

We took a long walk out to a beach near San Pedro every day... here are pictures of two things I had never seen before... coffee beans on the tree, and orange bouganvilla (I had only seen the pink kind).


Finally, two nights at Lake Atitlan we splurged and stayed at this absolutely lovely hotel, with amazing views of the lake and its volcanos. They had a family style meal for all the guests each night, with meat and vegetarian options, hot showers with wonderful water pressure, and peace and quiet. Here are some shots of the hotel and its views.




Unfortunately... the lake was plagued by disgusting algae when we were there. It´s actually quite a tragedy... they think that the algae is caused by all the raw sewage going into the lake



SO... That´s the rest of the Lago Atitlan story.

Out of Honduras and back to Guate

*sunset on the Cayes
So we are done with Honduras, and to my mind a bit too soon. We finished our SCUBA diving course after 5 nights at on the Cayes and then it was time to go. Captain Morgan´s was renting out Sandy Caye (your own private Island for 125 bucks a night...pretty sweet) but we needed to jet up to Antigua to get our passport stamped for an extended Visa. Ended up getting it stamped at the border in some sort of shady, you give us la mordida we´ll give you the stamp sort of thing, but it saved us a trip to Guate city and let us get to Antigua quicker than expected.

But before the story of our trip to Guate, fun and long, let me just say that the SCUBA is da bomb. We saw barrel sponges the size of me, grouper that must have weighed 200 pounds, little puffer fish that waved their fins like hummingbirds and another thousand things that I didn´t recognize. I actually didn´t think that I would be that into it, loving snorkelling like I do, but there is something ridiculously cool about being below the water for an hour and swimming with the fishes. Moray eels were below us, we were at the bottom of sea walls, barracuda stared us down and parrot fish shat coral into our eyes. All worth it, all awesome. And the other thing is these SCUBA instructors are crazy, just a little nuts like serious cyclists or spelunkers or other sports that require something to be a bit off up top. The other cool part about staying in the Cayes and our SCUBA experience, is everyone on the Cayes are descneded from Pirates...that´s right PIRATES, like the actual Captain Morgan. There are 6 names that nearly every white person shares. They just got left there hundreds of years ago and now let me tell you, things are a bit strange out there. One street, everyone is related, got their own English and their own Spanish but friendly, welcoming and way more chill than Utila.


*dock where we could snorkel, fooling around on water caye where there are picnic tables and camping available, and lastly sunset on water caye

Speaking of Utila, go to the Wooden Spoon when you are there. They serve a veg option and a meat option and it is straight out delicious pub food but like elevated to this incredible level of warmth and goodness by the staff and their cook. I mean seriously, go to Utila just to eat at this place. Other great food memories of Honduras include baleadas, fried fish and the hamburger on Utila that was the size of a normal burger and not deep fried. First good burger I´ve had in months. Below are some pictures of the Honduran food...


*coco bread from Triunfo de la cruz with organic Belizean peanut butter from el Remate and shrimp ceviche the size of a desk

Other things we did while in Honduras, not including the SCUBA, were hike in Pico Bonito, a beautiful national park near La Ceiba. Kath had a friend from high school who was directing a project up there so we stayed with a family that he knew for a day and then spent the next night on the mountain. I was able to fish for the first time and get some use out of my Honduran fishing rod - it is basically a club wrapped in line with a hook and a weight at the end. I was thoroughly outfished by the kids I was with but enjoyed the Rio Cangrejal. We caught freshwater shrimp to use as bait and these little creepy crawlies that looked like they were out of Lord of the Rings. The only disappointing part was the boys kept their fish which measured in at a good 2-3 inches.


*me and the outstanding fisherman of the group and the kid putting freshwater shrimp on the hook

Now we are back in Antigua, a much more pleasant place the second time around. We ran into an old friend and spent the evening shooting the shit and drinking beer. Memories of Honduras are big people (fat and tall like the USofA), an old man telling me the problem with the States was that we had elected a niggar, baleadas from a lady as wide as she was tall that kept me filled for the day, the best hangover food I´ve ever had - fried plantains covered in gravy and pickled cabbage with a piece of fried chicken to top it off, the Cayes and Utila, a place I could go back to, hiking Pico Bonito and spending the night with the Mosquitoes, 3 eagle rays flying through the water and interminable bus rides through landscapes dramatic and varied, stuck together with clay, nothing grand nothing long and all of it right there to be seen and had.



*68 meter waterfall in Pico Bonito, smaller waterfall on the hike, Kath leaving at 6 in the morning on the suspension bridge that leads to the park

Utila and the Cayes

After a day a heat and sunshine and an interminable, impossible decision about dive shops, we ended up with Captain Morgan's out on the Cayes near the west side of Utila. Hotel is nice, people are great and the food is cheap. The only problem is that since we have arrived here it has rained, and gusted, and rained and gusted, and here it is going on three days and we have been in the water for maybe an hour and half. Yesterday we went in around four and after 30 minutes we had to call it off because the turbidity and thermocline was so bad that we couldn't see anything. We do love being under the water though...we climb up and climb down and it is nuts to be able to turn anyway you want and that becomes the new up or down.

The one nice thing about the weather is that with the wind and the rain it feels like home at this time of year. We miss everyone and hope that everybody had a great thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kathleen: Hi everyone and happy thanksgiving!! It's very strange to be HOT and not surrounded by family and smells of good cooking right now, but our thoughts are with all of our loved ones... and truth be told, are a little homesick. We have been about 10 days in Honduras {land of slow internet... sorry for no pictures in this post, but it takes, literally, a million years to upload even one} and have mainly been sticking to the Carribean coast. We stayed a few days in Tela, a quiet little town that is mainly a weekend getaway for Honduran families in the nearby big city of San Pedro Sula, and mainly just swam and hung out; then two nights in Triumpho de la Cruz, a Garifuna village {black Carribeans} , where we went for a cool hike up the coast and got DESTROYED by mosquitos; and then a night in La Ceiba, a bigger city on a dirty beach. The next night we did a homestay with a family living in a village about 16 km out of La Ceiba, and camped in the jungle the next night.... where, of course, it rained!! Then we headed up the coast to Trujillo, where Columbus landed on one of his journeys and stayed at a lovely little place on the beach {which was unfortunately all mucked up from a recent storm}. We were planning on continuing our journey north into Mosquitia, but I got some exciting news when we arrived in Trujillo.... a midwife in Guatemala has agreed to let me come and work with her for a month... and I will be doing the whole clinical gamut... gyn exams, contraceptive counseling, birth assisting, etc... ALL IN SPANISH, which will be... a miracle, if it happens. As of now, I have no idea how to do any of that in Spanish, but I guess there is no better way to learn. As we've already been in Guatemala, Tait is going to continue South as we had originally planned through Nicaragua and then maybe to Costa Rica if he has the time.

Today we arrived on the island of Utila to become certified scuba divers. We had not been planning to do this... because although it is the cheapest place in the world to be certified, I was not of the opinion that we should seek out more expensive hobbies than we already have. But two dutch guys we met in La Ceiba convinced us otherwise... talking about the whole underwater world across the world that diving opens up. So here we are and we start tomorrow... Thanksgiving!! We'll be here probably 5 days then might have a day or two to do something else fun, then onwards and upwards.

So, we have much to be thankful for... although tonight I am wishing that we could be with the people we love. Eat lots of good food for us {and a piece of pumkin pie for me} . We'll write more soon.

Reflections on Guatemala and into Honduras

*Lago Peten Itza

Tait: Kath and I woke up five days ago and decided that we´d seen enough of Guatemala for the time being. We hopped on five buses and after four days of travel, some Pollo Asado at Dona Juanitas in Chiquimula, and a pitstop at the Copan Ruins (absolutely amazing sculptures...but more to come on that later), we find ourselves on the Caribbean sea of Honduras in the town of Tela. We´ve already managed beers on the beach, a sunrise swim, and deep fried snapper and we haven´t even been here 24 hours.

As always, upon leaving it is easier to reflect on the doing and the moving, the impetus of travel. Guatemala surrounded us for the span of two months and near the end of our time there Kath and I wondered how such a small country could contain the multitudes of sights and sounds that were so different from one another. It was as if within a country the size of Louisianna we saw not only the Mayan, but the mestizos and the first and third world and the ruins and lakes galore and landscapes so varied that an hour asleep on the bus saw a different country out the window. We had toilets that could wash your ass for you and toilets covered in that stuff that comes out of your ass. We had food that would be at home in New York and food that you wouldn´t find anywhere but Guatemala. We had a family, friends. travelled with others and alone, and we found places to see where there was no one but the two of us and places where everyone else had been.

While in Guatemala there were three mountain ranges that turned one into the other. In Xela and Atitlan we were surrounded by Volcanoes. They rose staight into the sky, thrown out of the earth in some bygone tectonic upheaval. They loomed over the landscape, so dangerous that they were docile, giants in disguise, waiting and saving their anger. Coming up from Atitlan the Volcanoes of Antigua and the Lake disappeared behind the pine trees that covered the Cuchamantanes and huge valleys appeared as scars and our bus clung to the twisted roads while the mountains circled above us. The clouds were always around and when they cleared we could look 20 miles across to where an hour previous we had come down the mountainside in the screech of a chicken bus. Turkey vultures rode the thermals across the valleys, mayans patrolled the roadside on horses and men carried bundles of firewood on ropes wrapped around their foreheads, the same way that the ancient Mayans had carried stones to and from the temples. Coming out of the Cuchamatanes we found ourselves in the midst of a mudslide, more like a mountain slide were the whole mountain had moved and as it moved it took us towards the Altaverapaz where the mountains sat like sleeping turtles one next to the other, shells popping from the green expanse: they were mini volcanoes, covered in jungle with the white of their limstone base sometimes showing through and rounded at the top missing the calderas of their bigger brethren to the south west. As we moved towards Tikal the turtles spread apart and eventually disappeared leaving only the open jungle savannah of Peten.

We stayed for five days in Peten and again things had changed. Gone were the Mayans and fresh tortillas of the mountains replaced by the Mestizo and expats of the Peten. We were away from the sludge and the slime of ancient algea in Lago Atitlan, her protestation against the filth of pure sewage the runs into her depths from the 12 towns that line her shore. Instead we were on the shores of Lago Peten Itza. A grand dock stretched into the waters, which reflected like the waters of the Caribbean 20 shades of blue and white. We dined on fish fresh from the lake, indegenous to the lake (Petenta I think) and found ourselves unable to leave except to see Tiakl.

We arrived at daybreak in Tikal and spent half the day walking with our guide. I´d never had a guide before but at this point we were travelling with a Dutch couple and they thought it was a good idea and it certainly was. Tikal is enormous and without the guide I would have had no clue what I was seeing and/ or what it meant. We took us from one temple to the next and as we sat on top of the temples in the cool morning mist howlers monkeys grunted in our direction, spider monkeys swung from tree to tree and dropped their favored nuts down on unsuspecting guests. Ocellated turkeys ran from temple to temple and the coatimundis sniffed around for scraps, using their paws and their noses just like their northern brethren, the raccoon. The trip through the temples lead us eventually the main structures of Tikal where in the midmorning the sunlight began to come through the clouds and lend a bit more mysticism to what was already a mystical place.

*Ocellated turkey, View from teh priests bed chambers, Palace, Temple one over the jungle

We stayed two more days in Guatemala after that, unable to leave to dock of Mon Ami on Lago Peten Itza and then we looked up and had to go. Two days later we were in Copan Ruinas. The ruins here are not as grand as Tikal. There are no great pyramids and the walk throught he jungle and the sacbes doesn´t have the feel of travelling back in time, but what it does have are sculptures grander and more bueatiful than any I have ever seen. There is also a museum there that contains many of the original steleas (think of them like Mayan totems). The coup de grace of the museum though has to be the Templo de Rosalia. At the Met in New York they imported an Egyptian temple and nearly the whole North wing is a room that contains this temple and one whole wall is glass and the light is able to stream in and illuminate this temple and at times it feels as if you are in Egypt, or at elast what I imagine Egypt to feel like sans heat and dust and sand. This temple in the museum is presented in the same way except that the museum is open to the sky and as the sun comes over the temple it is bathed in light. It is painted in its orginal red (a mix of insects and plants, of which our guide - I´m hooked - was able to show us the type of plant used to paint). In the museum are also fertility sculptures and some that just were made for the sake of art and no other discernible reason. There is one disk that tells the tale of the first and second dynasties of Copan and others that record a thousand years of history. We also went through the living quarters of the city that surrounded the Copan center. We saw the tombs of the Maya, which resided below the livings beds and watched macaws fly overhead squawking at our untoward interruption of their rest. The living quarters were inhabited from 1000 BC forward and our guide uncoverd shards of pottery that were inscribed wih symbols. 3000 year old pottery shards...possibly...even if he did bury them himself, it was pretty cool.

*disk with two dynasties, ruins and river, plant used for paint, temple in the museum

And now today we are in tela on the Honduran coast. For the next three weeks we will make our way down they coast towards Moskita. IN the market this morning were mackeral, caracol, shrimp, red snapper, yellow snapper, and all versions of fresh fish. We have discovered baleadas which are fresh grilled flour tortillas filled with beans and cream and cheese. they make pincho here - carne asada on two tortillas with hot sauce. Most of all, they have the beach. We´ve been in it every moment and though that sand can be littered with trash, in the water we can look out towards Punta Sal and Punta Izopo and float in the salty blue of the Caribbean.

* snapper

Two weeks gone

Yikes! I somehow lost half of this post! Just got on today and realized that the first part is missing. Sorry, reader. The first part of the post was talking about how we left Xela and arrived at Lago Atitlan, a beautiful, huge lake in the middle of the Guatemalan highlands. It is surrounded by a bunch of different villages, and we traveled around the villages for a little more than a week, relaxing and celebrating Tait´s birthday. We stayed in three villages, the first was a little wierd and gringofied, but CHEAP and had delicious food and the village itself was really cool (I´ll post the pictures I originally posted later). Then we splurged and went to a beautiful hotel will gorgeous views of the lake and its volcanos, and then spent 3 nights camping at the biggest village on the lake, Panahachel... which is where this blog picks up. I´ll try and track down the original...

Kathleen; Pana was gringofied, somewhat like San Pedro, but it was more institutionalized so it was a little less wierd. We didn´t see a lot of Pana, besides the business we conducted there (buying used fabric, mailing said fabric, exchanging books, etc...). We were mainly taking refuge, because the moment we set up our tent the heavens opened and it poured. After the first night, when we woke with standing water in our tent, we were forced to move to a little concrete pavillion on the hotel grounds. After three nights of this, we called it quits and moved on to the next destination. Of course, on the day we left, the sun was shining and it was the most beautiful day ever (see pic). But before we left we took a day trip to Chichicastenango, which was reputed to have one of the biggest markets on earth. And it did. We were there for Dios de los Muertos, and it was QUITE the party. Here is just one of the paraders (I think he was parading as one of the conquering Spaniards). Oh, and another picture of a sign that tickled my fancy (don´t pee in the sink).

We spent two full days of hard getting to our next destination. The first night en route we spent in a little village called Usbatan. It was lovely, except that our hotel was literally a shithole. E.g. the toilet was a hole covered in shit, and the whole hotel stunk. I was miserable. And I am not overly hygenic, and I have certainly seen my fair share of gross and primative toilets in my day. But this was the worst. However, the town also had a lovely little plaza, not noteworthy except for all of the life that was happening. There was an interesting rainbow theatre, which we agreed must be used for everything from school plays, to concerts, to the nativity scene. There were two basketball hoops, and there were three different games happening SIMULTANEOUSLY at EACH hoop. Everyone just ignored each other and took turns. We also had a delicious meal at the market... a fried taco filled with veggies, and Tait had some sort of spicey tamale filled with some sort of indiscriminate meat. Also, the very popular arroz con chocolate... basically mushy rice cooked in hot chocolate... its a breakfast and dinner drink... delicious! They also have arroz con leche, which is mushy rice in hot, sweet, spiced milk.



The travel itself was also an adventure... we took about 12 chicken buses to get where we were going... I think I explained earlier that chicken buses are US school buses that have been reincarnated as mass transit. Well, the seats are built to seat two but almost always seat three. That means there are 6 people across an aisle built for 4, and on the hairpin turns you are literally holding on and bracing yourself for dear life (they are long turns too... you think that they´re over but... still holding, still bracing, still praying, still grimacing). On one of the legs, Tait had to sit on the roof of the bus. Oh... because there are also little minivans that are built for 12 and regularly hold 25. On one leg we secured a prime spot (the bus left at 4 in the morning, so didn´t have much competition) but picked up a family of 12 on the road. The little girl squeezed on the little ledge in front of the front row of seats, (she was a cutie of about 6 or 7) was sitting in between Tait´s legs, and puked for the entire journey. She was a stoic little thing, too. As were her three younger siblings, who didn´t peep for the entire 3 hour unpaved bouncy uncomfortable journey.

The next day we arrived in Lanquin, at a little hostel set on the river. It was lovely, much warmer than in the highlands, and had a great restaurant. We camped the first night, and again were woken by puddles of water in the tent (it had been raining here for days, and rained for the first 12 hours after we put up the tent). So, the second night we slept in hammocks... where we could feel the breeze, hear the rushing river, the animals, the rain... but stay dry. I had never slept the night in a hammock before, but I think I could develop a taste for it.

This region is built on limestone and is marked by limestone caves and outcroppings. We went to visit Semuc Champey... which is hard to describe. In between huge limestone cliffs a river RACES, and goes under ground, under these beautiful lakes set into limestone craters, and then comes out in dramatic waterfalls on the other side. We went on a fun hike to the spot where you could view everything, but of course, it started to rain as we were hiking, so it was considerably more slippery. We played in the lakes and swam (again, a little cold because of the rain), and watched tour groups hurl themselves off cliffs into the waterfalls.

Tomorrow, we head north to the Mayan ruins of Tikal and the hot (hopefully not too rainy) jungle. We´ll try not to let this much time pass again between posts.