03 October 2005 10:43
The TwelfthThus being the twenty-sixth of March, 2005.
The sad thing is how long it took me to figure out how to spell "twelfth" just now.
Today we left with the team that came in last night for the airport in Puerto Cabezas. We were all on the same flight to Managua--handily arranged by Jim who acted as our ticket agent. Wading through the formalities at the airport with the group made me glad to think that we would soon be back down to our small party of four (although in just a couple days I'd be down to my small party of one). We all crowded into the lobby/ticket area where a scant four or five local passengers stared dolefully at us.
I retired to a corner with my book and watched the procedings. Viola had definately been through the process before and had it down to a science (I'm sure the ticket agent was used to large groups coming in and out of hte mission as well). But still, it takes a while to process twenty-odd people one at a time. Our turn came and we checked our luggage in. We also climbed up on the scale to get ourselves weight too. That was a first for me...but at the same time it was encouraging to know that at least token efforts were being made to check weight and balance, instead of ingnoring it altogether.
We also had our carry-on effects xrayed. The airport only had one x-ray machine, so you'd hand your bag through a window, then they'd hand it back thirty seconds later. The flight was painless, as I was still working on my book (Mere Christianity). Upon landing in Managua, we hailed a taxi for the bus station. This was the first actual city we'd been in since leaving La Ceiba nine days earlier. At the Tica-Bus station (a Central American luxury line) we found out that there were no seats left for Managua to Tegucigalpa on Monday (this was Saturday), so we had to move our plans up and leave Managua a day early. I could have gotten my tickets for Monday, but wasn't particuarly interested in hanging out there for an extra day after Granddad and the other two left.
Their plan was to continue to Tegucigalpa and visit with the Beachy Amish there. Then they would fly out of Tegucigalpa for Miami and Dulles. I on the other hand was to continue from Managua to San Salvador to Guatemala City to Tapachula, thence to Tuxtla where I would hitch a ride with Roland back to Jamaica. Tickets bought, we caught another taxi to the old VS house there in Managua. Granddad had connections there with the wife of the current head of the Mennonite Church in Nicaragua, she from the US and once with MCC I believe. Granddads had met them whilst Granddads were living in Costa Rica (running a voluntary service (VS) house there amongst other things). Granddad had also stayed at the VS house we were at in Managua, albeit "muchos años pasados".
In the intervening years they had added a new wing or set of rooms. Rather recently in fact...the paint was barely dry in the room we stayed in. We made ourselves at home there, then set about the afternoon's activities. First we introduced ourselves to a collection of the other guests. There were four students who were going to language school in Costa Rica, but had popped across the border for a week to renew their visas. I spent the evenign with them later, but we didn't see the other two or three guests again beyond that afternoon.
Granddad, J, K, and I walked out to the road and caught another taxi; this time to the market. There we split up and Kyle and I canvased the place to see what was up. I wound up purchasing a fair amount of loot, though the price looked worse in cordobas than in dollars. I have a hard time counting above 100 in Spanish though, so that helped me keep the prices down...I simply ignored anything that cost more than that (roughly $5.20 US).
Kyle on the other hand just tagged along. He did help me drink the Pepsi I bought, but other than that he was there solely for the big knives. Of which we obtained a few betwixt the four of us. As in, we ran the shop we bought them at out of newspaper in their efforts to wrap all the blades. We headed back to the VS house to ditch the loot, then walked down the street to visit with the church president and his wife for an hour or so.
We made do on supper raided from a local gas station. Kyle and I also took the time to split our luggage. Up to that point we'd been swapping out, carrying everything in my camping backpack. Now we broke out the collapsable duffel he'd brought along, and I stuffed my things in there for my solo trip to Mexico.
That settled, I left the others to their assorted showering, journaling, repacking, etc and went out on the porch to socialize with the four young adults from Costa Rica. The were all norteamericanos, playing a game of Phase10 (which I politely declined to play). I shot the bull with them, and eventually wound up eating their food too. Can't complain about that.
What followed was the best night of sleep I'd had in weeks. It was so good that I took a picture of the mattress tag in the morning. When I grow up and get rich and build my dream house, I'm going to import that mattress all the way from Nicaragua. It was that good :).
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