Choridedos and Vení, cagame! Muriendo de risa en Estelí

I finally pried myself away from Masaya, hitching a ride to the bus station at the back of the Mercado Municipal from Marbel's dad, loaded up with gifts from the family -- trinkets and snacks for the road, zapote and a heavy portion of moist sopa borracha, a traditional spice cake bathed in a sugar-sweetened aguardiente.  Off to Estelí.

The drive to northern Nicaragua is refreshing, driving through verdant mountains, distant volcanoes framed against the sky, the air noticably cooler.  Arriving in Estelí I thought I'd check out my old digs, Hospedaje El Chepito.  There was a new TV in the corridor around which the rooms are arranged.  Inside the rooms, the walls had been redone, extended all the way to the ceiling, buffering sleepers from the snores and proclivities of their neighbors.  The concrete floors had also been tiled.

On the other hand, huespedes now gathered in front of the TV, watching at full volume until some hour long after I'd gone to bed.  There was also an impressive cockroach infestation; when I brushed against one of my shoes the next morning, two cockroaches scuttled from their dark refuge under its sole.  The shared toilet was also sans seat, yet someone had bricked the lay-up, smearing a portion of the extra-wide rim with waste (it was cleaned, mostly, by the next morning).  My bed was covered in some sort of crumb, and there was no sheet with which to cover myself, so I was forced to rise at various points of the night to layer myself against the cool.  A long sleeve shirt, first.  Later, socks.

I changed hostels the next morning, spent a night in a dorm at a backpacker-populated joint, remembered that, for the sake of undisturbed sleep, I prefer to have my own room, and moved to Hostal Santa María the next morning.  More cheaply rented rooms in a nice family home than a true hostel, it was a gem: clean, cheap, a nice family and a desayuno típico included in the price.

My days in Estelí were spent walking familiar streets; sitting on the curb, sipping cans of Toña with Eddy and Santiago; chatting with Isamara.  Not sweating.  More than anything else, I spent afternoons with Luz Marina, relaxing on benches in the shaded parque infantil, chatting for hours, laughing frequently como retardados.  We're a silly pair, from two separate worlds.  Her favorite food is gallo pinto. She lives in one of the barrios somewhere far across the panamericana, somewhere I've yet to visit.  She doesn't like to walk there after dark, and she needs to help her mother prepare dinner, so the descent of the sun whispers for us, hasta mañana.  Her mom toils, sunup to sundown, and earns less than US$100 monthly, and on afternoons that she plays the lottery, at a dollar per ticket, accompaniment for the gallo pinto becomes a longshot.  Her father, with arthritic knees, is barely able to work.  A brother contributes some, and gifts Luz Marina a few pesitos when he can.  A cousin in the US wires money, when he can; infrequently, recently, as he'd been saddled with expensive personal medical bills.  She can't afford the medical attention she might need.  She hasn't gone out to enjoy the city's nightlife since I last took her out, over two years ago.  She's as good a friend as I have.

We walked out of the city to La Casita, went out to lunches at restaurants she had only glanced at before.  Mostly, we laughed, and smiled, and enjoyed.


Yesterday afternoon we said goodbye, I caught a cab from my hostal to Cotran Sur and, a bus change later, stepped down in León, drips of sweat from the tip of my nose discoloring the dust at my feet.  If I were sleeping in a leak-free coffin equipped with an industrial air conditioner, it might not be enough. 

Staying in what's truly a backpacker hostel, at least fifty beds, the bar area is a whirlwind of English-speaking, Spanish-butchering Europeans and a bilingual staff; loud packs of travelers cackle drunkenly from every corner.  I'm suddenly at a loss for how to communicate.  I drink a liter at the bar, aware of the path of each individual drop of sweat sliding and stopping and sliding again down my back.

But the city is beautiful, the architecture impressive.  And every new destination promises new culinary experiences, like the repocheta asada, a corn tortilla, estilo nicaragüense, folded, filled with cheese, and grilled, served hot with pickled onions and a cabbage salad.  To combat the heat, a raspado -- quite simply, shaved ice swimming in condensed milk, or whichever other syrup of your choice.  Whether the ice is frozen agua pura, and whether the haggard iceman has washed his hands anytime, ever, before scraping the block, then molding the shavings into a packed dome in your bowl, are questions one can't really consider, especially with a size large not even rounding fifty cents.  And the blackish flecks caught in the cloyingly sweet, light-brown stew, well, I'm just hoping that was cinnamon crusted under his fingernails.