One of these and one of those and 2 black coffees, thanks.

ESTELI and friends!!!

So we ended up staying in the Esteli are for quite some time. I feel that Tyler lent that blame to my cavities..but I assign blame to his future cavities. We landed in a quant in-the-process-of-being-painted hospedaje next door to a bakery that we´ve frequented and are taste rating in preparation for a Guide to Esteli Pastries book that we will never write. Needless to say, our hospedaje should thank the bakery for our room rental..they kept us there longer.

However, Esteli offered much more than dirt cheap friendly dental work, cigars, and cream filled donuts. We found some of the best coffee we´ve had all trip...mmmm, we used it as a launching point to visit 2 working Reserves, and we visited the Museum for Heroes and Martyrs.

¡Bienvenido a la Reserva Natural Miraflor!

We went to grab information and maps for Miraflor and lucked into abag of fresh coffee grown on the Reserve. We cheated on the bakery with our new brew, liked, and grabbed a bus for the hills. Miraflor was really beautiful and really super wet. I´m pretty sure people here think that we are the cheapest people alive. We definatly did not buy food and popped up our ¨casita¨(little house) and slept in the mud and rain to avoid paying more than a dollar each. Ok we aaare cheap. but..2 days of my hard boiled eggs, beans and crackers were probably better than there plate du jour anyway. We hiked through a small community to a waterfall and hit a wet trail on the families land. When we came back to our campsite soaken wet..we decided to wrap up the casita and go back to town..there we could dine in- guilt free- and visit our second cousins twice removed at the Pasteleria...we just love those cookiesgirlscookies...ok food.




Galeria Heroes y Martires de Esteli


Before my second dental adventure we went to the Museum. This is run off of donation by mothers of members of the National Liberation Sandista Front(FSLN) that fought and died during the Nicaraguan Revolution. It was a really moving Museum. We didn´t know a ton about these events before and were able to educate ourselves a little more through maps, newspaper articles, photos, journals, uniforms, artwork, and other relics from this movement. It´s crazy to walk through the streets today and think of what kind of atmosphere it would have been a only 30 years ago...to look at older folks and try and imagine what they see when they look out of there window. Very recent, drastic and unstable politcal changes in this country.

Reserva Tisey

After a night in the cozy(we'll say) Hospedaje Ramon, we woke up, applied for a ton of Park jobs, ate at our second mothers kitchen(bakery), and took off to grab a bus to Reserve Tisey. We bought the yummiest peanut brittle esque things for 15 cents each on the bus..I can taste them on my tongue riiight now. mmm. We found a Posada and pooped our tent up. Baghaghagh..i wrote pooped. Not changing that. ANYWAY •clearing throat•... Another case of the cheap gringo blues for these farm owners..Not only did we camp..but the second day a rushed Canadian couple dropped there room deposit and went back to town. They gave us the key to there cabin and we upgraded out of the wind!

Tisey was awesome!! Tyler really made me do my mandatory pre-meal exercises out there...We hiked up to the high point of the reserve to see a really great viewpoint of Northern Nica. Lots of wind..Burrito disaster..we got lucky..not a drop of bean spilled. whoo..We wandered around looking for this artist in the hills. Three sets of directions, two hours, and one huge Yucca plant later, we found him. Alberto Gutierrez is 73 and his lifes work is a a farm full of massive rock carvings inspired by his land, vistas, religions, encounters and the rich history of Nicaragua.  He was awesome!! He had an insane amount of energy about his work..his masterpiece. He also fed us fruits from his farm on the walk. Besides an hour long frightening stand off between Tyler and a huge spider in our cabin...seriously huge..it was a great day. OK. The spider thing was amazing too. Who knew an orange and tent posts could be so lethal...What a man. Love him.
On the ride down we got picked up by a farmer from Montana, living and running land on the Reserve. Lucky chance encounter. His life and ideas we good food for thought. He saved us a 5 hour walk and dropped us off right at the terminal. We are now in Matagalpa. We scored a cheap room and have been getting referred to alot of jobs..Tylers spanish is really coming along and he´s much quicker to jump into conversation and ask questions to people here. I´m really proud of how far he´s come. Weather is good. Beer is cheap...nothing could make us happier unless our bakery was here.. Shut your mouth! What was that?? Oh wait...they have a sister bakery..AND IT IS HERE. My fat little fingers could hardly write this blog after my pre-blog danish!! The boy will write more later...-Rachel.