Coffee: In Love and War
Several years ago, a coffee shop near my work had seasonal Nicaraguan coffee beans for sale. Coffee bags with big letters NICARAGUA featured an image of a man in a blue shirt holding a basket of ripe coffee cherries. The name of the coffee was “Don Zeledon”, and the coffee […]
Somoto Canyon: The River Runs Through It
Start with Part I here In the last post, I left off just as we reached the bottom of the Somoto Canyon and, incidentally, the Nicaraguan border with Honduras. As it turns out, the Rio Coco River, which runs through Somoto Canyon, divides Honduras and Nicaragua along most of its […]
Somoto Canyon: The What, the Why, and the How
We were eating breakfast in our Granada Airbnb, the standard affair of rice, beans, eggs, and plantains, when Victor loudly snickered and put down the book he had been leafing through. It was an old, torn-up Nicaraguan guidebook he found on the bookshelf among poetry books by Ruben Dario and […]
Español Nicaragüense Es Pura Deacachimba
My First Post in Spanish “Sabes qué,” me dijo el guia nicaragüense, “eres el primer gringo que conozco que habla español muy bien.” Estabámos en la cima del Volcán Telica, a cien metros del cráter, y no podía creer lo que acababa de eschuchar. Antes de visitar Nicaragua, no podía […]
Volcano Day: Up We Go
In 2014, Victor was in Panama, and his favorite story was visiting Embera village and watching a pet toucan wash itself in a small outdoor sink. Victor turned on the faucet to wash his hands, and the bird flew right in and started splashing around and trying to awkwardly fit […]
Volcano Day: Down We Go
The way it usually goes is like this: Victor plans the itinerary, and I book the transportation and accommodations. One thing about Victor is that he is meticulous, detail-oriented, and thorough. He doesn’t make mistakes, he doesn’t forget small details, he doesn’t just leave off details from the itinerary for […]
