Managua, Nicaragua, 29 November 2000
With the trickling-off of the rainy season in early October came an
onslaught of Hurricane Mitch-related activities that threatened to
bury me in October and November, and now that I finally have time to
breath and contemplate again, I realize the northern autumn has drawn
to a close and Orion has begun his winter's climb through the night
sky. Winter is nearly upon us.
Upon you, that is. Here in tropical Managua it's still 85 and I can
break a sweat while toweling-off after my morning shower, and during
my lunch break I have the good fortune to be able to go out and swim
laps under an azure sky. There are disadvantages to living in
Managua, but frostbite isn't one of them.
Continue reading "Orion Rising"
The passing centuries haven't changed the rhythm of La Flor, a quiet Pacific cove in the south of Nicaragua. Every year between July and January, this particular Nicaraguan beach is the scene of a massive turtle nesting, when the Paslama turtle arrives in hordes to lay eggs in the beach sand. Weeks later after sundown, hundreds and hundreds of baby turtles smaller than the palm of one's hand claw their way out of the shell and make their way down the beach to the water's edge.
La Flor was a long long drive away from Managua, but the night Ericka and I were there the moon was full; and the magic of the moonlit coast, the soft waves breaking on the sand, and the hundreds and hundreds of little turtles heading out to sea were unforgettable.
06 October 2000, Managua, Nicaragua
Early mornings before sunrise the kittens over my head wake up and
start meowing, beating my alarm clock to the punch by thirty minutes.
They're the second litter of kittens that's been born and raised on
top of my roof since I moved to Managua, and these fuzzy little guys
are driving me just as crazy as their predecessors did back in June.
But not much else is new in Managua, so I've been escaping weekends
and holidays to wander my way through the Nicaraguan countryside in
search of a little peace and to remember why I stayed on in Central
America.
Continue reading "Hot Springs and Kitties"
Beautiful Lake Apanás, constructed in the '60s by President Somoza and nearly destroyed in the '90s by Hurricane Mitch. It's long and wide and really not all that deep- in some places you can spot cattle way out in the middle grazing in water up to their bellies- but it's the source of half of the nation's hydropower, and it's gorgeous on a cloudy day.
The stone embankment is an emergency measure installed post-hurricane Mitch. Off in the distance, the mountains of Jinotega contain hillsides full of coffee and oranges.
20 August 2000, Managua, Nicaragua
Wending my way down the Masaya highway on the way to work every
morning, I get caught up in a brutal swirl of vehicles desperately
struggling to advance through the narrow concrete streets. The bent
up buses belch hydrocarbons in black spumes and tempers ignite as we
do laps around the new traffic circles, while, around the perimeter,
bland concrete structures and government propaganda on wooden
billboards emphasize how aesthetically unpleasing Managua is to the
eye. There's very little that's beautiful in Managua. And faced with
the grimness of this tropical city in the beginning of the 21st
century, it's hard not to think of Managua as it was in prehistoric
times.
Continue reading "Sweet Managua"
11 July, 2000
This episode begins with me waist deep in the waters of the Tipitapa
outlet, where the waters from one enormous Central American lake flow
into another. "You know, I can tell that stream is experiencing
supercritical flow just by watching the way it goes around you," the
hydrologic engineer I work with is yelling across the wind. "Hey,
how's the water, anyway?" Hydrologist humor. The water is putrid,
actually, and reeks of the millions of Managuan toilets that flush
directly into it, and I'm not pleased at all to be immersed in it.
Continue reading "Parakeets and Earthquakes"
Managua, Nicaragua:
I flew from Newark after having waited all of April for a truly warm
spring-and-daffodil day in the northeast. Slightly sunburned and
truly exhausted from a hurried three and a half weeks in the USA, I
returned to Nicaragua to blazing tropical heat and a country I know
well, but not at all. I arrived to the smoke of farmers burning
fields and a tropical haze that seeps messily into my every pore and
soaks my clothing. At 6PM at the airport, it was 85° and humid and
wonderful. I caught a cab to my new place in Las Colinas, unpacked
and tried to sort out the past month's worth of running around.
Continue reading "Under the Mango Tree"
