A week of trips

I had one of the most glorious "showers" here ever, due to the room-temperature (compared to the usual cold) water that my host mom gave me. I´ve started walking or doing something outside in the morning so that the water doesn´t shock me too much, although I still involuntarily gasp after pouring the initial bucket of water over my head. Today I didn´t go into temporary shock, which was enjoyable. So after having such a great shower, I was very disappointed when an hour later on my walk to work, I managed to get mud on my leg. I can´t even stay clean for an hour. This is rural Nicaragua in the wet season.

The past week I really only worked about two and a half days. On Wednesday, I accompanied Theresita, my boss, and two Nicaraguan representatives of the InterAmerican Alliance to La Pita, a women´s recycled paper workshop. It´s located about 20 minutes away, although with the state of the road, you have to factor in the time that your car will get stuck trying to come up from the riverbed. (Yes, we had to drive under a bridge and through a creek to reach La Pita, and the driver spent about 10 minutes trying to drive up the slope to get back on the main road since his truck kept getting stuck on this set of rocks. I remember he slammed on the gas pedal to get the car going and we could just hear the sound of his tires spinning and the engine revving.) The women in La Pita make paper out of the trunks of banana bunches; because of this, the paper has a sweet smell. They make cards, notebooks and bookmarks with dried, pressed local plants.

Thursday, I went with two Spanish people from an NGO called Agüemayo and the group of tour guides to Finca La Hermandad, a cluster of shade-grown coffee plantations that are attempting to preserve primary rainforest that falls on their properties. Finca La Hermandad currently lacks the resources to fully develop itself as a tourist site, but they´ve begun the process with the creation of a hiking trail. We saw a family of monkeys, a sloth, some type of lizard, two different types of orchids (Aunt Sari, you were right!) a great panoramic view of the town and surrounding areas and we experienced muddy/slippery hiking trails and massive ants that bite. I´ll load pictures at some point.
Here`s one that I happened to have on my flashdrive. I love the guy`s face in this picture! He`s one of the tour guides at the center where I work.

Friday, I sat in a town meeting in which San Ramón´s tourism commission unveiled their tourism plan.

Sunday, I went with Theresita, the two Agüemayo people, and two other Spanish people staying in town, to check out Rio Wabule, and the Genetic Reserve of Pine trees. Neither of these sites have been developed for tourism yet, although there is hope that they will be. Theresita wanted me to go so that I could offer my opinions on the two sites. Rio Wabule was great. It´s this gorgeous river/canyon, with some small waterfalls and beautiful scenery. I was rather bored by the Genetic Reserve, as all it is right now is a pine tree nursery. They haven´t built trails or any touristy components in the forest yet because they don´t have any funding. It was interesting, though, to see what tourism sites are like in their early stages, and to experience not-so-great tourist sites. Theresita took this picture of me while we were there.
Here`s a picture of the canyon.

Today I`ve been working all day on developing a brochure to advertise the various tours that the center offers.

Today is my host-sister´s birthday, so after work I`m sure we`ll be celebrating. My hostmom made this semi-alcoholic drink this morning that was thick, creamy and pink with green chunks. I`m not making it sound very appealing but it actually was rather tasty. So we`ll be having that and I think tortas for dinner. She had originally wanted to revive indigenous traditions and kill an entire pig at the party and then cook it, but she got sick and hasn`t been feeling up for the endeavor.

I´m on my lunch break right now and I have to run home to eat before I go back to work, so I should end this here.

This is a photo of the neighborhood where one of my hostsisters lives. I took this while hiking one morning.