Balance restored,
Managua and San Juan Del Sur.
After feeling like we had just bought a roughed up Mamma Mia film set with the bat poo for good share. My head was reeling slightly from the reality of fixing this massive project and its location. Even though my husband and I have renovated before we did not know the ways in this country and it would be a big
learning curve.
We settled into a two room guest house that was lovely and cool, clean and very secure on the outskirts of the local town so was much quieter. The was a young man called Kenneth who lived there and we could get his help when needed. The hostel was owned by a Nica lady living in Miami. We had a contained courtyard where Kennedy could run around, but he choose to be in the air-condition too. Because the guest house didn’t have a kitchen we had to venture out to the takeaways options and markets straight away. Other than the restaurant down the lane from us we found deep fried chicken vendors and BBQ chicken vendors. The supermarket was small and i did not recognize much. We later found a second supermarket that was better. Its amazing what you see when your head is not in a whirlwind.
Needless to say I was in a real state, It was a full moon week and I was feeling disappointed that we would not be living in our house until it had some major clean ups. Evie was also saying she wanted to go home and not leaving the room. We went down to the house with the rented taxi, which we realized was a dud as we had to push started every time. Todd eventually disconnected the wires to keep the charge in the battery so we could go immediately. We had discussions with Marlon our project manager at the property about replacing the tiled roofs with palm roofs and so that was to start this week. A team of 3 workers arrived to dismantle the tiles off the roof and a huge mess was created on the ground. Step one of the new renovations!
Todd realized we needed tools, and wanted to get a water blaster at least to clean off the bat poo and pealing walls. So our option was to head to Managua the capital city about a hour away. Its the capital, as its central location. The kids were to continue with school online so they stayed at the hostel with Kennedy. The drive to Managua was up a curly road, a bit like the road to Akaroa, but with more crazy vehicles to be aware of. Some were driving in the middle of the road up or down the hill, over taking up or down this hill, and just stopping on the road for no reason and not pulling off the road. Its enough to give you a heart attack if you not prepared. And furthermore it was the other side of the road for us. Thank god Todd was driving. The view from the top was amazing. There was bush and hills were stretching for miles and a if the haze would be clearer then you might get a glimpse of the ocean.
Managua city is on the crater, Lake Managua, but you don’t get to see it for the hectic buildings, wires hanging everywhere and fumes. We enter from the top the hill down and thank god it was a one way entry as it was very congested. We found a spaghetti junction highway wrapping around and took the wrong turn and actually got stopped by the police. They checked the vehicle had three sets of vehicle registration and were let go, stroke of luck.
We were headed to shop called Sensa, which is a bit like bunnings. And surprised that the air conditioned building was stocked like a bunnings, gave us a sense of calmness and set about looking at the pricing. It was about the same for tools in NZ but homewares pieces were more expensive in some categories. We did learn that it is the top expensive shop to go to. On our way home went into a Walmart and and grabbed some coffee mugs, containers, cleaning gear, some groceries and a blender which we intended to have fruit smoothies, ice coffees and margaritas in.
On our way home we forgot about rush hour and in Managua its no different than any other city. I remember seeing a horse cart buggy trotting up the hill in the traffic with a huge American school bus spewing out fumes right up beside it and then motorbikes weaving all around, poor thing. Fortunately the mayor of Managua had a great idea and installed traffic police to help flow the traffic. They are armed and I wondered what it would take for them to use it? Hectic city to say the least.
To make my kids feel balanced I decide to contact our friend Pascale in San Juan Del Sur to make a visit on the weekend. Pascale is our Kiwi friend who found us the property, and close friend from New Zealand. She said there were many expats living down there so come and hang out.
By the end of the week after realizing all our cleaning efforts were a bit useless because water only came five times a week and we were there on the wrong days. And the water sprayer was a not powerful enough either. Also I couldn’t find a laundromat and resigned to take a big bag of sweety clothes to San Juan Del Sur in hoping that the friend would have a machine to borrow.
I think we were the only permanent gringos in Quizala so far that I knew about and felt a bit out of our comfort zone. The obvious language barrier too was dawning on us all. Although the people here were friendly and welcoming, I was assured that we should still get a security guard or a caretaker on our property while away. So we used a local guy whose wife’s family had lived on the beach for a couple of generations. He checked on the lights and locks for a small fee. Jarvin is a very friendly guy, and also takes our payments for our bills to the offices for us too.
The road to San Juan, is back up the windy hills but this time south through three or four congested towns then on to travel parallel to the largest lake “Largo Cacibolca” in Nicaragua and central America. It has two adjoining conical volcanos, Volcan Conception and Reserva De Biofera. Just recently it blue a huge spurt of steam and it doesn’t do that too often. But they are amazing to view from the lake edge. Reminds me of Mt Taranaki but no snow and the water is like swimming in a bath.
Finally arriving in San Juan Del Sur, the tourist capital, we were housed up with new friends Glen and Nic who are Kiwis and their teen daughters. And the reunion with Pascal and her husband was awesome too. We settled into a good old fashioned kiwi bbq and evening packed with great food, laughter, cards and comfortable chatter. Balanced was restored somewhat! The next morning was a boat trip organized to view the blue whales before their migration north begins. Our kids went with a team of kiwis and Australians while Todd and I had a brunch together, a much needed chill for our minds and souls too.
San Juan is a beautiful cove beach settled with rocky cliffs edging the entrance. It has a huge statue of Jesus Christ on one cliff. There are clapboard Victorian houses and and many cafes and beach bars. Its home to many expats and the building, and hotel sectors are sky rocking. Just as well we don’t live here because there’s a six month wait until a builder. There is a new Motorway under construction running the pacific coast line. It will go past our community at some stage too making San Juan a 45 minutes not 3 hours.
We also visited another Kiwi whose started up a Pickleball court/ bar and outdoors center. I and the kids had a go and loved it. The game is a bit like Padda tennis and has become the fastest new sport in the USA. This has given us the idea to add a court to our property and invite teams to come, holiday and play games. The camps have become a lucrative in central America so why not Quizala, Nicaragua!
We were very grateful for our visit to the expat community in San Juan that welcomed our family. And with laundry done and The bonus of finding a gruntier water blaster right beside the washing machine we headed back up to our challenge. This would be the start great friendships and fond visits to San Juan del Sur.