Summer in Nicaragua

The lazy life!

Days here are lazy, we really have no major goals from day to day so we try to get a little exercise by walking on the beach, swimming or bicycling. We were able to rent a couple of bikes from some local Nica friends for a couple months, giving “us” wheels and “them” a little income. The roads here are rough rock and gravel like a Colo. Mountain road then throw in a little mud clay. Once you get out to the new in-process black-topped road to Chinandega what was a two hr. van ride when we first got here, is now only 45 minutes.

We go in to Chinandega every other week for groceries and supplies, eat a meal out in the Marina restaurant and a local fish camp restaurant each once a week. Ice cream is a treat in town and at the marina on those special nights when a cruiser leaves to head north or south. A lot of days we take a lunch out to the beach palapa, take a 2 to 3 mile fast walk on the beach, eat our lunch and spend our day reading under the shade enjoying the sea breeze.

Two to three days a week we spend a couple hours teaching English to the restaurant staff and on Sundays we teach Pedro our favorite local Nica. We have really become closer to the community here by helping. We also got involved with a rain water recovery for drinking project donated by a fellow (lady) cruiser. That gave us great satisfaction.

The boat collects a lot of mildew and we try to keep up with that. The batteries stay charged from the two solar panels alone unless we watch a movie or do something else on the computer and have to run the engine for a half hour or so to recharge. Staying on the dock has been a wonderful, if expensive, convenience and helped to keep us sane. Tom and Ann sail their canoe a lot and we some times join them sailing in our Klepper. We have taken some fun trips into the estuary, sailing as well as paddling.

The rainy season so far has not been terribly bad unless a low pressure system is coming in. Then the air is still and humid for a day and night and quite uncomfortable. The temperature seems to stay anywhere from 78 to 85 degs. and the humidity usually 70% to 80%. Over 72% is uncomfortable unless there is a breeze. Enough of this boring shit. Life in the tropics………Looking forward to our first visitors south of Mexico, Brian and Nancy Sperry!!!

One if the many Butterflies that are found in the tropical rainforest. This one landed on a plant while we were hiking around the crater of Volcano Mombacho. We stayed in the dormitory --we were the only people there--and did a night hike to see the red eyed tree frogs, then in the morning, hiked the 2.5 mile rainforest hike with a guide and it took us 3 hours!!! The trail was full of steep ups and steep downs.