On Monday, we went to Catarina. This is a popular town and it has a spot where there are restaurants and shops that overlook Lagun
a de Apoyo, the lake we went swimming at several days ago. The view is impres
sive as you can see Granada in the distance as well as Laguna de Nicaragua. Unfortunately, the view wasn't completely clear, so it was hard to see too far off in the distance.On Tuesday, I was down for the count. I think I had too much sun on Monday and not enough water. I pretty much slept the day and by dinner felt well enough to get up to eat. I think it was later that night that one of the guests found a scorpion in their room. This was just after they had seen a big spider in their room the day before. Their room is below ours and I've been jumpy ever since.
Thursday, we went to San Juan del Oriente where we were able to see the workshop of a family that makes pottery. I have to say, it's incredibly
impressive to see how such beautiful objects can be made with such primitive tools. For those of you interested, the technique is very different from what I learned in my pottery class. The clay is sourced locally from the area as well as other parts of Nicaragua. The clay is mixed with sand and water until it reaches the right consistency. Plates, bowls, vases, etc. ar
e formed using a wheel that is powered by foot power. After forming the object they let it dry until it's ready to either be car
ved or decorated using other colored clay. The colored clay is buffed with a smooth stone or a piece of plastic. Once they have about 80 pieces or so, they do a single firing in a wood burning oven that reaches 900 degrees. The objects are fired for 12 hours. While we didn't buy anything this trip, we have some pottery from our last trip and it was really interesting to finally know how it was made.After visiting the pottery workshop, we went to a family that carves stone. Most of the carvings are quite large and the father works with someone in the U.S. to sell them. I believe t
hat the U.S. seller makes a very nice profit off these hard workers. They don't seem to mind and have actually been able to build a new home that is far superior to where they had been living. Again, all the work is done by hand with primitive tools. We bought a little goddess that weighs about 5-7 pounds. While we liked other pieces, they were far too big to bring back.On Friday, we skipped the normal afternoon activity and went to Masaya to visit the workshop of a man who makes guitars. That was a fun trip as we went with one of the instructors from the school who doesn't speak English. We took microbuses to get to Masaya. These are essentially large vans that they try to cram as many people into as possible. There's a person who drives and another who solicits customers and collects the fares. On the first part of the trip, we were laughing as the fare collector was practically pulling people into the microbus against their will. They must get a percentage of the fares! The second leg wasn't too eventful except that again we were crammed in and I got to use my leg muscles for about 20 minutes to prevent myself from falling against the other passengers. (A real life workout, Vod :-) )
We found the workshop relatively easily and met the owner, Sergio. He speaks English and is very charismatic. He's a third generation guitar maker and has sold guitars to people in many other countries via his website. The guitars are all absolutely beautiful and it's clear he puts a lot of work into
perfecting them. He works with his uncle, nephew and 4 other workers. While we were there, a German chap was learning the process. Sergio said his oldest son wanted nothing to do with the business but he was hoping his daughter or younger son would want to take over the business one day.J.B. was struck with one guitar and after trying it for several mi
nutes and having Sergio make some adjustments, he decided to buy it. I have to say, not only is it beautiful (walnut on the back, red cedar on the front and a fret board of ebony), but it sounds gorgeous. I think J.B. will be quite happy with it.After making this big purchase, we had a discussion about getting it home. J.B. bought a case, but we were debating whether it would survive a ride in a microbus. We decided to postpone the decision in favor of going to a market nearby to check out some t-shirts for our friend Greg and a purse for me. We made it to the market without incident but both Greg and J.B. were quite nervous about walking around in a busy place with such a valuable object, so we didn't stay too long. We checked on the cost of a taxi, but since the microbuses were originating from the market, we thought we could get a good seat on one and it wouldn't be too bad. That was a bit of a mistake! When the microbus finally showed up, there was a huge rush of people to get on it. The poor people getting off barely stood a chance. Jeff was able to get a seat at the front facing backwards, Greg was next to him acting as guitar guard and I was crammed in the very back with 3 other people. Again, they squished as many people as possible onto the bus, with a few hanging out the door. Some guy got on with a big plant that was stuck in J.B.'s face and another got on and gave him a huge empty plastic jug that he perched on top of the guitar. At one point they tried to tie some baskets onto the roof and succeeded in almost strangling J.B. After that inauspicious start, we left the parking lot. Of course, right as we were leaving, a big bus started to pull out and they raced each other for the exit. I seriously thought we were going to get hit, but the bus eventually gave way. After loading on yet a few more passengers, we were finally on our way and made it to our stop without further incident. Just as we entered the town where the school is, we saw a small procession of people carrying the town's patron saint followed by a small band. It's quite common to see this during the weeks preceding Easter. I felt bad for the guys carrying the large statue as it looked rather heavy.
On Saturday, we went to Leon. We were quite excited to be riding in the new microbus that the school had purchased on Wednesday after th
e old one was sent to the junk pile. What we saw of Leon was quite nice. It's similar to Granada but without all the gentrification. Although, we did visit one new hotel that was bought by an American couple and renovated. They did a really nice job of restoring it as authentically as possible. The only negative aspect is that the owners are planning on putting in a casino across from the hotel. It just doesn't seem right for that area. We also had fun going into a local grocery store and getting some necessities. We definitely got some strange looks but people were helpful. After walking around a bit more, we headed home. I think if we were to go again, we'd plan on staying overnight and visiting some of the museums and other parts of the town.Despite the long day, we stayed up late drinking rum and cokes and wishing our friends Cathy and Peter goodbye. They had been at the Mariposa for a month and were heading back to Vancouver Island. We had a lot of good conversations and many laughs with them. We'll miss spending time with them! I owe Peter a big thank you as many of the photographs on the blog came from him. He was also a good sport for putting up with our, or should I say my, teasing.
We also said goodbye earlier in the day to Mary and Miko who were visiting for the week from California. Miko is 12 years old and is a really cute, friendly girl. She had a lot of fun with the various animals and with Paulette's daughter. Mary is an avid birder and shared a lot of her knowledge with us. She also had traveled a lot and shared some great stories of her trips.
We're planning on relaxing on Sunday and gearing up for our trip to Granada on Monday. We leave at the awful hour of 5:30 in order to get to Granada to take a boat ride through the isletas and watch the parade of saints go by. This again, is part of the whole Easter week celebration (or as they call it here, Semana Santa). It's a much bigger event than Christmas and in addition to all the various religious events, there are a lot of fiestas. In fact, we didn't get much sleep last night because of the all night party that was going on nearby. I don't think the music stopped until about 5:00am when the rooster started crowing.
J.B. and Greg had checked out the music earlier in the evening and they weren't sure if there were two events going on or just one. They saw an outdoor ceremony where a woman would read from the bible, then band with a tuba player would play some kind of oompah music, then the woman would read again, etc. There were a lot of families there and it was quite festive.
I think the coming week will be a bit quiet as after Wednesday, places close for the Easter weekend. We're still due to visit one of the volcanoes by night where you can see the lava glowing and a different one during the day on Saturday.
