Susan's Visit: Part I

(The next few posts will be a bit more of a travelogue than what I’ve been posting up to this point, since we spent most of the week traveling and doing the “tourist thing.”  I hope that the posts will meet with Susan’s approval, but if not, I may be editing them in the future.   It really was a great week!)

Susan arrived about 6:30 on March 1, too late for a bus to Sabana Grande, so we had a hotel room in Managua.  The highlight (other than seeing Susan, of course!) was my first warm shower in about 6 weeks.  Since Managua is so hot, we splurged and got a hotel with AC AND hot water!  (Although a splurge in Nicaragua is only about US$40 per night.)  The hotel, called The Güegüense (hopefully I can write a bit later about the significance of the name), was very nice and each room had a theme based on a region/city in Nicaragua.  We were in the Río San Juan room and in addition to a mural, there were Nicaraguan/Spanish sayings written on the walls.

Picture of the wall mural on our hotel room wall.  You can also see fragments of the sayings on the walls.  The Río San Juan is the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica and the Nicas are VERY adamant that the river is 100% Nica.  (I think there are some border disputes and disagreements about resource management in the area.)  This particular mural honors a woman who fought for Nicaraguan sovereignty against the infamous William Walker in the 1850s.  (I’ll put a bit more about William Walker in my post about Granada, but Google if you can’t wait.)

We caught a morning bus (without incident) and arrived in Sabana Grande in time for lunch.  We mostly just walked around, introducing Susan to the folks I know and work with here, but we did take a little hike to La Maisuta (another small community within Sabana Grande, but on the other side of the mountain ridge) to see the pottery coop.  Their main product is a filter made from porous clay that is coated treated with colloidal silver for purification, but they also make some fun, decorative stuff.  The neatest things, unfortunately, were too big and too fragile to travel with.  They happened to be firing when we were there, so we saw some of that, too.

Susan in the bus station in Managua already trying out some Spanish with a little girl.

Wood-fired kiln at the potter coop in La Maisuta.  Interestingly, they had a thermocouple with a digital read-out to measure the temperature.

A couple of pictures of preparing the clay.  They collect the clay locally and sift out the particles that are too big.  Just as we were watching, disaster struck and their collection basin gave way.  Somewhat ironically, the sun came out at that moment—seems like bad karma, but they took it very calmly.  I hope we weren't the jinx.

The other major activity we did was the Somoto Canyon tour that I took back in January.  The weather was perfect and it was just as impressive as before, so I won’t repeat commentary, but just put in a few pics to prove we had a good time.  We did experience something new for us but common for Nicaraguans on the way home.  As we waited for shared cab to go by, another group that had been in the canyon at the same time drove by in their pickup and offered us a ride part way, so I got my first ride in the back of a pickup since about 1958 on my uncle’s farm;  I’m not sure if Susan has ever done it before.

Susan and guide Olvin at the park entrance.

Susan and me at the start of the canyon.

I’m putting this in because I know Susan would like to see it to remind her than I actually got into water voluntarily.

Susan in the back of the pickup truck heading back to Somoto--no seat belt, no helmet!

A shot near the church in Sabana Grande on a Friday.  The Catholic church was doing a Lenten processional.  It just happened to be going on when we were there.  We missed several more of these along our route, but didn't know about them ahead of time.