Day 2: Our first adventure

3:00 A.M.  I wake up to the sound of something or someone screaming horribly.  Only after it happens again do I realized that it is the sound of a rooster crowing.  This is the first time I’ve ever actually woken up at first light, with a rooster as an alarm clock.  The neighborhood is full of roosters and chickens that people keep for eggs and meat.  So far, I have been woken up by a rooster every single morning, because no matter where you go… people have them (I hereby declare formal war against all roosters… do you hear me roosters?! I’m going to eat you all!).  Luckily this time I fall back asleep until I wake up again to the sound of a car alarm.  Jim is also awake and tells me that it is 4:30 A.M.  Not wanting to stay in our sweltering little room any longer than necessary, we decide to get up.  At 4:30 it’s already fully daylight, and we can hear Juan in the kitchen.  I decide to take a shower.  Interestingly, the shower wall is a piece of a billboard that Juan has attached to two of the steel supports with pieces of barbed wire.  (As a sidenot, barbed wire seems to be the material of choice in this country, for any use ranging from actually making a barbed wire fence, to holding your house together, to hanging your clothes to dry.)  A lare smiling hispanic man watches me shower, and on the reverse side, diligently monitors the toilet room.  Juan serves us a breakfast of tortillas and eggs.  Every thing is delicious: the tortillas are handmade, and the eggs are cooked with tomato, garlic and onion.  After this, we head out, and arrive at Suni Solar at 7:00 a.m.  There, we send a few more emails to inform people that we won’t be back for a five days, put our laptops in Douglas’ office, and start loading the truck.  The two technicians that we will be accompanying are Isaac and Emilio, niether of whom speak English.  We tie down all of the gear with ropes, and Isaac pulls the truck around to the front of the building.  Only now do I realize that only two people can fit in the cab of the pickup.  Before anything can be said, Jim climbs in the cab with Isaac, so Emilio and I climb up into the bed of the pickup.  This is a standard form of transportation in Nicaragua.  Pickup trucks regularly are overflowing with people, some even riding on the rear bumpers, or clinging to the sides. 

            It is a sunny day, probably in the mid 90’s.  Humidity here is constant, and oppressive.  We first go to the mall so that Jim can buy a cell phone.  It costs only 20 dollars, and I enjoy standing in the air conditioning if even for a moment.  Nicaragua apparently is one of the best places in central America to get electronics, because prices are so cheap.  Later on this trip we realized that nearly everyone in the country, even the poorest farmers out in the most remote parts of the countryside have cell phones.  We get on the road and start heading out of the city, and I ask Emilio how far we are going.  He says that the trip wil lbe about six hours.  Six hours! At the time I couldn’t even imagine sitting in the back of a truck for that long with nothing to keep me occupied.  I’m used to bringing a book in the car for anything more than a ten minute drive!  And even then, I’m in the car with the air conditioner on, not in the back of a pickup truck bed with the tropical sun doing its best to set me on fire!  With nothing else to do, I liberally apply sunscreen, and hope for the best.  At this point, I am sitting in the back of the bed, while Emilio stands, bracing himself on the rack that holds the ladders and a bundle of conduit pipes.  It takes at least an hour to leave Managua, and the ride is rather unpleasant.  As I watch the city pass by, I cant help but wonder whether or not I’m going to be burnt to a crisp both inside and out.  Luckily we stopped at the last gas station to buy water, and I grabbed two more 1.5 liter bottles than Isaac suggested.  At this point I really wasn’t feeling too great about this trip.  It’s hot, dirty, and in the city you might as well be sucking on the tailpipe of a car.  But, just as I had resigned myself to the sad conclusion that this whole thing was a disappointment, and that I would be counting the days until that beautiful Boeing swept me up and out of this place, we reached the end of the city.  What came next completely changed my mind, and was the first time that I really started having fun.

            It was actually quite startling when the city ended, because it had taken us so long to drive, I figured that it would just go on and on forever.  When we crossed that line, where the last block ended, the dusty, crowded world of Managua gave way to the most stunning landscape that I have ever seen.  In the lowlands surrounding the city, small cattle farms and rice paddies dot the land, and in the distance you can see the mountains: our destination.  You can literally see for miles and miles in every direction, because the land slopes gently upward to meet the mountains.  It is as if the land is opening up and trying to make itself as visible as possible from the road.  In addition to being able to see for miles across the land, you can see the same amount of sky.  As I said, this is the rainy season in Nicaragua, which means that on any given day, some form of rain is almost inevitable.  Isaac stops the truck for a pee break and Emilio, seeing a few dark clouds lined up perfectly above the road in the distance, squeezes into the cab next to Jim.  Looks like I’m going to get wet. 

            We drive for another half an hour, and it rains on and off.  When it rains in Nicaragua, it pours, and although it is pretty much the definition of a torrential downpour, I stay relatively dry.  The natural vortex that occurrs in the bed of a pickup truck at 60 mph directed a good majority of the rainwater up and over me as I made myself as low to the bed as I could.  I am still getting wet, but at this point it is heavenly, after sitting in the sun at 95 degrees.  We stop for lunch at a roadside cafe, and I’m already dry, because of the special moisture wicking pants that my mom bought (thanks mom!).  Lunch consists of rice, beans, and an anomalous vegetable whose name I did not catch.  It is green, and is about the size and shape of an avocado, but its taste and consistency is much more like that of a pepper.  It is stuffed with something, I do not know what.  All I know is that it’s delicious.

Day 2 Part 2: Albert:After lunch, I hop back in the truckbed, and the other three squeeze back into the cab.  As we’re pulling out of the parking lot, a boy, probably around 14 years old scrambles up into the truck, and plops down next to me.  I don’t ask any questions; I don’t really care, or know enough Spanish to question his right to hitch a ride (I later found out that he asked Isaac).  After a few minutes on the road, he taps me on the shoulder, and pointing to a hammock that he has tied around himself like a bandolier tells me that it is beautiful, handmade, and strong…and I can have it for only seven dollars!  I tell him no, thank you, I do not need, nor have a place to put a hammock right now.  He looks accepting of the fact, and we sit in silence for another mile or two.  Now, aon either side of the road, the mountains are growing closer and closer, and the view is absolutely breathtaking.  I’m sitting with my back against the gear, facing out the back of the truck, so I have a completley unobstructed 180 degree view.  He notices the amazed look on my face, and asks if I’ve ever seen mountains like this before.  I say no, not really, the place that I come from has no mountains.  I say that they are very beautiful, and he tells me that they are dangerous, full of scorpions, snakes, and other creatures that he explains only by baring his teeth, growling, and making claws out of his hands.  Awesome… this is where I’m headed, I think.  In fact it was truly amazing to me to see how unimportant language actually can be in communication.  After another minute he tells me that the price of the hammock is now five American dollars.  Once again I graciously decline, and he lowers the price to four.  He explains that it is his last one, and he just has to sell it.  Truthfully, for four dollars, I would have bought the hammock simply to give the kid a break, but sadly I only have a $20 bill and I don’t expect him to have change.  I tell him that I have no money, otherwise I would buy it.  I don’t think he believes me, but it gets us off the topic for a while.  A few minutes later he taps my shoulder again.  Pointing at the cracked and torn leather of his own, he asks me if I have an extra pair of shoes.  I don’t , and wen I explain this to him, he says that he understands, it’s just that those shoes had been his fathers as well and they are very old and uncomfortable.  Note: after seeing the state that this kid’s shoes were in, I am never again throwing out a pair of old shoes until they literally fall off my feet.  The two pair of old shoes that I threw out just before leaving on this trip could have lasted that kid three more years, and compared to his were brand new.  He now asks me if I have any water, which thankfully I do, so I crack open a bottle, and we spend the next half hour passing it back and forth, enjoying the mountains, which are becoming more and more numerous.  I ask him where he’s going, and he says that he’s headed to Matagalpa.  I tell him that I have no idea where that is, so I can’t tell him whether or not he’ll get there in our truck.  A few more miles go by, and it rains again, this time more heavily than before, and the two of us laugh, while huddling down against the black tarp that covers the gear.  Since we left Managua, the temperature has dropped at least 10 degrees, and the rain makes it even more pleasant.  It eventually stops raining, and I realized that the boy is looking intently at my feet.  When I catch his glance, he calls my bluff.  Pointing out my brand new Columbia waterproof, all-terrain hiking boots he asks, “If you have no money, why do you have new shoes?”  I have no real explanation for this, and I know that I look very embarrassed.  Slowly he takes the hammock from around his shoulder, folds it up into a bundle, and takes out the backpack that he has been sitting on this whole time.  He opens it to reveal that it is full of identical, folded hammocks, most still with the factory label attached.  He puts the hammock in with the others, and looks up at me with a mischevious grin.  “Handmade, huh?” I say, and we both laugh, caught in our own lies.  It looks like we’re entering the vicinity of a small town, and he taps on the side of the truck.  Isaac pulls over, and as the boy is hopping out, I ask him his name. “Albert” he responds, and then asks mine.  I tell him, and we shake hands.  As his feet hit the ground, he wishes me “Buen Viaje”—good travels, and I respond in turn.  As we pull away, he tightens up his backpack, throws me a salute and starts marching up the road.  Laughing I return the salute, and then wave.  Buen Viaje Albert, I hope you get to Matagalpa with an empty backpack, and a full pocket.

            I settle back into the truck as we begin to slowly climb into the mountains.  The temperature is dropping steadily, and I’m now very comfortable.  All in all, it wasn’t a bad start for a road trip!