Freshly squeezed OJ

The link below should bring you to a page with pictures of the house we are renting. I would have taken pictures myself but as you may know our camera is broken.

http://www.gpsnicaragua.com/renthomes/casalucia/

We are settling in to life here the following are some of the major differences. The quantity of bugs in the house is hard to get used to but we are shifting our perception of "normal" and coping quite well. There are lines of ants in our kitchen. For those of you that are in love with ants like I am you kmow they are mesmerizing. I keep on killing entire tracks but the ants seem unoffended and have their trail rebuilt in a few minutes. The home for the ants is a tiny hole in one of the wall tiles. They are lines to the sink (water) to the counter ( food crumbs) and to the tv which I can only guess is for entertainment. I have no problem with the ants as they are clean and not poisonous. We have at least 20 geckos in our house. They scramble on the walls and make weird noises that sound like someone is at the door. We kept on opening the front door until we figured that one out (Emilie excluded). The is always a plethora of dead bugs on the floor. Some dead from our lumbering feet, some burn themselves alive on the light bulbs at night and some probably die from old age but it's hard to tell. The cockroach room is the only real offender. The problem was that the light in the room wasn't working and cockroaches had been sighted. I had two cockroaches running about my feet when I was showering. Luckily the house has been fumigated and the house was bug free for a couple of hours.

We are slowly acclimatized to the heat. Apparently its takes approximately 2 weeks to become accostumed to the heat. I haven't stopped sweating since we got here. Even the breeze is hot. We have arrived in central america in the hottest time of the year. The rivers are dry, roads and trees are covered in dust and the land aching for the rain that is coming soon.

A few promising things in Granada are the women who walk up and down the street selling fresh fruit. We have been buying oranges, papaya, canteloup, watermelon, banana and carrots from these ladies. The fruit is locally grown and is delicious and the juicer has been working overtime. My favorite is carrot juice and Emilie likes the orange juice. There is a kids library across the street that Maia and I went to this afternoon. All the kids know Maia now and scream her name when she arrives. She is taking the fame in stride. We read "A case of the stripes" which is about a girl that wants to eat lima beans. Another convenience here are the taxis. They are not beautiful and they don't have shocks or seatbelts or doors that shut BUT it does cost only 1 dollar to go anywhere in town.

Hope you enjoy the photos of our house,

Adam out.

First Night

Hello Everyone,
We are terribly sorry for the long wait between blogs. We have had a lot to do and digest.
First and foremost...we have a cell phone! The number is (505) 970-3789. Call us whenever you can!!
Here`s what I have been thinking about lately... please indulge me for a moment.
We moved into our new apartment yesterday. It is HUGE by our standards, but small compared to others we have seen! It has a lot of room for guests. We want to show you some pictures, but in a moment of insanity, we let Maia play with the expensive digital camera, unsupervised. Now it is broken...we will try and get it fixed today.
On with my thoughts. Thw apartment we rented comes with ``Maid Service``. Every rich Nicaraguna, as well as most of the foreigners, have employees, or as they are called in Spanish, empleadas. It makes me feel weird. Also, everyone warned us that we have to be careful about securing all of valuables at all times, because even the most trusted of people will steal from you if given the chance. Our doors have heavy steel frames that must be locked at all times as well., because apparently (and this has been corroborated by at least 5 different sources), people will just walk in off the street and take what they want.
All of this information, true or not, makes me sad. I am having a hard time falling in love with a place where I need to be on guard at all times. This is not in my nature. I like to trust people first, then get to know them a bit more as time goes on. Apparently, Nicaragua is not as bad as Costa Rica for stealing, but that is very little consolation. We have met some really nice people here, or so I think....maybe they are casing us for all of our stuff. See, paranoia has begun to set in. I don`t think that this is a healthy way to live. I am hoping that this will change in time. I hope that I will learn for myself that life is not as bleak as it has been painted.
On the other hand, we went to a lake in an old volcano crater yesterday. The water is full of minerals that are excellent for skin and hair. It was a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon!!! You had to drive down an incredibly steep hill to get there. We were afraid that Tink wasn`t going to make it back up again, but of course, she did. Good old Tink, she sure has been pulling through on this trip.
Today, we are checking out a school for Maia. It is a Waldorf school, for those of you who are familiar with Waldorf philosophy. We think that Maia will thrive there, because imagination is really encouraged. We hope that it works out, because Maia really needs some friends. Her birthday is coming up, and we want to invite some people to her birthday party.
The last thing I would like to leave you with, in the disjointed rambling I call a blog, is this, first night in our new apartment and we have some things to work on. First of all, the hot water tap leaks in the kitchen. No big deal, that can be fixed easily. Secondly, there seems to be a mosquito colony living in our garden. This can also be fixed with mosquito coils, etc. Also, no big deal. What is a big deal, are the ten cockraoches living in our first shower. They are nowhere else in the house so far, but we can`t put Maia in her bedroom, because of them. Maia had to sleep on our floor, on a makeshift bed last night. This was probably for the best because she was up quite a bit in the night, but that doesn`t change the fact that we aren`t using one whole room in this house. Even Adam was grossed out a little, when a cockroach ran over his foot.
Our friends the gekkos are hard at work, so lets give a few props to them for their help last night. I am sure that by our next blog, the roaches will be taken care of.
Love and nire love to all of you. Please write and call when you get a chance.

Looking for an apartment.

The matriarchs of a family that were staying in the same hotel as us, just outside of Xela in Guatemala, spoke English very well. They lived in the States and were back in Guatemala visiting their family. They arrived in the same size van as we did except their van had bench seats and 13 people in it. We didn`t take many pictures in El Salvador and Honduras because we we getting exhausted and we were really pushing for Nicaragua. The border crossings were impossibly exhausting and always very hot. This picture was taken right after our final border crossing into Nicaragua. Maia is sad here and is showing signs of exhaustion as well.
We have been in Granada for two days now. We are staying at the hotel casa San Francicso and making new friends. I look a little drunk here because I am. We just got back from dinner and we finished two bottles of wine. Our friends name`s are Adam and Grace. We are relaxing at the hotel in the courtyard by the pool.

We made it to Granada....and its great. After leaving Guatemala we thought we could drive to Nicaragua in one, long day. As you know, the border crossing was crazy and we drove for 3 hours looking for a city big enough to have a hotel. We ended up in La Libertad right before dark. Emilie got some food and we went to bed. We had decided to take all coastal roads after Mexico because Tink simply cannot handle the big hills.

We left La Libertad without incident at dawn. We filled the van with gas and oil made fairly good progress despite the check points, construction, wandering country folk and stray animals that mosey across the highway without a care in the world. We thought we would make it to Nicaragua today (April 21) and we passed through San Miguel with only 3 u-turns. There are very few signs in the cities and the ones that are legible are often misleading. Em and I use a combination of intincts, a compass and luck to get through any of the cities and towns. Once we drove right through the Town`s main market. The streets were filled with people and shops of all kinds of beautiful art and fresh fruit. We took a right, then a left and soon the density of the population on the street decreased. A couple more turns to a traffic circle and off we go!

The border of Honduras and El Savaldor was not as horrendous as Guatemala but was very expensive and took a very long time. I was waiting outside, in the 40ish degree heat while the "officials" sat on the other side of the glass, in an air conditioned room and ate their lunches. There was 3 or 4 young guys in there lounging and in no rush to stamp my paper at a cost of 10 dollars canadian. The final bill for all the different government divisions was over 70 dollars. We were at the border for about 4 hours and when we finally starting driving in Honduras we were spent.

We made it Choluteca and found a hotel. It was 2 pm and we could have been at the border in 40 minutes or so but we heard that the Nicaragua border is just a bad as the Honduras border and so we resigned ourselves to one more day on the road. The hotel we found was unremarkable but comfortable. Strangely, we had somehow driven on a pseudo city bypass. The hotel was situated on the highway to the border and we drove straight to the border (through two checkpoints ofcourse) without incident.

The Nicaraguan border was dream. It was fast (ish) and the people were very nice. We were at our first Nica police checkpoint by 10:30 am (April 22). The roads for the first 30 km were the worst we'd seen. Potholes a foot deep and wide as the highway itself. There was a crew of about 30 boys doing some repairs with tampers. After that, it was smooth sailing through Leon and Managua. We were stopped again near Leon and pulled over by the police in Managua for a bribe. We paid the 200 cordobas and kept on going. I was a little upset at my first "robbery" but it is only 10 dollars to me and 10% of their monthly salary so I will forgive him eventually.

We drove straight downtown and found a room a the Hotel San Francisco. We scheduled an appointment to see some apartments on April 23 and we also were invited to a very grand 60th birthday party on Saturday night. The owner of the Hotel is having the party. We met Adam and Grace that night and things are moving along nicely.

Today is the morning of the 24th and we will have a place to stay by tonight. We saw places ranging from $4oo to $1600 all in the downtown area. The $1600/month mansion is a summer home for a German family. It was HUGE. Hard to explain but I will try. It had 4 bedrooms, all with their own bathrooms, a pool, garage, indoor fire bar-g-que in the courtyard beside the gardens and a view of the mountains. The entertainment room was atleast 1000 square feet. We thought about renting it for 1 month just for fun but we would have to sublet half the house.

Talk to you soon!

Going Home

It is 5:30am and everybody in the room is sleeping except for the tireless line of ants coming in from the window. I am too tired to see where they are going and even if I wasn't I wouldn't disturb them. They need to eat and drink too. Even if I did use the blow dryer on them and try to close the window, they would be back in 15 minutes anyway. People in warmer climates become accustomed to bugs. It's a fact of life.

We drove through central America with our windows open and many bugs were hit by our windshield but several got into the van. One example was an ant/fly that was knawing on my belly for 30 minutes while I was driving. I don't really know the name of this bug but I do know that I kept itching my belly. I finally scratched the bug to death (accidently) because its carcasse was on my leg. The next time I looked at my belly there was red welts all over it. Maia has a few red welts on her legs as well. Some are from bugs but most are from falling down. Miraculously, Naomi has not been bitten yet. Her skin is so delicate even the bugs know that she is off limits. Having said that, I did have to swat several wasps away from her sweet smelling car seat at the El Salvador/Honduras border. The wasps gave up quite easlily and looking back now I beleive they were looking to eat some of the many flies that were calling our van home.

Highway construction. We have seen a lot on our travels but none so incredible as El Salvador. I wished I had pictures but we had waited half an hour to get going and there was quite a mad rush to get going. Lots of honking. As I drove through the 7 km section of closed highway I noticed that all the sign placards were replaced by people. There were people every few hundred meters waving a flag. The flags were all waved in the same manner and the workers crowded the driving lane forcing the vehicles to slow down or run them over. After driving for 5 km we came to the first and only piece of equipment that was working on the road. It was mixing soil cement into the base of the road. The mixer was a modified lawnmower and it took four guys to push it. It was going to take these guys a very, very long time to complete the next 30 meters of highway let alone the 7 km that was sectioned off. The pace of life is slow down here and those four guys couldn't be happier. They have water, food and work for the next year. The good news is that it looks like they had finished 2 km already.

Heading for the border now. Its 6:07 and Maia is ready to go! We want to beat the rush at the border.

adam

El Mismo Dia

Hey again...
Well as Adam said, we were literally thronged by people wanting to sell us this important document or that important document, but we stood our ground. After a while, most of them let up, but it still took as a stinking hot 3 hours to get from Mexico into Guatemala. I would have been a little less stressed, had I not had two very hot kids with me, but they survived, as did we.
One small note regarding Jose's Camping and Cabanas...it is run by a Canadian man and his Mexican wife. The Canadian (Jose...named John by his parents) had planted a coconut grove, when he moved there thirty years ago. He also planted mango trees, and he built his business, room by room. Quite impressive really. It was very rustic, but everything worked. The beach was a quick walk away, and we were the only ones on it. It was a lucky break that we (meaning me) missed the highway turn-off. We really needed the rest. I didn't even mind the giant cockroaches, I was so happy not to be driving.
When we made it into Guatemala, we were all very impressed with it's beauty. It is lush, verdant and plentiful with fruit of every kind. We stayed at the hotel where Adam wrote his last post and then left for El Salvador this morning.
Luckily the border between El Salvador and Guatemala is less busy. Not so lucky perhaps were the 2 hours it took to fulfill alll of the various requirements at the four different buildings I had to walk to. THEN...we got stopped by the police about 5 mins into the country. Oh well, 2nd time today. We are getting kind of used to it. The people who stop us tend to be quite friendly when they find out that we are Canadian. In fact, one of the policemen told me I had a pretty name while he was looking at our passports. That was nice of him!
Initially, we were warned about staying in El Salvador, but so far so good. It has been a gorgeous drive down the coast. The road is good, curvy but in great shape. The currency in El Salvador is the American Dollar. It struck me as a little weird, but with all of the money flowing into El Salvador from the Salvadoreans working in the U.S, I guess it makes sense. What about the Canadian dollar, you may ask. Nothing doing. It is just not the same.
Tonight we are staying in a vacation hotspot for Salvadoreans. It is called, Puerto La Libertad. It is really great, but we are getting tired of being on the road and Maia has been feeling a little sick, so we will leave really early again tomorrow and try to get as far as we can. We will for sure be in Nicaragua by Wednesday.
MUST SLEEP NOW! Love you all tooooo much! Becky, that is a really great vote of confidence from Montreal!

Blood, Sweat and Tears

This morning I am writing from a somewhat unremarkable hotel about 45 minutes south of Quezaltenangoin Guatemala. We are in the mountains halfway to Quezaltenango because we couldn't make it up the hill. We drove for as long as we could and Tink did her best but eventually we had to pull over beside some other broken down vehicles for fear of overheating. We asked the locals how much further and they said it was another 1/2 hour which means another hour for us. We turned around and found the closest hotel for the night. It may be a blessing in disguise because now we must take highway 2 to El Salvador which is the coastal road and should have less hills.

Yesterday was a day that we wished we had flown to Nicaragua. We woke up at Jose's Cabanas sweating. It was 7 am and it was HOT. The van was hot already too and we hit the highway quickly to get the air flowing in the windows. We had stayed at Jose's Cabanas mostly due to a wrong turn. Emilie was waving at a bus full of locals and had completly unknowingly turned off the highway. I commented that the road didn't look like a highway and Emilie agreed. Forty five minutes later we were at the coast in a town of population 1000. We went with the flow of the day and stayed the night in Puerto ? (to be added later, I don't have a lot of time because laptop battery dying).

As we sweated down the highway our spirits were good, but also hot. We passed Tapachula (Mexican border town) without incident and headed for the border. There is a scam near the border that we avoided quite well. Every couple kilometers people try to pull you over and sell you permission to cross the border. We drove through them whilst honking and waving. The actual crossing is down in a hot, jungly valley packed with people. I would like to accentuate how many people were waiting at the border. It was shoulder to shoulder and nearly every one of them were yelling something at us. When we finally got through one of the throngs to accelerate a little, we were chased.

To be continued, really sorry. I am out of juice!

Friday morning pictures

These pictures are in addition to the previous blog and were added this morning because the internet was not working very well last night.

Maia and I are upset here because we aren't allowed to walk on the side of the rail. We fold our arms and refuse to move until something new gets our attention.
Here is a family portrait durning sunset in Mazatlan. The large cistern behind us was used to brew Pacifico, a popular Mexican beer. It is pretty good...believe me.
These are the ladies from the chocolateria. They are shredding chicken here but they do make pretty good hot chocolate.
Maia and Naomi are cuddling in the morning. Neither of them wanted to get up because it is 5:30 am. Maia just finished saying " But I am still tired?", as if we should let her sleep.
Here is a picture of Mexico city suburbs. We are approximately 30km from downtown now and on a very high interchange. Not a lot of land wasted here!!