Nicaragua is a hoot. Upon arrival yesterday, I wasn’t sure what to think; Leon is not an immediately beautiful place. It is crowded, with narrow cobblestone streets and fading buildings. Trash lines the street, and cars rush by, belching exhaust into your face. (charming) The sun is brutal, and the first thing I learned here is to stay on the shady side of the street. This can be a perilous endeavor when vendors and children and shopping Nicas crowd the narrow sidewalks, which are often several feet off the ground.
In fact, as I walked around yesterday afternoon (first mistake), I couldn’t for the life of me understand why everyone likes Leon. Perhaps I’d made a mistake in choosing it as my first city…maybe I should hightail it to the beach.
But I returned to the hostel, had a siesta (a brilliant concept), and set out again at 5:00. And as I strolled through the streets, enjoying the cool breeze and setting sun, Leon began to work its way into my good graces. I spent yesterday evening sitting around the hostel’s open-air dining room table, chatting with Eddy, a Nicaraguan who comes to Leon to study ecotourism on the weekends, and Graham, a Brit who biked here from Alaska. Eddy practiced his English, I practiced my (pathetic) Spanish, and Graham proceeded to down three 40 oz. beers.
After an early night, I woke up without an alarm at 6:50 and, remembering Eddy’s warning that it gets hot at 8am, went out for a walk. And in the early morning, as I watched Nicas on their way to school (on a Saturday?), setting up for the market, and lounging in the park, I realized that all of my initial reservations about Leon had disappeared. I had another long siesta this afternoon (chalked it up to the past several weeks of travel), chatted about international economics with Graham and a British/Indian guy who lives in Chicago, and laughed over wilderness instructing stories with Casey (who worked at Sage Walk in OR). And this evening, I went to the parque central and joined a crowd of Nicaraguan men who were watching a wrestling event that was projected onto a screen in the gazebo.
And now, I’m writing this from my hostel in Leon, which has a lovely open courtyard with chairs and a starfruit tree. It’s finally cooled off–that is, if you don’t move around too much–and I’m hanging out on a couch with my feet up on a coffee table, my laptop on my lap. The stars are out, and a Nicaraguan dude is sitting under the starfruit tree, singing softly while he plays the guitar. It’s a song I don’t know, and somehow it fits perfectly with the Bob Marley music coming from across the street. Totally relaxed, and in this moment, there’s nowhere I’d rather be.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I lead a strange and privileged life.
