And yes,

..after giving you the recipe, I will say what I´m doing now.


Right now, I am waiting for Nina to get off work. She has half an hour to go, and I´m at an Internet cafe by the bus station in Managua, just having arrived from Granada.


This morning I took my guide from yesterday´s bike down the coast and rented a kayak for a bit. It was nice, but they didn´t let me go far enough to get out of site because I was alone. I bet they´re used to people not knowing what they´re doing, but I couldn´t effectively communcate that I am actually pretty ok at kayaking. Not that it would´ve mattered anyway. It was still very nice. They even gave me a drybag for my camera.


Something I found interesting was that the kayaks they had looked home-made by somebody good at molding fiberglass. The paddles were definitely made out of an aluminum pole with lopsided fiberglass flat shapes at the end - not exactly what I´m used to, but it worked fine all the same.


So I am off to Matagalpa tonight (or possibly tomorrow morning if we get a ride - the busses are very uncomfortable for my knees... and just on the hour-long trip from Granada I felt all sorts of leg muscles starting to cramp) and see where the coffee and cacao comes from! I´m excited.


Nina says that this weekend in Matagalpa is actually pretty special. Since it´s in a large agricultural area, there will be the annual corn festival over saturday and sunday. Apparently people dress up as tortillas and everything. (yes, I´m bringing my camera!)


Other things I did today: I ate breakfast at this old dutch man´s restaurant that´s only open certain days of the week, and then only for breakfast. He was a really nice guy that wanted to talk. He has lots of opinions on gas and plane ticket prices, as well as the cost of going back to europe for him. I should´ve said he could charge a lot more than the prices he does, and me being nearly the only one in his restaurant. (3USD for a large eggs, toast, and gallo pinto breakfast with unlimited coffee. It´s not India cheap, but it´s cheap compared to the restaurants nearby in Granada.)

Speaking of India, they have autorickshaws here! only they call them something else. I thought you´d want to know. And they only seem to be in the small towns.


Well, now I´m off to see if I can successfully communicate to a cabbie the ´address´Nina gave me of her work in Managua. Translated, it is, literally, word-for-word:

From where the old cinema used to be,
2 toward the lake,
half downward

Seriously. That´s not only directions, but the mailing address. Exactly as I wrote, but in spanish. They really need to name their streets and put numbers on the doors in Managua. Granada does it, even.

(ps, downward means ´where the sun sets,´so, West. ´Toward the lake´ means North. I am glad Nina told me this beforehand...)