During the week, we literally have the beach to oursleves.  It’s not tourist season (it’s hot) and anyway Nicaragua doesn’t have the thronging tourist trade of Costa Rica or Belize.  We can sit on the balcony of our bed and breakfast and see endless sand in either direction, and not another human being other than occasionally when Wilbur spots us and comes trotting down to say hello.  When we decided to stay here for a week, we handled business with Wilbur, buying three of his seashell necklaces for a ridiculously high price ($5) on the deal that he would no longer pester us for sales.  He’s kept his word, and now only comes around to say hello, teach us a few words in Spanish and ask questions about America. 

On the weekends, healthy numbers of Nicaraguan tourists visit the coast, which brings some vibrancy to the otherwise sleepy fishing town.  Hay mucho sol!  Okay, I’m a white girl, but I tan at a fairly reasonable rate and I did have some melanin in my skin from our fall travels.  But after twenty minutes in the sun I’d started to pink up.  It’s the easiest place to work on a tan because you can go out for ten minutes, flip, do ten more minutes, and your baking time is done for the day.  Long hours of roasting and reapplying sunscreen aren’t necessary.  Las Penitas is located a mere 12 degrees off the equator, as evidenced by the moon’s near lack of movement and the clockwork functioning of the sun.  Sit on the balcony.  When the sun hovers above the first railing, it’s almost 6:00.  When it has lowered below the second railing, it’s about a quarter after six.  As the sun is setting along the ocean’s horizon, it’s just after 6:30, and time to eat dinner before it actually gets dark and the crab hunting commences. 

But to tell you about catching congrego, I’ll have introduce you to my incidental Nicaraguan family: Pedro and his son Jose, and Maria (Pedro’s cousin) and her son Yader.  There are a surprising number of hotel/hostel options in the town, though only a handful right along the coast and within walking distance of the inlet, which serves as the town’s center.  Pedro and Maria manage Sol y Mar, the only hotel that I found in Las Penitas which markets to foreign tourists but is Nicaraguan owned.  Maria and Pedro run Sol y Mar with hospitality which in itself seems to be a bit of a foreign concept in this country.  If you are shopping for a hotel, don’t expect the pretty girl behind the counter to welcome you, or for that matter show the slightest interest in your being there.  If you are lucky, she will tell you how much a room costs, and if you insist, she will roll her eyes and let you take a look before you pay.  Things are different at Sol y Mar: Pedro actually opened the door.  He welcomed us and in introducing the accommodations, gave reasons why we might prefer his quarters over others in town. 

We quickly realized that with little effort on our part we had my very own home-stay, with a family eager for the exchange.  We have daily Spanish-English lessons, Maria and Yader learning common phrases helpful for interacting with tourists, the entire family correcting our pronunciation and feeding us words in espanol.  When we took the bus back into Leon for supplies, Pedro rode in with us, we all shopped at the supermarket, then he toted our groceries back home to leave usunencumbered while enjoying the cities’ huge market, banking, and finding some breezy beach-appropriate skirts from local used clothing stores (yup, even in Nicaragua I’m going thrift!).  When we returned on a mid-afternoon route (siesta time for anyone with sense) Pedro was on the sidewalk scanning for us, then flagged the driver down to stop and let us off.  The bus goes past every hour, and we’d been gone for at least six, leaving us to guiltily wonder how many times that day he’d already left his hammock to look for us!  We have our own shelf in the refrigerator, hang our laundry alongside theirs, have full use of the kitchen, and get constant reassurance that our enormous (compared to theirs) consumption of toilet paper is no problema.  And don’t forget the nightly crab hunting, in which Fred and I, Jose, Yader, and an assortment of neighborhood kids set off down the beach with a flashlight that runs on a handcrank.  Fred is the lamp man sweeping a beam of light over the beach while everyone keeps their eyes peeled.  When a crab is spotted, the kids scatter to surround the thing, then one pounces.  If they miss, a great chase after the scurrying crab ensues and ends in one of three ways: it is caught (the kids are about as quick as them), it escapes into the ocean, or it burrows into a hole deep enough that the kids can’t dig it out (it’s ingenious how often they do).  The kids seemed as surprised as I when at one point a champinano grande came running straight past me, I leaped into a wave after it and came up clutching it in my hand, screaming, I admit, because the flailing of multiple legs and pinchers against my skin was creepy, but holding on all the same.  The kids eyes stayed wide as we returned home and they relayed the whole story to Pedro and Maria, Pedro disbelieving that a girl would do such a thing!

So far, Nicaragua, so good.  As we travel around the country more, we’ll have to see what effect our nationality will have on our reception, given how deplorably involved the U.S. government has been in Nicaraguan political affairs for the last 100+ years.  We aren't necessarily looking forward to leaving our beach haven tomorrow, but if we don't go now, we may never leave!  So we'll head into Leon to catch a bus to somewhere, we'll let you know in the next blog post where we end up.

(Carlo trying to teach Fred how to fish without a rod.)