At the end of our last week in Nicaragua, we were eagerly anticipating a visit from special visitors. Paulette, founder of La Mariposa, was planning to travel up to Esteli to spend time with us, and our children were SO excited to see her again! Oscar, one of the La Mariposa drivers, drove her in the truck so we got to see him too! As a surprise they brought along a pinata for the kids, and a truckload of crates and crates full of fresh fruits and vegetables from the La Mariposa gardens–greens and tomatoes and avocados and oranges and mandarinas and pineapples, overflowing our kitchen! Even a special package of fresh eggs from Paulette’s chickens, wrapped in banana leaves as a carton, which I think is the just coolest thing!
Isn’t that the coolest egg carton, though!?
We ate lunch together at our home, spent the afternoon chatting, and visited a park and Pizza Hut that evening. But the main event was the following morning! Somoto Canyon had been recommended to us by some other students we met at La Mariposa, and we hoped to see it while we were in Northern Nicaragua, so we invited Paulette and Oscar to join us. It was fun to get to experience a new part of Nicaragua that Paulette and Oscar hadn’t seen before either!
Cozy in the back of the truck for the hour and a half drive to Somoto.
The first part of the Somoto tour is a hike down to the riverbed, and then along the sandy, rocky riverbed, which is completely dry or very shallow pools during the dry season now, to get deeper into the canyon. Denver, Oscar, and our guide all ended up with a kid on their shoulders at one time as legs got tired and sand got in their shoes.
The next stage, when you arrive deep enough into the canton that there is enough water that you can’t walk any further, is to climb into a rowboat to be rowed further in through some beautiful rock formations as the sides of the canyon grow steeper and narrow around you.
The row boats come to a point where the way is completely blocked by large rocks that divide the riverbed into separate lakes. Everyone climbs out of the boat and does some rock climbing up and over the rock formations, which give a greater view down over the river and into the narrow parts of the canyon ahead!
Next comes the really fun stage (which Paulette and Oscar chose to opt out of and wait for us in the shade of a big rock): climbing down into tubes in the water to float into the deepest, most narrow parts of the canyon! The poor guides have to get into the water and swim, pulling the tubes along train style. At the deepest part of the canyon where you can’t go any further, there is a place where they let people climb up to jump into the water from crazy heights on the rock–none of us did, but we watch a couple of other crazy people and our guides do it (Shiny screamed and hid her eyes, I agree with her sentiment!).
Then it’s time to do the tour in reverse, getting towed back through the water to the big rocks, climbing down to the rowboat and and traveling back to the dry riverbed.
The fun part on the way back was that we had reserved horses for the hike back, knowing the kids would be tired, so we finished out the tour with Quinn and Thea on one horse, Paulette on another, and Cheyenne and I riding behind (Denver and Oscar walked).
The tour includes a traditional Nicaraguan lunch at the end, so we had the chance to sit down and share one more meal together before the long drive back and saying goodbye.
Somoto Canyon is a beautiful place, and made for a beautiful day of exploring with friends. Thanks for discovering a new treasure of Nicaragua with us, Paulette and Oscar!
After a couple of weeks in the routine of Esteli, we were getting some major cabin fever to get the kids out of the house and do something active! So we asked Marcelo for suggestions of places we could go close by, and he provided us with great options to help fill our last two Saturdays!
Centro Recreativo La Ensenada
This was a terrific way to spend a morning/afternoon! La Ensenada is an outdoor restaurant and swimming pools combined. For the cost of the understanding that you will order drinks and food from their restaurant while you are there, use of the pools is free for as long as you like!
It had one larger pool and one small pool perfect for Shiny to run around in! We got dropped off about 10:30 and stayed until almost 3:00, with delicious traditional Nicaraguan meal options for lunch (and things like cheeseburgers and chicken for the kids).
The property also included a yard area with playground equipment for the kids. Now why can’t we have cool multi-purpose restaurants like this in Ohio (I mean, besides that we could only effectively use them 3-4 months out of the year…)?
La Casita
La Casita is an organic, homemade foods cafe (outdoor, of course) which specializes in breads, coffee, and natural drinks for a light breakfast/brunch/lunch (all menu items grown and produced onsite on their little organic farm or locally). But the business also includes sales of all kinds of plants, flowers, and trees they grow like a greenhouse shop, and a large area of flowering trees and cactus gardens with walking paths, open lawn for playing, and playgrounds for the kids. Marcelo picked us up after the kids finished their last Fun Arte class at 10:00 our final Saturday and we met up at La Casita with Anabel and two of their teenage kids, Victoria and John Mark.
We enjoyed our “merienda” of individual bread loaves with choice of spread and toppings (mine was a yogurt spread with cucumber and tomato slices to make my little sandwiches, Denver’s was with Swiss cheese, and the kids chose a chocolate spread). I especially enjoyed my pot of fresh brewed chai tea latte! After eating we all hung out in the gardens and playground area. The kids especially loved the zip line swing, which sped across from a low platform on the playground to be stopped with a whiplash-inducing jolt and bounced back by a metal spring at the end of the cable, which they thought was hilarious!
And Shiny had fun ordering around her special friend Victoria (“Vicki”) one last time!
La Casita ended up being another great way to spend a Saturday, enjoy some delicious food, and get the kids out to use up some energy! Thanks for introducing us to these fun spots, Marcelo and Anabel!
We said goodbye to La Mariposa on Friday, February 1st, and headed north on a bus from Managua to Estelí, the city where we would be staying for the next 4 weeks of our trip. Denver’s cousin’s wife is from there, and it is her family we stayed with, and her brother, Marcelo, who is working with Denver on researching possibilities for the Tilmor tractor in Nicaragua. They have a nice upper level added onto their home with two bedrooms, a patio area, and a bathroom, just the right size to comfortably fit our family. And the rooftop patio provided some nice views overlooking our neighborhood and the surrounding mountains.
School Routine
Our first Saturday, we stopped by Divine Mercy Bilingual School, not far from where we stayed. We enrolled our children, purchased uniforms, and got signed up for bus pickup service. When Monday rolled around, we were ready well before 7:15 waiting for the bus to take the kids to school which started at 7:30. Around 7:40, the bus finally arrived. The rest of the week, the pickup time was closer to 8:00.
The following Monday, we were caught off guard when the bus showed up at 6:40am (we weren’t ready, so they agreed to go on with the route and then come back for our kids). They hadn’t communicated this, but apparently the school started at 7:00am after the first week. So the kids finally got settled into a regular routine of making sure to be ready by 6:30 (except for the time the main bus had broken down, and the bus again didn’t show up until well after 8:00 for a couple of days…).
School in Nicaragua starts the first week of February, so
this was one of the reasons we had timed our visit to start in February. We
were hoping our kids’ Spanish would improve by enrolling them in school. What
we didn’t realize is “bi-lingual” meant that almost all the classes were done
in English! This made for an easier transition and less stressful experience
for our kids, although it didn’t force them to use their Spanish as much. Thea
made a friend in her grade that ended up being our next-door neighbor, and it
was fun to hear the two of them interact mostly in Spanish. So while our
language goals weren’t completely met, it was a helpful experience for our kids
to meet kids in another culture, and experience what school is like for them.
A normal school day ended at 1:00, with the kids getting
home on the bus about 1:20. They would
get changed out of their school uniforms and then we would go downstairs to eat
the lunch that Karen and Karmen, our hostesses, always had ready and waiting
for us. After lunch it was time for Cheyenne’s nap, and Quinten and Thea
received their from-home school assignments for the day, usually a math sheet
to complete, a reading and vocabulary assignment and/or a journal entry to
write (with some time playing Minecraft on the tablet afterward as the big
motivator to get schoolwork finished).
Keeping this one out of trouble in someone else’s home is an exhausting job, so nap time was always a welcome break in the routine!!!A special afternoon when the kids got to talk to their Ohio classmates on Skype!
Fun Arte
A weekend activity that occurred every Saturday was “Fun
Arte”, a kid’s painting class that we enrolled our kids in. Official start time
was 8am, but they were lucky to start things by 8:30am. These classes started with
a story, and the kids were free to paint something inspired from the story.
Cheyenne was too young for the class, but we snuck her in because Denver agreed
to hang with her the entire time. This created a bit of a challenge keeping a
squirmy 3-year-old entertained while trying to translate a story into English
enough for the kids to understand. When it was finally time to paint, it was a
bit more “fun”, and the kids’ creativity came out.
Denver’s Work Routine
As mentioned earlier, Denver spent this month working with
the Tilmor project here in Esteli. This often involved joining Marcelo to visit
a farm that was testing the Tilmor tractor. During this time his focus was
learning more about agricultural practices in Nicaragua, distribution options,
access to credit, and figuring out next steps based on that.
On off-days from visiting farms and businesses, he would
have “office” days back home. This gave him time to gather thoughts, write up
reports, and take care of other business (and spend more time with his wife, of
course! *Tara’s edit*)
Tara’s Routine
Originally, we thought I might be bored with nothing to do
while Denver was working and the kids were in school. Denver had asked the
school if I might be able to volunteer a few days a week. I rode along with the
kids on the bus the first day and without any specific direction on what to do,
I stuck with Cheyenne in her class for the morning and had a chance to help her
settle into the classroom routine. She had some moments when she got scared and
I needed to reassure her and coax her back to the room, and we made lots of
trips to the bathroom (which she thought was fun because of the
preschooler-sized toilets), so I felt good about being able to be there to help
her.
All of us ready for our first day of school
While I was helping in Shiny’s class the first day, I
noticed that the teacher of the youngest classroom, with mostly 3-year-olds, seemed
very stressed with over 20 toddlers running everywhere and only one teacher, so
I told her I would try to help her out the next day. I ended up coming every day that week to try
to help, but “helping” mostly meant trying to control some of the chaos by running
back and forth to the bathroom with kids who needed to go, or staying back in a
class with children running around and yelling while the teacher went to take kids
for diaper changes (4 children in the classroom still in diapers that she was expected
to have changed even though she was alone in a class of over 20 kids!). She said it was more kids in the classroom
than they’d had previous years, and some of the kids were actually 2 when they
were supposed to be 3 (and those children cried the whole morning, every morning,so
I spent much of my time trying to calm those children as well).
I came home every day so exhausted and overwhelmed that I
took a nap with Shiny and would sleep almost until dinner. After a week of that routine, I ended up
really sick with a bad cold over the weekend and into the next week, and with that
excuse not to return to school the first few days, I realized how much anxiety
the school environment had created and I was happy to just have that time at home
to relax while my kids were at school! (The teacher had told the head of school she
needed a permanent classroom aide for when I was not there anymore, so I also
hoped my not being there would help them realize the necessity of getting her
some real long-term help!)
Mornings were much more fun and relaxing hanging out in the “home office’ with this guy 🙂
So my routine the remaining 3 weeks, after getting the kids
ready and sent off to school, included things like eating a quiet breakfast
with Denver, washing laundry or cleaning our living area, a lot of writing to
catch up on the blog that we were very behind on, reading, practicing Spanish
on my app, and preparing the kids’ homework assignments for later. I enjoyed the
days that Denver worked from “home,” with some quiet time to talk and share a
coffee and bread together midmorning while we worked. And it made so that on Valentine’s
Day we even got away with a long walk to find a restaurant and had a kid-free lunch
date with free babysitting since the kids were in school!
Evening and Weekend Free Time
We didn’t have easy access to any transportation besides relying on Marcelo to drive us in his truck, which we didn’t want to make him do all the time. Within walking distance our main options for getting out of the house on our own were a little ice cream shop we visited quite often for a treat, and another little shop where we could buy breakfast bread and snacks. There was a field across the road from us where the kids liked to go kick around the soccer ball, and on quieter evenings at home we played a lot of Dutch Blitz and Phase 10.
A longer walk away was a children’s park we played at a few times, once taking the neighbor girl and another time when Paulette visited us, and the kids always had a good time there.
We made a couple of visits to Marcello and Anabel’s house for Sunday lunch and spent the afternoon chatting while all the kids had fun cooling off in the kiddie pool they filled up for them. For Quinten’s birthday, we had the whole Castillo family over and ordered Pizza Hut (Quinn’s request), and the weekend after Quinten’s birthday we made a special trip to the movie theater to see the Lego Movie 2 as a gift—of course, the movie was in Spanish, so that was a fun new experience for the kids! Our home also gave the kids access to (Spanish) TV, which they hadn’t had in over a month, and the very sweet 8-month-old baby girl who lives there provided some cute entertainment as well!
We are especially thankful for the warm welcome and hospitality we received from the Castillo family during our time in Esteli. On our last night they had a special goodbye dinner with the whole family, and we had fun destroying the piñata that had been given to the children by La Mariposa.
The entire family was very generous in offering help with whatever we needed, keeping us well-fed, and in opening up their homes to our (often very noisy and wild) family! Thank you for taking care of us, Castillo family!
Goodbye Esteli—Waiting for the bus on the last day of school.
