La flor mas linda de mi querer

At home, an abundance of books and papers overlays the heavy furniture I inherited from my grandparents. A perfectly simple room, with one perfect object to meditate on, remains a dream until I step outside, onto the Plains. A tree. A butte. The sunrise. It always makes me wonder: What is enough? Are there enough trees here? As always, it seems that the more I can distinguish my true needs and my wants, the more I am shocked to realize how little is enough.

- Kathleen Norris
Dakota

Every day.
Every day--that's how often I think about leaving. About finally doing it, running away, going to the place that has my heart.
And every day I find a new excuse. Quite a bit of the time, it has to do with the "stuff" I am so used to. I like to pretend I'm not, but hey, this life is easy, right? I have two iPods. High speed internet. Fully stocked kitchen. Not enough room on the bookshelves for all my books. Unlimited access to Guitar Hero.
Can I really live without this? Do I really want to go somewhere where I wouldn't have all these freedoms, all this luxury, all the comforts of my life?

It seems it would be so difficult, so very very difficult, to surrender them--not temporarily but long-term.

But yet there's still this:
I can feel Nicaragua clawing at my brain

I don't remember where I read that quote. I don't remember who said it or in what context. All I know is that it applies. Every day, every day, every day Nicaragua is there, a presence, telling me that love is sometimes more than a person, that love is sometimes a place, and that even for all its flaws, failures and difficulties, I am not willing to give up on love.

And so maybe this quote that I began with is something to repeat.
The more I can distinguish
My true needs
and wants
The more I am shocked
To realize
How little is
Enough

We Could Run Away

Slight change of plans...B's not coming to Starkville this week. Instead he and his mom are going on a cruise to Mexico! I know...lucky them. I love the Caribbean Coast of Mexico. Anyway, that means a delay on getting the photos, but I suppose we can move on and I'll just post some pictures later.

ANYway. We left off in Granada. The first afternoon, we wandered around, seeing if it was possible to walk to the waterfront (it's not really) and stumbled upon an eco-adventures tour company. There, we declined an offer to go climb Volcan Mombochu at night and see the bats (not worth $25, thanks) and instead applied our monies to a kayaking trip the next day. It was $35 for four hours, and the person selling us on the idea warned that maybe I'd be better doing a two hour trip. But he also said we were likely to be the only ones, so it wouldn't matter if we went slow.

Boy, was he wrong.
There were at least six others with us, as well as two guides. I got in the water and immediately fell behind. I don't know what it is, but I cannot for the life of me make a kayak go in a straight line. It kept desiring to go to the right. Even when there were rocks there. I sailed into reedy patches and did battle with shallow waters. Birds flew about in panic. My egg sandwich grew soggy. I was pitied by our guide.

But we finally made it to our resting point...a bar/restaurant on one of the 365 islands of Nicaragua. I walked about ten feet and found that I was better suited to hammocks then kayaks.
Overall though I am so glad we went kayaking. The islands are beautiful, and many wealthy Nicas have homes out there. And one American who chose to decorate with inflatable snowglobes, santas and an American flag. We felt that he didn't really need the flag to convey his nationality!

The next day was New Year's Eve, and although many backpackers seemed to want to stay and party in Granada for the holiday, we thought that we might get stuck there if buses didn't run on El Dia Primer (and they dont). So we decided to push on to Isla de Ometepe. Ometepe means "Between two hills," in Nahuatl, which is the indigenous language of Nicaragua. An apt name, considering the island consists of two volcanos and the flat space between them. Here's a model:

Ometepe is the largest inland island in the world, at 31km long, 5km at its narrowest point and 10km at the widest. More than that, though, it is beautiful, relaxing and friendly, and since I'm probably losing your attention already with the long post, I'll wait and post Ometepe adventures in a different blog.
Hasta luego!

The Postcard's Gonna Read

GOOD NEWS!

B recovered the photos. He put so much time and energy into it, asking people on line and reading about software and all kinds of things. Today he drove to Huntsville and spent an hour and a half with a Best Buy guy recovering the photos. And now we have them...well, I don't have them all, but I have a few, and will have them all when he returns to Starkville at the end of the week.

Therefore, I would like to begin to present the tale of
B&K's Adventures in Nica!


On Wednesday, December 27th, my traveling started with a flight at midnight to Houston and a dose of Benadryl. B came in from New Orleans and we killed 6 hours in the IAH airport. Then we flew to Belize, El Salvador, and finally Managua. 24 hours, two states, four different countries. Impressive.

So we arrived in Managua at 8.30PM and did not get mugged or cheated by the taxi driver, although we did end up in the hostel next door to the one we originally planned on. This was not a gentle breaking in to Nicaragua. Instead, we stayed in a crappy little room on a deserted street, and ate at an Irish Pub (yes, really). Then in the morning we hiked it to a mall through the sludge and trash that is Managua in order to get currency. It was about 90 degrees by ten am. We left Managua around noon and vowed not to go back except to change buses--a promise we kept.

So instead we headed to Granada, a colonial outpost for the Spanish and probably the most touristed spot in Nicaragua. Except for the brighter colors and Spanish language, a lot of it reminded us of New Orleans. When I have more photos, I'll post them--we took quite a few of Granada. In fact, the hammock photo is from the hostel there, called Hotel Oasis. We shared a room with two other Americans (random; we didn't know them but she wanted to know if we were willing to share for a few dollars more and the prospect of sharing a bathroom with only three others rather than ten, so we jumped in). The hotel was pretty nice, with hammocks arranged around a courtyard and free coffee all day long--brewed coffee, not instant. But this was the only place where we went "gringo." The place clearly catered to backpackers and although it was nice to hear some opinions on where to go and what to do, by the end of a couple nights we were tired of being kept up at night by persons who seemed to be on a tour of Central America only to meet others doing the same--not to actually meet people who lived in the country. The rest of our trip, we stayed in hostels run by Nicaraguans, usually by those living right in the hostel.

So that's a brief summation of what we DIDN'T do for much of our trip. Tomorrow I'll start going into detail about how we spent our days and nights...and then perhaps at the end I'll do a photo blog.

Home...Is this a quiet place where you should be alone?

So...
I thought about posting about Nicaragua, but I really want to wait until I can do a photo entry.

I'm going to Alabama this weekend and hopefully we'll be able to get the pictures off the digital card (once again, Kirsten broke a camera. Count: 4 digitals broken, one SLR stolen).

Once I have those photos I'm going to do a recap.

But I am back and safe and not sick (as far as I know) and I loved it. We had a fabulous time and can't wait to share it with a devoted audience.