The Hipica Aug 2008

Ride 'em Caballero Thursday, August 14, 2008 August is a busy month here in Nicaragua, lot's of political anniversaries from the revolution as well as Dias Patrias , los hipacas are a little like a rodeo or state fair. Last Sunday we had the running (dragging) of the bulls and this Sunday all the rich landed Nicas bring their horses to town and prance around on horseback. Lot's of cowboy outfits and drinking. There is a pretty god sized parade too. The central park is crowded with carnival style games, flip a coin into the tray and win a bike. Most of the prizes on display were faded and the cardboard boxes held together with yellowed scotch tape. There are wheel of fortune type wheels set up as well. Seems to be straight out gambling but I couldn't follow the game's payout and they freaked out when I tried to snap a photo. I went to the crowded El Quixote bar and watched as one mounted cowboy, a few back packer types and a hundred drunk and stoned street kids chased, prodded, beat and dragged some un enthusiastic young bulls down the street. With enough name calling, spitting and water tossing the bull would lunge at the nearest abuser and cause 30 seconds of panic in the crowd. But the tired and confused bull just wanted to "chill" in the shade of the Gran Francisca Restaurant with the last two bulls who by now have caught up. It was after three in the afternoon, the temp was well over ninety and the humidity was off the chart as the daily afternoon thunder storm loomed in the east…The sweaty drunken cowboys and the crowd went ballistic, screaming, whistling, tugging on the rope, prodding with an electric cattle prod, throwing rocks and bottles, finally the reluctant mini herd took off again headed off the last few blocks down to the lake (and the carneceria)…Some of the tourists in the bar looked bewildered and disappointed in this not so noble, not so Hemmingway like moment of animal cruelty… It's hard not to root for the bulls and 12 people got sent to the hospital. Including a 72 year old woman, on her way home when the bulls and the crowd drove her into the pavement… Last week there was a horrific fire in the giant sprawling Oriental Market. This is the biggest market in Nicaragua, maybe even Central America. It's about 20 square blocks of shops surrounded by narrow streets turned into shops as well. 2x4s and tin roofs, rabbit warren or rat maze. Hot, confusing, crowded and crazy. Lot's of hot merchandise and pawn shop outlets…Every tour book says to stay away. But when you need to find anything here the answer is always to look in the Oriental.. The fire burned for over 24 hours, estimates of 1500 shops and vendors out of biz…Some where around 8-10 acres of market burned. Nobody seriously hurt but their debt for the merchandise still exists even if the store and contents are in ashes…The local Managua tv stations had lots of live coverage…There was little to none water pressure, merchants waited patiently to fill up buckets of water to wet down their shops. The fire dept has tanker trucks. Old 1950s-1960s trucks from carotidal over the globes, all to big to navigate the narrow crowded streets around the market. So the bomberos strung leaky hoses for blocks…Losing pressure every foot along the way… As a large part of Managua's business community burned to the ground. The town people danced and paraded in the streets to celebrate the Festival of Santo Domingo. Apparently Santo Domingo years ago appeared near Managua as a diminutive figure giving advise and nowadays they have a life sized 11 inch tall statue under glass. They dress up as pre Colombian Indians but they look more like comical 1950s era stage play African natives with pierced noses, bones in their hair and they paint them selves black…. The local business scene here was brightened with a new thrift store. It looks like they took an entire thrift store in middle town America and sent it south. Ski jackets, quilts, baby training toilets and electric bun warming trays are just some of the unknown treasures. It is probably the largest single store in town and right on the main street less than a block from central park. I was there opening week and in typical Nica style they had a huge sound system inside the store with a DJ spinning mind numbing loud reggeaton (foul macho Latin Rap) and a staff out numbering customers.. three to one. They have two uniformed guards with billy clubs and hand held metal detectors to protect the overpriced cast offs. I did buy a baseball hat with nothing written on it, a rare find.. Later that night I talked myself into the chair cushions and went back the next day to find them gone, there is not a soft seat in the entire country.. But the still live dj was quiter in the morning and I could shop around a little….It looked like Sunday afternoon garage stuff, couldn't sell it in the USA and expensive…the white button down Polo dress shirt was priced at ten bucks (120 Cords)! And the used picture frames were 75 cords! Yikes…But still, it's on the way to my usual breakfast place and it's fun to look. I wonder if they will ever replenish the stock? The other exciting thing is the LaColonia Super Market is due to open this weekend. Just five blocks from my house… LaColonia is a privately owned chain of international style grocery stores. Right now in Granada, cheese as example there is only two kinds. An expensive fake bright yellow plastic like cheese individually wrapped sold at the Pali or quejada a home made salty white cheese made locally. Living in the tropics, food storage is a problem. And this cheese is an answer to how to save milk, it's not about "cheese"….I took some some smoked quejada home and soaked it over nite in water to reduce the salty taste then fried it up…It was still nasty. LaColonia stocks white cheddar from New Zealand and Swiss from the Quaker farms in Costa Rica…They have a deli section and a health food aisle….Hopefully they will stock my brand whole peanuts and hence save me a long arduous bus/taxi ride to Managua.. I have really been losing weight since I returned from my USA trip in May. Maybe 3-4 inches off my waist…I attribute this to my Nica diet…No dairy, little meat, lot's of rice and beans, fruits and whole grain corn tortillas. This with the heat is an effective weight loss plan. It's easy not to eat meat after a trip to the meat aisle in the Mercado around 10-11 in the morning…La Colonia sells recognizable cuts of meat chilled and pre wrapped in plastic and there is a butcher staff too…with a deli dept….Good thing I still have my fat man pants…pues hasta nos vemos…adios

Fourth of July Nica Style from 2008

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Fourth of July Nica Style Free Hot Dogs and Burgers yesterday at Kathy's Waffle House to celebrate the 4th. The Granada Chapter of the American Legion hosted the event and the Granada cranky old ex military guys were out in force reminding everybody of how it should be up north and especially here. Lot's of young cute girl friends, cold Victoria beers and FOX News talking points. This crowd leans to the right and has more than a few missionaries. But there are a few lefties here as well. The ex hippie types cut a smaller profile than the hung over SUV driving, real estate investing crowd common at Kathy's. I believe the fourth coincided with St Anthony day so the school kids band played a concert in the street before toting their San Antonio statue thru town, then they had a disco dance at the school that night, made it seem like the Fourth, even watermelons and bombas…It marks a two week mid year school break too, so my street will be kid free for a couple of weeks…Location wise it is the only negative about my block. We have hardly any porch side late night drunken baccanals and only the occasional street sleeping glue head.. I decided that I am just too lazy to pack up and move and unless some thing excellent comes along I will just stay here. It's a good street, close to places and PeeWee is half way to her goal over being Top Cat of the block…The garden and the country side knows it's the rainy season and most plants are growing as fast as they can, seeds and twigs going green in the garden. The garden is one thing that is special about this place, no Nica house this small would have a garden this big. It would have been paved in with a tin and concrete bedroom for tio juan…… With the storms we cool off some nights clear down to the mid seventies and it feels down right cold. Avocados, mangos and flies are in season…lot's of all three but the flies are pesky, they and the little cute "cleaner" ants help keep my house keeping together. I can leave the headless and footless body of a little lizard in the garden and the little ants will take it away bones and all overnight. I saw a video on YouTube featuring a video time lapse shot of ants devouring a dead lizard. Like a Sci-Fi movie from the 50's.. I am lax in blogging because I can get online from my place nowadays that and the power stays on most of the time. I am on line waiting for things to download and watching dvds…Seems I need the quietness of an outage and my lap top on the porch to write…So, the elec company ,those Spanish bastards at Union Fenosa cut the power around 6 am, then the water dried up too, before I could shower, but I have lot's of water stored under the sink for coffee... The transit strike ran about two weeks until Ortega cut a deal with the drivers. They get subsidized fuel at around $4 a gal reg, but the cost was passed onto to other users so private vehicles now pay just over $5 a gal. There is a burgeoning black market in taxi gas out of 5 gal jerry cans.. Ortega continues to drive the ship of state aground, he has pissed off and lost all his old Sandanista friends and scared the big dollar right foreign investor wing. Since the transit strike there has been protests for democracy and against el pacto….Ortega and Alleman both crooks, both power mad and greedy. For stealing hundreds of millions of dollars Alleman is still technically doing time for his crime and he is trying to renegotiate a new sentence of one month for every million they can prove he took. This is the VP…Noam Chomsky called Ortega just "another right wing opportunist"…It doesn't matter really which political power is in office, It's the powerful families here that really control things on a daily basis the federal gov here is for begging foreign assistance and photo opp's… One thing to come of the transit strike was no more fancy grocery store… I haven't taken the bus up to Managua since the first of April…Without the cheese, nuts and plastic wrapped breakfast sausage from the LaColonia I eat like a Nica and my mostly vegetarian fare has helped me lose about four inches in my waist…Good News / Bad News is the new LaColonia just five uncrowded blocks from my place is almost completed…Word on the street is they are trying to open by Aug…so maybe around Xmas. About 6 months late so far… Fruits and veggies one the corner or sold door to door may not always be the top quality but always healthy and easy, I trade the old gals on the corner. I bring sour oranges from the trees in my yard. These oranges are green and very sour. You can use them like limes, the fruit and leaves are supposed to have medical benefits…I believe the street value of these naranas agrias is about three cords a piece but I sell them for one cord each, they were excited to hear that I have cocos and dragon fruit coming. I bought a four pak of garlic from them last week and I was surprised to see that the plastic web tube of garlic was from China. Sold on the streets of Nicaragua for 30 cents US… I guessed that it and most of what Inez sold was local production from north in the mountains….My chile tree is seven feet tall and has hundreds of small round dark green peppers ready to turn red. These always seemed to get picked off by these wren sized blue on blue songbirds as they ripen. This plant produces continuously and I have managed to fill a little mayonnaise jar with the firey little round peppers already…The humming birds have found my iris and the shrimp plant and those nasty crow like black birds come in the garden for cat food but they will eat the tree fall oranges if forced … The tourist trade seems way down this summer and gringo centric businesses continue to close. Mimi's House and the Costa Rican chicken chain Rosti Pollo both closed . And soon my best peanut butter outlet Café Melba will close up shop too. She's just having movie nites at her new place next door. The gringo community has a pool to guess which place will be next.. But I hear rumors of a coming gringo owned donut shop, people come here to Granada from all over the world to lose money ..ing a restaurant. .. They have a little chain in the shopping malls of Managua called "American DoNuts", but here in Granada there is only an older woman around the Mercado who sells sugar glazed plump and sweet donuts from a tin tray on her head. She tries, but fresher is better during fly season, get them early. The Nicas hang clear plastic bags of water around to ward off flies. I can't say that it works but everyone has the bags hanging from the window sill or counter tops. The only good thing is a friend and long time Granada gringo is opening his own mini super corner store. It will be a good peanut butter outlet and he all ready has a baker making a heavy whole wheat loaf on an order ahead basis. Spendy at 35 cords but it's probable the best pan integral in town. Hard to get out the door with my profits…. He has tomato juice, Mexican beer and olive oil too, hard to find here in Gringolandia. Anthony Bourdain from cable tv was talking about New York City and how the immigrants brought their food and restaurant styles with them to the new country, like the gringo eateries and soon mini stores here, I guess. There are so many hotels and eateries here that it is impossible for them all to stay open. On the three block walkway called la calzada, there must be 15 places all with service alfresco. The true yardstick of customer service for a place on calzada is how efficiently the staff can't keep the beggars, hustlers and street dogs away from you. Even Fernanda"s Lavandaria where I get my laundry done has turned her front room into another juice bar.. Sony Cable tv here has US tv stars like the Orange County Choppers guys and Julia Luis Drefues doing Spanish language promos for their shows on Latin cable…Me llamo is Mikey, Funny stuff.. I have never visited South or even central Florida before. I was impressed with the area when I visited Ft Lauderdale this spring and lately I have been shopping the online real estate/foreclosure web sites with the thought of buying a duplex or ? In South Fla….Maybe later this fall or spring 09, there are plenty of properties available and I believe the bargains will get better. So far I like near downtown Lake Worth in Palm Beach County or maybe NW Ft Lauderdale. But on the hurricane free west coast with the nicest and by far the cheapest old style homes are found around St Pete's and Clear Water. Under $30,ooo small livable homes near the water? It's twice that here in speculative Granada…and that would be on the lake where 24 hour guard would be necessary… South Fl has to rebound, It's bound to come back. Every Nica I know wants to live in Fla. It amazes me that people can't afford to make a three hundred dollar bank note but they can pay eight hundred dollars rent…Maybe some thing in a detached separate unit? Two old 1920s little Spanish style bungalows in downtown Lake Worth? .It would be nice to have an income from the place in case I want to travel some more…According to a Fla state web site only 75% of Lake Worth's population speaks English, The only people poorer than the Nicas are the Haitians, and there are many living in south Fl. I haven't heard many nice things about them in Fla…Back in the 80s this Carlton Sheets guy had late nite infomercials about getting rich in real estate with no money down,,,, so he has wisely learned in the info super hiway world to offer his core courses for free. I am taking the foreclosure course….. I don't watch tv much since I got online en mi casa… I have been downloading some better movies and tv shows , it's takes awhile and you are vested when the show finally loads. Daily Show and the Simpson's in English. I watched King Corn and The World According to Monsanto, scary documentaries about the future of food…All the farming programs here in natural because of being poor not "green" subsistence farmers here get new loans only if they plant hybrid seeds and apply the $$ fertilizers and pesticides required by the manufactures. It sounds like the corn may be too big and tough to process by hand and is only suitable for export… From down south looking up the US seems more corrupt and powerful. The US cable channel news conflicts so often with the local opinion and news coverage here. I don't know what will happen here, inflation is around 26% and rice and beans cost more every day…Few Nicas are happy with the country's direction and many are afraid that Ortega wants to be a dictator. I think all politicians wish that they could be absolute life long dictators but here in the banana republic belt its cheaper and easier to do..

helping fix the arroyo bridge,el puente PapaQ

catching up this post is from last Easter

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

If it’s Easter It must be Summer Time The stores are stocked with thermos plastic coolers, bbq grills and beach towels as Easter aka Semana Santa is almost here. For the Nicas it’s all about celebrating the resurrection with booze and beach parties. It’s the official beginning of the summer season. Fun in the sun, all the beach towns are booked solid. It’s been mid nineties and sunny most days. Granada is blessed with a strong breeze coming east of the lake… Today on the way to breakfast there was a school parade. A hundred or so secondary school kids dressed in matching crisp white uniforms marching down the street with a marching band and a horse drawn float. The float had some faux rockery and featured a ten year old boy in loin cloth and wig getting nailed to the cross, but so far I haven’t seen a chocolate bunny anywhere. A new friend of mine died here last month before I could visit her butterfly farm. I think a lot of people come here with serious diseases and hope to have some fun before they go some place really really hot. She makes five in a year. Some where around the middle of March is my two year anniversary of quitting my last jewelry job and starting to spend time down south here. And so far other than some odd rashes and sinus adjustment my health is fine. I was losing weight for a while but now a days I think I might be putting some back on. It’s easy to eat well here with a little ingenuity. Tonight I’m grilling a filet mignon and some choyote squash with a mixed greens salad…Even figuring the charcoal in this lovely meal will set me back less than 2.50...Most all the beef is tough. All scrawny grass fed mixed Brahman texas long horn type critters so the choice cuts are worth seeking out. I used a filet to make an Irish beef stew yesterday. The carrots here are as big as a turnip. The corn is for drying and grinding into masa for tortillas. Not for eating off the cob, there are vendor grilling ears of corn in the park. They have a grill made out of an old tire rim and stoke up their coals with melting plastic bags. The near incinerated cobs are the best. Still tough like field corn.. The jumbo watermelons are back. I got a great deal on a 12 kilo watermelon from a street vendor about ten blocks from my house. I regretted buying it after walking all the back to my place in the mid day sun with a kid sized melon balanced on my shoulder. It was sweet but I’ll stick to the little round melons instead. I bought a mid sized 28 pounder in the Mercado because the crop was in a farm truck and farm fresh. The melon was heavy and dark green but when I cut into it the flesh was pink and the seeds were white.. It was ripe, not sweet but not bad, an albino….. Mangos are in season and after visiting some friends new place I was given a grocery bag full and again today I got another dozen or so. These today are smaller and are called Indio Mangos. When Nicas talk about fruit or veggies being Indio I think it’s an old variety like heritage tomatoes. I peeled a bunch of the two and blended up a jug of mango juice, maybe I’ll put some on my steaks later. Papayas are huge three foot long critters but still cost about a buck or so. They have a small green oval fruit coming into season that they call tiny apple but it’s not any kind of apple. It’s tart with a pit. All the leaves fall those trees at the beginning of the dry season and then the fruit rains from the bare trees. The fruit lady on the corner had some new (to me) fruits that look like kiwis. It seems ever since the 1700s they have been mixing and matching tropical plants and fruits. Planting helter skelter all over the world. I don’t know what’s indigenous to any where. I went to Managua to met with the manager of Naturealaza Foods about buying whole sale from them. He was a sharp bi-lingual guy and was happy to set me up with a whole sale account. It’s still more than I used to pay at Trader Joes for nuts but here is so not there. These peanuts are clean, unsalted and the quality is consistent. Natureleza raised the price of roasted peanuts about 80 percent a month ago and I was hoping I could get a better price direct from the source. I bought about 40 pounds of peanuts and a couple pounds of cashews as well as some tahini, a hand full of almonds and an odd Chinese Ginseng Soda. I had two cloth grocery bags and my mochilla (back pack) with me all stuffed with bags of shelled peanuts around noon when I left Naturealiza and was looking for a taxi. I was only six or so blocks from a giant shopping mall called Metro Center. Even tho Metro Center has the best coffee shop in Nicaragua I had the driver take me straight to the La Union grocery store. The grungy little "super" that I shop at in Granada, the Pali is mostly owned by Wall Mart but La Union is 100 percent Wall Mart based out of Costa Rica. They strive to be a North American style store. Nice produce and bakery stuff. They have excellent imported meat too. They have lot’s of odd USA stuff like Jack Daniels Steak Sauce, Miller Beer and TGI Fridays frozen pizzas and stuff. Well except for it’s not even close to frozen. The giant ten dollar bags of Ore Ida frozen onion rings felt like a slurpee in a sack. I bought some filet mignon ($2.50 lb), local made garlic sauce, pita bread and some other hard to come culinary odds and ends.. This area is near the old pre earth quake/ war Managua not much of any age left standing and all the new first world style buildings are clustered around 6 lane rotundas or round abouts. The traffic gets up to speed and they was no bus stop on the Carretera Masaya so I flagged the first mini Toyota bus back to Granada. These tiny busses are taking your life in your hands kind of stuff but it was sooooo hot. The drivers of these tiny 14 passenger mini vans are the kamikaze pilots of the Nica road way. First bus to come along gets the passenger dollars so they race each other to stop lights and swing over two lanes in order to screech to a stop, push a another rider on and then pull out in front of bike taxi and a slower old school bus packed with riders… Horns blast on and on again. I was scrunched in the middle of the backseat with my three bags. The seat next to a chubby and sweaty gringo is the last seat to go but we filled up fast and the sun was roasting the van. When we got crammed full the chofer fired up the under powered ac and we raced on to Granada.. The streets are nearly deserted from noon till three or four in the afternoon. Businesses open around two but it’s still quite. Road construction in front of a multi story gringo palace forced the bus route a few blocks closer to my place so I saved a couple of blocks….. We survived Easter Week with only 61 fatalities nationwide. Lot’s of drunks drowning and 16 country folks hacked to death with machetes. Like most holiday here the actual day is eclipsed by the week leading up to it.. And beer, rum and moonshine figure in to all the events and parties. It’s not all unusual to see men sleeping it off on the side walk and public urination is widely practiced. Mostly by drunks and little kids. This is the first year that the alcadia (mayor’s office) has arranged toilets for the estimated 70,000 people partying lake side…. With every one at the beach the city has been quiet. The shops were all closed from Thursday on. It seemed the only people on the street were gringos and street hawkers….But now the tourists will fade away and the temp goes up every day…It was over a hundred a few days ago. I am hoping to enjoy some spring like weather next month while in the USA… So more tales and misc from 12 degrees north of the equator next month….hasta nos vemos….Steve

Bus Numero el Seite

another old post Costa Rica Visa Turn A round Trip

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

20 minutes in Costa Rica Super Bowl Sunday in the jungle… Granada's gringo sports bar The Zoom bar is having the Flor De Cana go go girls and chili, El Quito bar has chicken wings and a taco bar and Jimmy 3 Finger's "Bama Rib Shack has live music and a Harley show. There are 17 Harleys in Nicaragua….Black leather and baby powder in the tropics…It was over cast today till noon so it's a cool 89 degrees. Just before the month ended I finally got on the bus and got myself to Costa Rica. My 90 day visa was expired. In Oct I went to the immigration office here in Granada and for 50 bucks they sent my passport up to Managua and got me a 90 day extension but this time I was forced to leave the country. And neighboring Honduras and Salvador are part of the C4 with Nicaragua so they won't work, Costa Rica here I come. This is common practice here for expats that don't have resident status. I expired around the middle of January. So I had a fine to pay….a dollar a day.. I woke up at five a.m. and was walking over to the Ed's for a hearty breakfast of gallo pinto (Nica rice&beans),fried cheese and eggs by six thirty. I went past the old market around seven on my way to the bus lot. It was a bee hive of activity with every one setting up for the day's business. The Rivas bus lot is tucked in behind a fruit stand and a bike repair hut. Seven or so tired old yellow school busses form a co-op running south along the lake to Nandiame and Rivas. The road is bad even by Nicaraguan standards and has lot's of construction zones. Transportation and infrastructure here are among the biggest problems they have here. Lot's of roads and bridges were damaged during the Contra era and have never been rebuilt…Rivas is a busy working town about sixty miles south of Granada. They even have a four way stop light there and a brand new bus stop in the chaotic market place. It's the bus hub, go east to San Jorge to ferry across to Isla Ometepe, west to the beach surf town San Juan del Sur or catch a local south bound bus to la frontera. There is also a tiny little muraled purple mini van there that sells a Sopa Marinero. This is a seafood soup with a little 4' long purple crab served in a big paper cup. The locals time their lunch breaks around this vans arrival. The luxury bus lines have stations on the edge of town but all the other transport meets in or around the Mercado… Tiny little Toyota express mini vans, three wheeled bicycle taxis, pick up trucks with wrought iron roofs and wooden benches mix among the crusty old fleet of "chicken " busses. The horse drawn working carts are my favorites. Old unpainted wooden two wheeled horse drawn carts. They use old rear axles from old cars so the carts have the suspension and car tires….shiny spinner style plastic hub caps with old dvds as reflectors. Most of these work for or with building supply or hardware stores to delivery the goods. Some even have dump beds to bring sand and such. When I bought my wooden chair and table in the Mercado I had a cartero bring me and my new stuff it to my place. Cost ten pesos (0.52). Both the drivers and the horses are thin and grizzly. Three kids and the driver all dressed in rags with NY Yankees and NIKE hats. Some of the drivers seem carefree and comfortable while some seem to take out their frustrations with their lot in life on the horses. Whipping on their sway backed beasts of burden with wood handled whips. Any way… I was tempted by some big greasy home made glazed donuts but I bought some mandarin oranges and a bag of cold water for the second half of my bus trip and then got on the local to Penas Blanca on the Costa Rican border. It was a typical tired old yellow retired US school bus. Tiny little seats and windows that only go half way down. It has been modified with a full length roof rack with access ladders, a powerful sound system, air horns and many religious decals and statues. Some even have complete shrines. The Virgin Mary is big but they have lot's of mysterious patron saints too.. I got one of the last open seats and we rumbled out of the market and down south along the west side of Lake Nicaragua. How the bus helpers lean out the open door shouting the names of the destinations before they wiggle thru the standing room only aisle of the bus groping the girls and collecting the fares while the bus is barreling down the hiway is some thing to see. Most of the younger ones remind me of Burt Reynolds from Smokey and the Bandit. Funny little mustaches and all. They remember who has paid and who has to receive change all while talking on the cell phone and singing along with the radio…I paid about $1.20 for my passage to Rivas and this leg costs a buck…It's only an miles to the frontera but we stopped all along the way to take on and off passengers. Every thing from giant baskets of fruit to squawking and squeaking live stock can be among the carry on luggage, hence the name chicken bus..I have heard rumors of a Sunday only market there with a heavy emphasis on gray market goods. When we got to Cardenas the end of the line I expected to see the border but there was just a little town and lot's of semi trucks parked on the dirt road. A teen age kid wearing an "I Survived Andy Winkleman's Bat Mitzvah" tee shirt sensed my surprise and hired himself to assist me thru the border. He was a true professional. We cut thru lines, handed some one a dollar as we slipped thru a gate, sneaked in thru the trucks and some how avoided paying my fines. Good work, then right on the actual border when he couldn't go any farther he asked for 100 cords (5.20)… I balked at that and we settled for 50 cords plus a dollar bill. Now I was legally stamped out of Nicaragua and standing in the heat at high noon on a two lane tropical dirt road with semis parked for about a quarter mile with no other pedestrians only narco police. I found a proper border check point building with dogs and a snack bar after a while. Lot's of activity with little organization but I found the line for entrance and I had my entrance stamp in no time…. I had heard that Nicaragua required a 72 hour absence before returning but a lot of people said that like so many other things here " No One Cares" so I went out side to watch the customs agents tear up some long haired surfer's van and figure out what to do next…Maybe I should take a local bus fifty or so miles south and visit Coco Beach on the pacific maybe San Jose to shop for computer stuff. But neither my heart or wallet was into a road trip…. A big line of people had backed up to leave Costa Rica on the shady side of the building. The crowd was chatting, I heard Japanese and Italian…then I looked back to see the super deluxe international TICA Bus pointing to Nicaragua…I jumped up to stand in the exit line and twenty minutes later my Costa Rica adventure was finished. In and out of C.R. in twenty minutes with out ever holding any colones$….By now the mighty behemoth TICA bus had pulled forward and was loading passengers back on, headed for the Nica side of the border. I showed the driver a ten dollar bill, he smiled and popped open the shiny silver door, I jumped up and entered the tinted air conditioned splendor of the deluxe Eurostyle bus. I got a seat towards the rear. Ten minutes later the steward collected our passports and entrance fees for Nicaragua. Before we stopped at the border we drove thru a big car wash like building with "sniffer" hoses, then while the steward went to immigration to have our passports stamped, customs had us pull all the luggage stowed below off for inspection. I only had a small backpack but I joined the line….I chatted with an American couple living in Costa Rica on a "Visa" holiday too. Very typical Costa Rica gringos, but integral for the tourist biz in Granada. C.R. does enforce their 72 hour rule so many expats living in C.R. visit Nicaragua twice a year on VISA vacations. Then the steward stood in the door of the bus and called out names. Foreign pass ports with hard to say names were called last but he had the best Stephen Vermeulen pronunciation of any Spanish speaking person I ever met…When we got back on the bus, they brought cold drinks before dropping the Tvs down to watch The Departed dvd in English. It was hot outside in the middle of an equatorial day, but on the darkened bus the ac hummed and most people drifted off to sleep with Jack Nicholson shouting profanities on the tv. By three pm the massive bus was threading its way thru the narrow colonial streets of Granada. Back home before four. Good for another ninety days. My neighbors/landladies have been here for about a week and the drama/interaction level is way up. They are kinda suckers and lot's of people make a living off them. They bought a big cute black lab puppy last week. Their place is pretty small and they have three cats already but they wanted a big dog to hang out with them in the bar for protection. Yap, Yap , yap all day… They have the internet now but they seem to be reluctant to share as we have discussed… then this morning at seven Terry was pounding on my front door. The puppy had died in the night.. The way the house has been split in half their side has a swimming pool in back and my size has a 26x26 foot garden remnants from the original yard. They needed to borrow my shovel to bury that big sad dead puppy in my garden…Sobbing middle aged butch lesbians in boxer shorts in my garden cradling a cute but rapidly stiffing dead baby dog before coffee…And a good morning to you… I had wanted to put a passion fruit where the doggie is now planted.. The drop in comfort level here at my place has got me looking at real estate here again. The colonial center is expensive but it expensive because that's where the action is. The calzada, a cobble stone street leading east to the lake is lined with café's, hostels, tour companies, bike rentals etc. In the evenings hundreds of tourist from all over the globe sit at the out door tables drinking bottled water and beer while waiting for their over priced but lovely meal…..In the four or so block long stretch of calzada that is finished there is a lot of food choices, a couple of good Mexican, Thai, Italian, Spanish and Argentinean places, even a USA style sports bar. The most USA looking place is called The Roadhouse and is owned by Miami Nica's. They have air conditioning and football jerseys hung on the wall. The Spaniards are footing the bill for this pedestrian style street renovation.. It's a very nice focal point tying the central park and cathedral to the lake. It's taken almost two years to build the four blocks thay have now and they have six more blocks to go. They have traffic diverted and the streets torn up for months at a time coating the surrounding businesses with dust and bad business. The other big tourist attraction here is the Conventa. Across from the overly hip and purple Third Eye restaurant and kitty corner from the gringo movers and shakers hang out "Kathy's Waffle House". I saw a small house right around the corner from there and in a gringofying block. It's about 26 by 56 feet and it's nothing more than a walled in lot right now. They are asking 65,000 but seem vaguely interested in my 45,000 offer. They bought it about 3 years ago for 30,000.. The renovation (rebuilding) process here is expensive and crazy. One of the original gringo remodelers here just got prison time for his business practices. It's mostly concrete walls with roofs made of red tiles and tin sheets. The deluxe version has cane to hide the metal on the inside. They are simple constructions with lots of open garden space. That little place would cost at least 20,000 to make livable and another 10,000 to gringo up….But I am still tempted. It would be a small but central spot for the business and walking distance to every where….There really do seem to be a never ending stream of people moving here. And even with Nicaragua's short comings, Granada's a warm cheap sunny and safe place to live with lot's of cute girls. Granada is not like the majority of Nicaragua. It's a city state of it's own…Else where in Nicaragua 20,000 or less will buy any house in town and up north in the mountains top flight green and scenic farm land is less than 500 an acre…A friend here built his wife the prettiest house in Boaco for less than this empty shell of a colonial will cost me…Competing with the boom in India and China the price of building materials here has doubled at least and workers here demand at least $5 a day not the 2 bucks you pay in the sticks for workers…But it's still the gringo in between contractor that really drives up the prices. Places bought 5 or 6 years ago for 65,00 are priced three times that now and in high demand… Ten years ago big colonials could be had for twenty thousand and now a days some renovated palaces are up to a million dollars… Granada claims to be the oldest city in the Americas and is due for U.N. historical city status. That would make the colonial center historically important and triple the price. Crazy stuff, Yesterday I made an offer to buy the pulparia across the street and todays project is to find a lawyer and a contractor so wish me well. adios

3rd world root canal from 2-08

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Third World Root Canal January Up Date --I just got back from a late afternoon bike ride up to Sandino Park near the Police Station and the old rail road station. A gringa woman I know here has an affordable remodeled house for sale near there and I have been checking on the neighborhood. It's about 8 long blocks to the town square….When the fancy new USA style grocery opens here it will be right near that park as well…Even riding on the shady side of the street with a nice breeze I soaked my favorite shirt. I rinsed it out and have it hanging off the red tile roof drying in the sun while I eat water melon and watch the Daily Show Intl Edition. I see all that sub zero blizzard icy dark and gloomy winter weather up north in the states on the morning talk shows. I can't even imagine it. It was 75 the other morning and I had to put on socks with my flip flops. There are even some morning when I have to turn off the fan… My visa is expired and I need to leave the country and then re enter. I am just going chicken bus it to Rivas and then another local used up old school bus to the border….Pay my fine and cross to Costa Rica, I don't want to leave the garden and cat unattended for days just yet, but the rule is 72 hours out of Nicaragua then return straight away to Nicaragua with another 90 day visa. Right now I am running a 20 cord a day fine up. I have been putting it off all month, just a long hot and sticky bus ride interrupted by some bureaucracy…. January has been busy. It's been in the 90s with 60% humidity The rains are finally starting to stop and the temp goes up a little every day. New restaurants seem to open every week and the tourist season stays strong from Xmas. Big groups of wealthy Europeans fill the restaurants and herded groups from the cruise ships fill the central park. All the vendors, street merchants, teen hookers, touts and tour guides know the schedule and eagerly await the tourists like bears at salmon season…..Old men on ancient three speed bikes wait on the cathedral steps to watch and pick up loads of tourist police get trucked in to baby sit the glue sniffers.. --Mandarin oranges, mangos and musk melons are coming into season. The hibiscus and shrimp plants are in bloom……In a month or so the mangos will be so common that piles of over ripe fruit will cover the ground at the base of the tree and monkeys and those squawky parrots will gorge them selves. Right now the vendors have the green mangos sliced up and served in a clear plastic bag with chili powder. An acquired taste but a highly effective laxative…The mandarins are big and juicy and make excellent juice. I bought 6 for 10 cords. They were so good I am saving the seeds… ….--I lost a filling from one of my molars months ago and I have been putting off a trip to the dentists. It felt like it was broken but it hadn't hurt at all until Xmas when Santa brought the pain. By New Years I thought it was time to seek professional help. I asked Ed, a cranky hard to please Dutch restaurateur to suggest a dentista. Ed has been compared to the soup Nazi on Seinfeld. "No eggs for you"…I figured if you can please him you must be good. I was right, Leonard Grant the dentista had a clean modern office and a gentle touch…Even paying for the root canal and new filling didn't hurt much,. $92 for everything. I am going back for a cleaning and maybe a bleach job soon. --As a reward I finally bought my very own Chinese Mountain bike, a shiny red 24" Lynx….65 bucks with a carry basket. It's a pretty crappy bike but it's fun to ride. Hard to do in the heat and I am very out of shape. But it expands my neighborhood geography and luckily the town is mostly flat. Locals routinely ride two or three to a bike. Special pegs for the axles and carved wooden planks down the top tube. With the baby safely tucked in between mom and dad. No one seems to have a bike that fits or even the seat adjusted. The small Sting Ray type bikes are popular with the older folks. Easy to mount and dismount and the high handle bars and sissy bar are handy to hang bags from…Most of the mature riders pedal slowly and I tuck into the pack.…. My new bike is like an old car.. every time I use it I have to tighten every nut and screw when I'm done and I need to up grade the brakes. I met an old timer here who has a garden full of old bikes and parts. I want one of the old 28 inch Euro black lite weight three speed black bikes from the 1950s…. And he may be able to find me one. I've explored every other place I have lived by car. Here my world is basically the 15 or 20 bock colonial center and maybe the bus route up the Pan Am Hiway between Granada and the edge of Managua…I get car lust every so often but not strong enough to dare drive in this place.. Insurance is cheap at under a hundred bucks a year but every accident is considered a criminal act and some body is either going to jail or going to pay,,,, usually the gringo. There is not a lot of traffic but what is out on the road is a crazy mix of horse drawn carts, Chinese Motorbikes, pedestrians, bicycles, big clunky push carts, stray dogs, drunks and the occasional free range cow…Every body just beeps a lot and trusts in the lord… Most Nicas on bike or at the reins will not turn their heads to see what bus or big truck is coming up behind them. I don't know if it's trust or stupidity. Nicas are not good in traffic… they even bump into each other on the sidewalks. In the center of town on the blocks surrounding the market, the side walks are packed with shoppers, watch repairmen, cobblers, open water meter holes, all manner of vendors blocking with their tables of fruit, towels, coco nuts, and racks of pirated DVDs, baby strollers, blind old beggars (some of whom can see fine), mangy old sleeping dogs, chavalos mixing up concrete, money changers with thick wads of cash, lottery ticket hawkers, and eighty pound abuelas (grandmas) toting 100 lb bags of corn meal or rice on their heads and grasping a suckling pig by the leg. After a while you get to know where the missing sewer grates and other big holes are… I am going to fall into temptation soon and buy my own clothes washer. I use the built in wash board and a bucket to keep my shirts clean. And I don't do a very good job. So I am looking at a Samsung Lavaropadora. Not a USA style automatic but a much cheaper two tub non automatic. They call them Costa Rica style here. Kind of like a wringer machine with out the ringer. They roll around like those old portable dish washers did and drain into the storm sewer. It cost's about $150 but with the 5 bucks a week that I spend at Fernanda's Laundry, it'll pay for it self in no time. Used but nice things here can command 80% of their retail price… My land ladies are living next door now. So far I have had it all to myself. But as a condolence they assure me that we are getting our very own internet cable connection…Yeah, even though I have all these months in vested in bucking my internet addiction. Maybe checking my eMail here once or twice a week, not every twenty minutes. I found that if you leave the internet alone it will leave you alone too... That'll change as soon as I get the hook up here. It's a whole different thing to use it at the eCafe And just how dirty are those key boards and head phones?…..I had a young German back packer sitting next to me shouting into the head set using skype phone last time... PeeWee went into heat at maybe 5 months old and she spent two nights up on the roofs before I got her to the volunteer vets to got her spade…I donated 200 cords to the clinic and an old t shirt. Lucky they were here, PeeWee slept all afternoon and then hit the roofs later…Good as new and not able to add to the giant feral population here… Peanut Butter biz is doing well. I am up to 60 jars a month (10 of which I eat) I am getting new 16 oz standard plastic jars with a new name and label. I am changing the name from Cocibolca to "Smuggler's Brand". I want a peanut in shell with a big mustache and aviator style sun glasses with an old DC3 in the back ground as a logo. It proves the gringo orientation of the product. It has a sexy outlaw quality, and it has the potential for a great fake back story about the founder.. The stuff of folk tale and legend…Cocibolca is so standard for tourist stuff here. I have been playing with special flavor peanut butters and I am real fond of El Vez a Chile crunchy style and Mexi-Candy a spicy honey peanut butter…Both cheap and easy to do. I think I have a lot of regular customers among the ex pat community When the new colonial super market opens here I will have to compete with the three or four brands they carry. So building some brand loyalty with the resident gringos is a priority now. The city is hosting a international poetry festival next week and my best distributor has a vegetarian café right around the corner. We are hoping to sell a lot mantiquilla de mani… I met an couple from from Penn. area. She has a ten acre butter fly farm here. Just 2 kilometers from the cementario. She is also an avid gardener with a lot of garden.. I am planning a visit next week before the dry season takes it's toll on the plant life. It will be dusty and dry by the end of the month. The mosquito inspector came by house to house today. He scattered some anti larva powder here and there and I got a warning to clean my storm drain. It has no real purpose since the remodel but I raked the leaves and dirt out any way….The MINSA guys from the UN only come around when there is a problem in the neighborhood. Some one probably got the Dengue fever. Seems like one or mosquitoes get my hands or feet every night when I'm asleep. I can't sleep inside a mosquito net, makes me feel claustrophobic. The floor fan strategically positioned keeps most of the little blood suckers off me at night.. School has been out since before the middle of Dec, The Purisma and just started up again. Lot's of note books, back packs and school uniforms for sale on the streets. Even the fabric and zippers to sew your own…Most of the jobs out side of tourism here in the Zona Franca (Sweat Shops or Free Trade Zones) are seamstress type jobs so lot's of people can stitch up a pair of Wranglers or Dickie pants… We haven't hade a marching band rehearsal since New Years but from the sounds of it…They're back! Too hard to type and rock to the drum beat at the same time so Hasta Nos Vemos…

Can you hear me now?