Of Comfort and Cold Tiles

We are now back in Granada.  Wow.  (If you are following us by reading the blog, you wouldnt even know we've been here yet.  I thought of naming this post "The Lost Art of Blogging" but decided against...)

Catching up, at this point isn't possible.  I could offer apologies.  Demands of children, intermittent internet connections, how traveling with other destroys self reflection...  a waste of time.  Anyone who is reading doesn't want to hear my excuses, but rather my adventures.

So....

Today:

We left Sabolos, a small town down the Rio San Juan.  Fabulous place.  Magical.  We had a  cabina that hung over the [very fast moving] river.  The river of my pre-trip nightmare. Alas, we are fine!  I told the girls "you never go on the deck when mama and daddy are not here" and they, largely, listened.  Greggie (Goya) did tell me, "I went on the deck while you were gone" a couple times, but I know it was in the doorway, where she was coloring.  She, they, understand.  Anyway, c'mon Gam, don't worry.

This morning, early morning launcha to San Carlos, breakfast with our friends, long drive back to Granada.  Granada is like, like, I dunno, there is no word -- just a place that is so easy to come back to.  

And with that, I will leave you to my journal posts, and hopefully, some pictures, to fill in some blanks.

8 Jan 10, Juigalpa: I am standing on our roof watching a little boy on rollerblades.  He is trying to skate on cobblestones.  A moto pulls up, with a little girl on back, his sister.  Dad comes out of the storefront that is also their house and plucks the girl off.  She is in a shiny rainslicker.  She runs inside and gets her scooter and begins to ride with her brother.  The Pepsi sign for the Restaurante Palo Solo - where we ate dinner - swings in the wind.  The metal on metal sound, like a garden gate, I've heard all afternoon.  I smell a Belmont burning, hear a futbal match on TV.  I watch the clear black sky, with so few stars.  I watch a small girl ride by, in front of her dad or someone, on a motorcycle. She wears glowing, light up mouse ears.  The pit bull in front of the pretty blue house across the street sleeps.

8 Jan 10, Road to Rama:  Yesterday we left Heleconias Lodge, 

Bijague, C.R.  which is located on the side of a verdant volcano in a cloudforest.  On a clear day you could see Lago Colcibolca.  We were not there for a clear day.  Around noon yesterday we crossed into Nicaragua.  She welcomed us with pale blue skies, the wind swept lake, and the silhouettes of volcanoes.  We drove though to Granada. Granada, at the end of the tree-lined road off the Interamericana that is like a long lane home.  Granada is easy, comfortable, pleasant.  We know her streets, her restaurants, her markets.  Gregg got his hair cut.  We bought a bottle of Flor de Cana (C155 for a fifth) and some ice.  Later we ate pizza and pasta on a cobblestone pedestrian only street, with a breeze off the lake cooling the warm summer night.  After dinner we found an old friend, a streetboy we met last month.  He sold us chicles and played with the girls and shared their ice cream.  This morning Gregg took him shopping for school supplies.

After breakfast we headed north and east, then south, around the lake towards the Rio San Juan, the Costa Rican border, not far, as the crow flies, from where we were at Helaconias Lodge.  And now it is hard ot imagine cold or rain.  The cattle country of Chontales reminds me of a Kenyan plain.  

7 Enero 10, Granada:

Why Nicaragua

Whateveryoneasks

Hard to say

It's somethingyoufeel

Imagine

You are on a swing

of wood and rope

like a chair

relaxed

The most comfortable

Swing

The wind off the Lake

blows through 

banana and palm leaves

through your hair

Your feet slide over

tiles and grout.

Rough Smooth Rough Smooth

This is Nicaragua.

[TONS OF PICTURES WILL ACCOMPANY THESE WORDS, EVENTUALLY]