Continuing along the road

It hasn´t been long since my last post, but to be honest there isn´t much to do in this town. So I will tell tales of Nicaragua so far to people a long way away.

I am currently residing in Jinotega, a untouristy town in the mountains. It´s known as the City of Mists, and is set in a circle of hills that make it feel almost Scottish. I am staying in an exciting flimsy hotel. It´s the kind of place where there are three generations of family members sitting downstairs, and the rooms are in a loft, sectioned off by thin boards. There was a light, but it quickly stopped working. It costs, however, half of my budgeted cordobas; only $2.50 US. I had a tamarind juice at lunch, with a view of the misty cold hills. It was delicious, and tasted like a grandmother.

Today I traveled by bus from Estelí, where I happily had some company, picked up in Honduras. Yesterday the company and I tried to make our way to a waterfall somewhere in the countryside, an hour walk from town (said the increasingly unrelible Lonely Planet). After a dusty but charming walk along a dirt road (attempts made to converse with a pot-bellied man riding a bicycle proved yet again that my Spanish is going nowhere) I was getting hot and sore. So I hopped on the colourful bus passing by, certain that I would see my friends at the waterfall and all would be well.

A long while later, I descended from the bus to discover that I was about 10km further down the road than I should be. There was no choice but to wait for the bus to return. Sitting on a rock eating a cantalope with a Swiss Army Knife, I was forcibly reminded of all the times I have spent on Mills Road in Brooklyn, Wellington, waiting for buses and gazing outward. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I am happy to announce that they have coffee here, real stuff, but very sweet. And ice cream; I had the biggest one in the world yesterday, to make up for my bus fiasco. We also went to see ´He´s Just Not That Into You´, or ´Simplemente, No Te Quiere´en español. The sound was terrible, but it was in English, and a delightful slice of a world a long way away.

The journey on the rattling school bus today was one of the better ones. Along a dusty pot-holed dirt road, it traveled through some beautiful countryside. Steep hills, lots of rocks and dust and the most amazing trees I have ever seen. Strange and fantastic, each one was different. Leafless, with branches big and small; spiking straight up into the air or regularly patterned, asymmetrical, gorgeous. Many branches have moss in shades of grey or brown, some possibly Spanish (it was hanging down anyway), some have white opaque balloons that might be insect nests. Some hung sparsely with fat green succlent leaves; and every so often, one with white or pink or bright bright yellow flowers. This part of the world is going in my book of places to return to and photograph, along with the White Desert in Egypt and Barton Creek Cave in Belize. I wasn´t really able to get any good shots through the bus windows. They seemed to be in the middle of building the road we drove along. There were a few stone houses, irregular wooden fences, and a church or two in the bizzare dry landscape; on a rocky hillside, a brown cow sat with three delicate white birds.

And now, in Jinotega, I have already visited the only tourist attraction, a large white church. Maybe I will do some crochet in my wooden box room, and find some cake. Tomorrow I will carry on to the next town, and hopefully visit a coffee farm (does it grow on bushes? Trees? I drink it every day and don´t know). There is also a chocolate factory there; I´ve tried some already. It´s different, no milk at all, and slightly gritty, but growing on me.