Thursday, February 23, 2012

Nicaragua (Part 3)

Continued from Part 1 and Part 2

 

William enjoyed his first experience of seeing wild howler monkeys during our trip to Nicaragua, but I am not sure he actually saw much because they were so far up in the trees.

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He got bored with them much more quickly than I did and had Rob take him back to play with Itzel.

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William refused to take a bath the entire time we were in Nicaragua.  Actually, taking a bath was not really an option for him, as there was only a cold-water shower.  We tried to get him into the shower, but he would not have it.  There was a lot of screaming.  He was so dirty.  He invented a game with his new BFF Itzel (Al and Esther's daughter) which involved picking up rocks off the ground and throwing them.  When Itzel tired of that and left to do something else, Will contented himself by literally playing in the dirt.

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Will's general level of dirtiness did not seem to hamper him from making new friends.  One of the best parts about this trip was the way I saw Will interacting with other kids.  He wasn't shy at all.  He would just go up to any kid he saw and start playing with them.  The language barrier did not deter him.  He also made friends with adults, teenagers, and really anyone of any age.  He took a special liking to Ruth, one of the nannies to Al and Esther's kids.

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I had a touch of the Vortex overnight on Thursday (Feb 16) and early Friday (Feb 17) morning, which I maintain is not because I drank tap water in either Moyogalpa or Mérida.  Luckily no one else got it, and I made a full recovery by about 8:00am.

Rob left on the 8:30am bus to head back to Moyogalpa on Friday (the 17th).  The race was to start on Saturday morning at 4am in Moyogalpa, and it finished in Mérida, so Will and I were going to stay and wait for him there.

I was a bit desperate to get Will cleaned up, so I convinced him (actually, this didn't take much convincing) to go for a swim in Lake Nicaragua.  Not quite a bath, but perhaps the next best thing.  The water was frigid, but Will loved it, and I figured that at this time of day there was very little risk of a shark attack.

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Forget about the sharks and swim

After Rob left to go back to Moyogalpa, Will and I walked into "town."  He had some trouble stumbling over the many rocks along the road, and he fell a couple of times.  We stopped to take some pictures.

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The road into town

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Nicaraguan house

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Primary school

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Waiting for a jugo de toronja at Soda Keren

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Nicaraguan house

On the way back we stopped at Clara and Jehu's  house to say hello.  They have a fruit stand and I bought some bananas from them.  Will had finally gone long enough without eating that he actually sat there and took a few bites of banana.  I took some pictures, and the best part of this is that Clara was not actually cooking at the time, she just grabbed the spoon to have in her hand as a prop right before I snapped the photo.

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One of their children had a "Sully" stuffed animal-- a character from the movie Monsters Inc.  This is a movie that Will is really into right now.  He wanted that toy.  The kids were very happy to let him play with it. Will even relinquished his grip on the Lightening McQueen car (that he carries everywhere with him) and let them play with it while he admired Sully.

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Unfortunately, when I felt it was time to leave, Will was not ready to let go of Sully.  He threw a monster fit, right there in the dirt.  He wanted Sully so bad.  The kids actually offered to let him have the toy. I said, no no no no.  William has many things, he does not need to take this toy.  They offered to trade Sully for McQueen, or to let Will take the toy and return it later in the afternoon.  I knew that Will would never give Sully up once the toy was in his possession, and that he would likely come to miss Lightening once he noticed it was missing.  So I declined these offers and said goodbye, forcibly dragging Will back to the Hacienda as he hollared and wailed for Sully.

I unsuccesfully tried to get Will to eat some more food and take a nap.  Then later in the afternoon I rode with Al and Esther and their children and nannies to Charco Verde, where there was a pre-race dinner for the ultramarathon runners.  I got to see Rob again and I also saw Joel (the French-Canadian English teacher back when we lived here), who was going to be running the 25K.  We met Carla, his girlfriend.

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Carla, Joel, Rob, Esther

I headed back to Mérida with Al and Esther that night, and Rob returned to Moyogalpa, to get precious little sleep before the race began at 4am the next morning.

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Continue to Part 4

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

o my!! vortex?? and NOT from the TAP WATER, WHATEVER !!!!!! glad you survived,and NO ONE else got sick!!! the pictures are incredible..... Loved WILL in the DIRT and ALSO in the LAKE>>>>>>> WITH THE SHARKS< TAKING A BATH! is it any WONDER "maw maw nan, was 'a basket case while you were gone/??? Loved the photos with WILL and his 'new friends'!! he's such a charmer , WHO COULD NOT LOVE WILL??? so many stories you can share with him about his adventures , when he gets older!! !! luv and hugs,mama

Anonymous said...

Thank you for all the wonderful pictures and the story about your trip ... loved going along with you and reading the many familiar names of people and places when you lived there. Will is an adorable traveler!!! Your connect with Eduardo was extra special ... and the Joseph Ryan article is excellent!! Thank you again for writing!! lots of love, auntie