I decided to start thinking about my favorite memories and things about Nicaragua to share with everyone who reads my blog or has contributed to my time here in Nicaragua. The memories are not in chronological nor are specific to the program that I'm working with...just funny things that have happened.
If you've ever been out of the country, maybe to place like Nicaragua then you might know what I'm talking about when I say that buses here are crazy. And unless you live here and know how they work, you hate it. Luckily for me I love it and you have to have sense of humor to take the system lightly. Imagine an old school bus, like a bus that in the US would be in an old junk yard, then shove as many people as you can on the bus, add 100 degree weather and a fat money collecting man weaving through the crowd to get his 20 cordobas from everyone, add going 20 mph and a sound system that probably cost more than the bus and blasting discotheque music. That's how we travel.
The memory that sticks out the most though was the time that Kelly (my co-worker who has been with me the whole time here in Nica) and I wanted to go to Ometepe, an Island in Lake Nicaragua that has 2 huge volcanoes on it...the lake here by the way is like an ocean. We only have time to travel from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning, so it doesn't leave much time to go places but we decided to make the long trek anyways. We walk to the bus station that is in the back of the market in Granada and ask a guy if we can get to Rivas at this time (it was maybe 4pm) he was like no way, now how. So we asked another guy, because that's what you do here until you get the answer you want to hear. The second guy says, yep take this bus to Naindaime and then there will be a bus to Rivas on the way. Yes! We thought, sounds great. Hop on the bus and off we go. We are riding along and Kelly falls asleep, the girl can sleep anywhere and I'm just sitting waiting around to see where we get off to catch the bus to Rivas. All the sudden we pull over on the side of the road in no particular place where there's a bus stop but another bus behind us and the bus guy yells "RIVAS, RIVAS, RIVAS" and I thought, "huh? Rivas, oh Rivas, oh! That's us!" I turn to Kelly shake her up and am like "KELLY, RIVAS!" She looks at me and says "Yup, I'm up, I'm up." and we run off the bus to catch the bus behind us to Rivas.
If you ever have the chance to come to Nicaragua, do it and then ride the buses and you will understand when I say that the experience is much like what I imagine Harry Potter felt like when riding the "Night Express" bus. :)