Nicaragua = Crater Lake, Voodoo Donuts, wait, where are we anyway?

We're nearing the end of our time here in Nicaragua, but there is no end to the interesting things around here

We've spent a couple weeks now touring around Nicaragua, visiting many areas and engaging in many activities.  Without knowing what to expect upon our arrival, it's been a real eye-opener, with such a variety of things that we never expected. 

Our son TK and his wife Jenny live in a rather isolated small farm community near the village of San Juan del Sur.   Before arriving there earlier this week, we spent most of our time exploring the rest of Nicaragua.  

Once we finally hit San Juan, we were able to experience how TK and Jenny live, and it ain't easy.  They live in a "homestead" where they are working to establish themselves, but it needs a lot of work.  The neighbors are happy to have them there, as their place was abandoned and neglected for many years.  

When one of the neighbors heard that that TK and Jenny are staying there, they exclaimed, "Oh, they live in the Pizza Hut house!"  You might understand what they mean when you see what it looks like:

It's totally off the grid, miles from a paved road, with solar power and a well.  In the picture above, you can see the water tank up behind the house, with solar panels on top.  But it's a challenging way to live.  The climate is hot, humid, primitive, and frankly ... brutal.  

TK and Jenny want to create a life for themselves in this kind of place, with sustainable organic permaculture farming.  It will take a real commitment. 

Fiona and I have been around to a lot of places - and this place is one of the more difficult to get used to.  For instance, there's an astounding amount of critters ... and bugs - scorpions are quite common - along with a serious mosquito problem.  It's not a terribly clean place (I don't want to be unkind, but many visitors would consider it filthy and gross). I managed to severely damage my foot on this trip and it's been very hard to heal in this climate.   

But amongst all this hardship, and a history of political upheaval, what is one word that describes the people of Nicaragua?  That word would be - happy - these people are always smiling and pleasant and surprisingly content. 

How Do People End Up Here?

This place is really far from anywhere, and in addition to the locals, has attracted a mixture of oddballs and misfits from around the world.  If you want to get off the beaten path, this is the place to do it - see story below.  The nearby town of San Juan has some interesting features and characters. 

The Cathedral in the town plaza is simple but elegant, built a couple centuries ago by catholic missionaries who came to the new world to carve out a place.   

A Story ------------------

So we were having coffee by the small bay where the Pacific meets the shore in San Juan.  We were having donuts from a place with a local cult following, much like Voodoo Donuts in Portland. (on a much smaller scale).

And we're sitting at this coffee house by the beach munching on donuts and enjoying our mocha, and this very unusual lady walks by with at least six dogs on a leash (one of them only had three legs), and a large white bird on her arm.  It was very curious, quite weird actually.  This kind of thing attracts a lot of attention, and there was another dog barking at them.    

So this lady, who appeared to be quite elderly, was dragging all the dogs along the beach while trying to chase off the other dog, who seemed to consider the whole thing to be a game.  She had a stick and kept waving it at the other dog to chase it off.  

While we watched this bizarre situation unfold, my companions suggested that I should get a picture for the blog, so naturally I set out with camera in hand (my trusty iPhone).  Surprisingly it was hard to keep up with the unfolding drama.  

Eventually I had to snap a picture from afar.  I couldn't get close enough to get a better picture.  The local citizens were quite amused with her, as I was.  It was strange.  I'm not sure how common this was, maybe she does this every day?  But it was certainly unique to me and my travel companions. 

Oregon is not the only place with a Crater Lake

We arrived at our destination this afternoon, at a place called Laguna de Apoyo, which is a large collapsed volcano, filled in with a really big lake.  Oregonians will be familiar with this concept, as we have a National Park in our state named ... Crater Lake. 

This place was notably similar.   We had our late afternoon dinner by the side of the lake, and these scenes will look like something many people from Oregon would recognize, maybe with some different flora and fauna.

It was the end of a sultry day, and eventually big thunderstorms developed and dumped a huge amount of rain out of the sky, along with thunder and lightening.  All in all, it was quite a display of mother nature.