I’m falling behind on my blog posting and I want to catch you up, because some real quality stuff is happening right now. But you’ll just have to wait a little bit longer…
After my stay in San Pedro, I headed to El Gallo, right outside Cinco Pinos Nicaragua. It’s basically one street in the middle of the hills that was built as a project after Hurricane Mitch devastated the region. These people live very conflicting lives and I was very confused. On the one hand they are poor people, struggling to get by, working to eat. But one lady had an iPhone that she bought for $350 and then complained to me about how she dreams of having enough money to move to Spain. Also none of the people in this community had areas to shower. Since everyone lived so close there was no privacy so they poured buckets of water on themselves with their clothes on. But on the contrary they owned a microwave, refrigerator, and had cable tv. If it was me I would choose a shower over High School Musical 2. When I asked them what they used the microwave for the best they could come up with was “popcorn.”
My next stop was Versailles, and no not the fancy french town from Marie Antoinette times. This place was a 30 minute horseback ride from the nearest road which was an hour drive to the nearest town. No electricity and no running water. In Versailles as with all of the villages I visited, the farm animals were part of the family. Chickens and pigs would wander in and out of the dirt floored house. Another bonus to a dirt floor is you can spit on it until your heart is content, which my Nicaraguan hosts took much advantage of.
While the people of Versailles are extremely poor, they live in a beautiful setting at the base of the San Cristobal Volcano and a huge Maya Nut forest. I was lucky enough that Miguel took me on the long trek up Central America’s tallest Volcano. It was a 2 hour horseback ride and then another hour hike up the beast. It was smoking when we reached the top and it smelled like rotten farts and eggs. Peeyuuuu.
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