NICARAGUA BY THE LAKE

Nicaragua, land of sun, of beautiful lakes, a plain yellow coloured country where cattle and sugar cane grow for miles and where people still look back again when they see a strange face pass by. Nicaragua is a big country, developing very fast with the arrival of a great number of foreigners that are buying land and building their businesses, but people of Nicaragua are still very poor. It seems, from what you see in neighbouring towns, these foreign investments are not going to help them much.

I have travelled from Costa Rica to Rivas, Nicaragua to study raptor migration along a relatively small corridor that exists between the Pacific Ocean and the Nicaragua Lake, the biggest lake in the country. We have already spotted migration along some defined routes on both sides of the lake. It is nothing magnificent like at Kèköldi, but it has been a great experience so far, totally worth it.

Rivas is a small town with a lot of good internet-cafés (I have counted 6 so far!), 2 pizza places called Pizza HOT and HOTTERS Pizza… funny names. Near Rivas there is also a restaurant specialized in all sorts of dishes made with meat from local animals – from agoutis to boa snake, from iguana to armadillo. Seafood is also very good, including all sorts of ceviches, fish, shrimps and lobster, and even something called cucaracha del mar (sea roach)… only that name gives me the creeps! The typical breakfast (gallo pinto) includes rice with beans, corn tortillas, fresh cheese and meats or egg.

But I must say the coffee was a BIG disappointment… people around here only drink soluble coffee… it is simply HORRIBLE and there is no other word to describe it.

We tried to find a nice bag of coffee at the supermarket. No, impossible, there is NO real coffee to be found. We went to the market in search of a “chorreador” (the little sock filter and support to do proper coffee). NO luck there either. And one lady told us in her disapproving voice “Ah, only ticos and gringos ask for that kind of thing!” And they wanted to sell us a plastic strainer for that, which would of course melt if you’d try to pass boiled water through it. It was funny.

Finally, despair and headaches were starting to affect our sense of humour and also our working capacity, so we decided to ask someone to send us good coffee and a “chorreador” from Costa Rica, which is not so far away from here. So today, I hope, was the last day we had to drink coffee that literally tastes like soil!

People get around by using their bicycles or little tricycle taxi carts. Sometimes you see bicycles carrying 3 people! The country is very flat so I guess I would do the same if I lived here!

We visited the colonial style city of Granada. On a wall they wrote in bright colours “Granada, Nicaragua, more beautiful than Granada, Spain”. Well, I advice everyone here and everywhere to go visit Granada in Spain and then tell me about it…! The Spanish Granada is THE city, one of the most beautiful cities I have EVER seen anywhere in the world.

The Nicaraguan Granada has its beauty and the colonial houses are amazing. I will try to search for some more information concerning the history of this city and why it grew to be so important in the time of the colonies.

We visited a kind of touristy cigar factory – shop. People were very friendly and we got to see how they do cigars. The tobacco leaves smell so good! We went to the most important churches and to the San Francisco Convent, there you can see the cloisters, the chapel, and an interesting exposition on the history of Nicaragua and the pre-columbine indigenous cultures of this region. There was an outside room with an amazing collection of big stone sculptures that picture a human and an animal protecting them – jaguar, turtle, eagle or crocodile. Another part of the exposition featured the story of the most renowned Nicaraguan poet, Rúben Darío. I will try to find a book from him and write one of his poems here. And finally they had a collection of naïve paintings from Nicaraguan artists. It was very interesting to see all the detail these artists put in their paintings… on one of them we found something that could be described as birds filling the sky as if they were migrating… maybe swallows, maybe raptors… who knows! The funny thing is it represented a battle that occurred at a specific place called San Jacinto, and we have been there and saw a lot of raptors migrating! VERY interesting!

In our permanent search for a decent cup of coffee we had lunch at an amazing world cuisine restaurant in Granada, called “El Tercer Ojo” (The Third Eye). I had real Spanish gaspacho (cold vegetable soup) and Pablo had a whole plate of different Spanish embutidos (smoked sausages) and Manchego cheese. What a treat!! Tired and full we ventured to ask the lady if they had coffee… what a surprise when she said THEY HAD ESPRESSOS! What an amazing ending for a perfect meal!

Close to where we live there is also a little beach town called San Juan del Sur, beautiful sunsets over the Pacific (something I really miss from back home in Portugal are the sunsets on the ocean!), nice cafes and sometimes awesome sailing ships to watch! Some very rich people pass through here…!

We are living at a nice little house outside Rivas, just about 10 minutes from the Costa Rican border. It is nice to get home after the fieldwork in the blazing sun and wind, and have a swimming pool and a river-facing front porch waiting for you… mmm! We can cook and have a nice living room and 2 large bedrooms. It is a great house and people are very friendly!

Most amazing birds we have seen so far…

… Millions of Barn Swallows! Today driving from the border they crossed the road back and forth in thousands eating insects flying from burning fields.

… Listening to the loud Magpie Jays, with their beautiful light blue and white plumage. … Watching a pair of Peregrine Falcons perching, hunting, preening, by the lake for at least 3 hours.

… Ospreys all over the place, fishing in the lakes, probably passing by or juveniles staying here for a whole year.

… Meadowlarks whit there bright yellow and black breasts, perched on a fence by a country road.

… Cattle, Snowy and Great Egrets, herons, cormorants and frigate birds everywhere!

… An American Kestrel that Pablo only spotted because there were some kids riding a horse and passed by the place where it was eating on the floor. So it flew off and perched on a electricity post. What a beautiful bird!

… Crested Caracaras sitting on a nest!

We have been working a lot, 7 days a week… something that I have grown accustomed to do in Costa Rica. It is hard to have this study to do and at the same time having to coordinate the Kèköldi projects from faraway.

Sometimes my head is so dreamy and faraway thinking about Kèköldi, the volunteers, about home or about things we have to organize soon, that I have no control over my actions… Until now I have lost my 2 Nalgene water bottles - one lost in the middle of Granada and the other on some unknown spot on a road – I have spilled all sorts of food items on tables, floor, who knows where else! The wind is so strong here that I have almost lost some datasheets that got loose in my hands. By this time they could be floating in the Pacific Ocean! I hope nothing else happens!

OK, that’s all for now! I hope everything is GREAT with each one of you. Wherever you are, I am thinking about you!

Please keep in touch everyone! I know I am writing only in English, but these messages are for everyone that I care about and for everyone who still wonders what crazy Alice is doing or where she is these days. I honestly have no time to translate it to Portuguese, Spanish and French!

Beijinhos! Abrazos! A big hug! Bisous!