Michelle visits again x3!

Peter: Hola Michelle! Welcome to Nica part 4. The theme to this blog posting is random moments of awesomeness from the past week

Michelle: Saturday, after I arrived, we enjoyed a totally first-world day-date in Managua. We drank a bottle of wine and ate some great food at a fachenta tapas restaurant, and then we went and saw Ted in a movie theater (this time without bats!). We bought yet another bottle of wine at the fancy grocery store and drank it while catching up on first-world TV shows.

Michelle and I's table of food

Peter: Sunday night, Michelle and I adventured out (to the restaurant adjoined to our hotel) in Somoto.  For those of you not familiar with Nicaraguan culture, Sunday is Fun Day for the locals.  It’s the day to drink that cheap rum and forget about tomorrow’s workday.  Anywho, there was a lively crowd at the restaurant and, in particular, one drunk gentleman.  Said hombre went to the DJ and requested Gangnam Style (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, for shame) and proceeded to do a near perfect duplicate dance.  Impressive!

Peter: The following morning, we were on the bus and heard an interesting radio advertisement.  “Drink coffee and sleep with a woman for $80”….WHAT?!  Did I translate that correctly?  Afterwards, they went into the fine print.  Yes indeed, for only 80 American dollars, you can drink coffee with the beautiful woman of your choosing and take a nap with her (nothing more scandalous is permitted).  As a human being, I find this somewhat obscene and distasteful but the business volunteer charged with encouraging creative businesses wants to give them a “thanks for trying” high-five.

Michelle: The next day, we went to the Canyon de Somoto with an 18-year-old Nicaraguan guide. We hiked along the river, and then boated down it until we reached the canyon. We then ‘extreme hiked’ (Pete can vouch that yes, I was not only being outdoorsy, but extremely outdoorsy) up and down some boulders lining the river until we reached the actual canyon. Pete has visited multiple times, but I was incredibly impressed – maybe one of the prettiest things I have ever seen! The river is as little as 20 feet wide in some places, bordered on either side by massive, tall rock walls. We donned our life vests and swam upstream against the current until we reached a resting place (had to claw our way up a boulder against a very strong current to get there, though – ay! Luis Miguel kept laughing at our gringo-ness). Afterwards, we jumped back in the water and floated with the current downstream. The only thing missing was cans of Tona…

As a special note, I wore Pete’s gym shoes for this adventure. For those of you unaware, Pete has tiny, lady feet and I have mannish, clown feet, so we have practically the same size feet :P

Extreme hiking!

Peter/Michelle: Esteli (a biggish town within an hour of Pete’s site) just got a super-mega-nice grocery store. The past two nights, the same check-out girl has ringed up our purchases (each night, a bottle of Gato Negro red for a reasonable 145 C$...though we are only averaging one bottle per night, there was judgment in her eyes). Tonight, we added bread, cheese and salami, and persuaded the hotel staff to let us eat our grocery store food in the nice hotel dining room/restaurant.  The conversation went as follows:

Pedro:  “Pardon, we’re guests here.  Do you mind if we eat this food that we bought at the super market here in the restaurant?”

Confused Nica:  “So you want to eat your food in our restaurant without ordering anything?”

Pedro:  “That’s it, exactly”

Confused Nica:  “…(indignant face)…”

Pedro:  “Of course we’re willing to pay a corking fee.”

Confused Nica:  “Sounds good to me.”

Michelle: Tomorrow we’re heading south to the fancy all-inclusive resort (biggest pool in Latin America!). We’ll be too busy drinking rum and getting sunburned on the beach to write again – so adios for now!