Pupuciando

Again, it's been a while and as always, much has happened.  The internet has been acting quite shady lately and I'm going to try and slap up as much as possible while the little icon below this text box keeps saying "draft saved."  As I mentioned in the last post, my sister was in town for about twenty days and I am proud to report that Ian made it.  Hanging in the close confines of this casita with two Bonte sisters is worthy of recognition for any who dare try (or are forced to try, for that matter.)  Kisses babe.  We played a ton of Scrabble and Ian finally caught on to the poker-aspect of the game that Sarah and I grew up on - slapping down a word that may or may not exist, with complete confidence.  Eventually, he wised up and started playing words like "que" and "fe" and "ge" and other random two-letter concoctions that are always shady when the Scrabble Dictionary is on hand.  Chances are, it's in there.  (i.e. "mo" - meaning, a moment.  I know.)  I won most of the matches and Sarah blames it on the fact that I got to go after Ian all the time, but failed to acknowledge my degree in English or her blatant inability to spell. 

In other news, we finally experienced our first bout with third world sickness.  We learned a new Nicaraguan word during the course of it - the word is "pupuciando."  I'll give you one guess.  For those who are stumped, it means diarrhea.  I will spare you the details but let's just say that, Ian got it the worst.  Pupuciando was accompanied with vomiting, lower back-ache, chills, dizziness, fever and sore muscles.  There were google moments in the middle of the night - searches included excessive diarrhea, flu symptoms, back break fever and of course, Dengue.  At one point it got scary enough that the only thing that kept us from believing it wasn't Dengue, was the absence of a full-body rash.  Ian's bout lasted a solid forty-eight hours with another full-day recovery.  I got it the next day - mine involved more vomiting, but didn't last as long.  Then Sarah got it.  Over the next few days we came to find out that the entire town of Gigante had gotten it and that the locals were saying it's from the excessive amounts of flies that have been around.  Flies.  Let me just say that one more time.  Flies.  I have already had my personal breakdown moments with these filthy creatures invading our living space.  So what do I proceed to do after hearing this?  Wikipedia house flies for an hour.  Don't, I repeat DON'T do it.  We've resorted to toxic powder in a dish on our counter to keep them away and it's working.  I am one of the last people on earth who would want to put toxins next to our food - the trade-off however, is no longer an option.  Just today, Ian read on one of his frequented Nicaraguan forums that two towns up north have recently experienced town-wide sickness from flies also.  This is no joke people.  There are pigs, cows, chickens, goats, horses, and dogs shitting everywhere in this town and we are ready to be up the valley, in our house, away from the barnyard that is the main street of Gigante.  Bless this little pueblo - but get me out of here.  This was the straw, indeed.  


Okay.  And on to more pleasant things.  Isla de Ometepe.  For Sarah's last days, we embarked on a mini vacation to two beautiful volcanoes in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua, the tenth largest fresh water lake in the world.  Recently dubbed a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Ometepe's landscape reminds me very much of Hawaii.  There are steep volcanoes covered in lush green plant life, flowing rivers, beautiful tropical flowers and a zillion different kinds of butterflies.  Before leaving, we booked two nights at a new eco-lodge called Totoco that had been recommended by a friend, and made a reservation to bring the car over on the ferry.  We decided that we wanted to check-in to the lodge before seeing the sites so we cruised over the paved roads, crossed the isthmus between the two volcanoes, veered left at the split, then the ground turned to jagged rock.  And we thought the road to Gigante was bad!  Slowly but surely, we slammed our way to our destination as Lady Gray's anger swelled.  When we reached the sign for the lodge, our slow ascent up their driveway proved disastrous.  Halfway up the steepest incline we've driven in this country yet, a loud rattling occurred and Lady Gray's idle began sputtering in and out.  Again and again she sputtered and finally we killed the motor and let her rest for a bit.  We fired her up after a couple of minutes and proceeded the rest of the half- kilometer to the top while chanting a Buddhist protection prayer.  Luckily, it was only the radiator cage that had rattled loose and fallen into the fan but man, was it stressful!  Broken down on a steep upgrade with no parking break in the middle of someone's driveway on an island?  When we got to the desk we were told to sit down for our complimentary drink which ended up being some kind of tea made from some find of flower.  Thinking it would be rude to ask for a shot of vodka in their hippie tea, we bit our tongues, then awkwardly sat while their so-called "concierge" struggled through an English introduction and proceeded to pressure us into deciding what activity we wanted to do that afternoon so he could tell their hired guide whether or not he should stick around.  We told him we needed more time to decide and "could we please see our room?"  Noticeably irritated he showed us to our cabana, taught us how to use the compost toilet, and how to convert their twelve volt energy-saving system to 110 so we could charge things if needed.  Then he asked us again, what activity we'd like to do.  We picked none.  Shaded out by the car's status and slightly annoyed by our pushy concierge and the absence of a fan in our room, we had already decided that we weren't staying there both nights, that we were going to get a bottle of rum, get smashed, and make asses of ourselves at dinner.  We enjoyed a lovely afternoon of Scrabble and Flor de Caña on our porch.  Then we went to dinner and ate a ridiculously over-priced version of dried-up beef nuggets with white rice and a sugarless, minuscule brownie for dessert.  Fifteen dollars!  We spared them the scene and decided bed was the best option for us.  I forgot to mention that their website promised a pool and satellite television, neither of which they had.  The next day's quest was to find a place with ESPN so we could watch game 7 of the Lakers series.  On the eco-lodge's behalf, their property was stunning, the rooms were beautiful and if they weren't trying so hard, they might really have a good thing going.  They did forget to add our bar tab to the bill.  So that was nice.  Day two on the island brought us to a nice fresh water spring with the clearest water I've ever seen and a cool little walk around a lagoon and up onto a ridge overlooking the lake.  We found a clean, inexpensive place on the lake that had satellite TV and we were able to watch the Lakers defeat the Celtics in game 7 with only one minor power outage in the fourth quarter.  In the morning, we hopped the earliest ferry and headed over to San Juan del Sur.  Ian and I walked the beach and Sarah arranged a surf at Maderas.  We had plans on eating at a nice Mediterranean restaurant when I was stricken with another sickness.  I was so bummed.  By about ten o'clock I was feeling better and I attempted dinner with Sarah downstairs.  I managed to get down a little bit of chicken and rice while she sipped a cocktail.  It was lovely despite the circumstances.  She's back in Denver now, about to embark on a trip to China and Australia for her summer job and I miss her already.            

            

So, not much else.  They're painting the outside of the house this week and the solar panel will hopefully arrive in the near future too.  Lady Grey finally has windshield wipers but today we discovered a leak in the gas tank.  The car is currently in Rivas being welded.  One thing after the other.  We have more guests coming on Thursday.  Allegra and her sister are at the start of their round the world trip and southern Nicaragua is on their itinerary.  Woohoo!  Another girl to surf with.  This post is officially too long so I'll wrap it up.  Thanks for reading everyone.  

Our mechanic Douglas - the guy who gets all of our money

Douglas' entourage