Bienvenido a Nicaragua

First things first. I broke my iPhone. Dead. Donezo. I’m currently using a back up Android I luckily brought along. Which sucks for many, many reasons. Most relevant to right now is that it takes terrible pictures. I’m seeing all of these things I want to share and I can’t post a decent shot. Guess I’ll have to use words, which I think is ironic, but I actually don’t know for sure. I’m here to cook and explore, not write, okay? Stay tuned on my efforts to purchase a new iPhone on the local mercado negro since insurance won’t ship here and friends/family shipping here is a customs nightmare/will likely get stolen.

So I’ve made it to the next chapter. I’m living (I think you’d call it living?) in Nicaragua. Which was always scary but was also something I was confident in doing, something I wanted to do. Something that sounded glamorous. Well, real talk, I’m a few days in and am feeling lost and scared. I LIKE solo travel, but this is different since my future is completely unknown. I guess there was no way to know how this would actually feel until I showed up to my new place of residence without anyone with me. In my past ravels in Colombia and Ireland I was surrounded by people. People I liked and trusted. People to look out for me and vice versa. So how do I further describe what it’s like to show up to a country I’ve never been to, where I know no one and where I really have no idea where to start? Imagine Kevin McCallister, waking up thinking he made his family disappear. Except he’s not in his parents bed. He’s a 33 year old grown man who quit his job and woke up in Nicaragua. And realized it might not be as awesome as he imagined. I guess it’s not too far off from 33 year old Macaulay Culkin. To backtrack a bit and put things in perspective, the only reason I’m here is I read an article in Forbes “Quit Your Job And Live Abroad: 8 Places So Cheap You Might Not Need To Work.” Seriously. That’s why I’m here. To quote King Triton, “What have I done… what…. have I done?”

So as I sit here in this foreign place, alone and confused, I know that I need to keep my fire going more than ever. Because this is the closest I’ve been so far to wanting to turn around. Vacation is over. It’s time to get started on the rest of my life. I have to remind myself I can’t solve that in a day because it’s in my nature to try and do so. It’s going to take time. And as of right now I still have time if I’m careful. I need to slowly build a foundation. 3 months of cooking school and zero experience does not qualify me for anything.

So far I’m not entirely sold on Granada. There are plenty of good restaurants, unique architecture, stuff to do, all good stuff for tourists. It’s beautiful here. But so far it’s missing that intangible magic of wanting to stay a while. Maybe that will come and I intend to give it more time. Until then I’m going to stick to the plan and try and move forward professionally since I’m committed to a month here. Over the past few days I’ve accomplished some beginner steps.

First, I’ve spent significant time at the public market both mornings. I already have a lady for fresh pork and a lady for chilis and yuccas. My new pork lady is a bad-ass. She has fresh pork daily because she slaughters them herself. Then sells the meat at the market. I braised 2.5 lbs of my pork lady’s pork for dinner one night. I cooked for the women that manage the hostel. The kitchen here is outdoors. It has 4 gas burners, good enough knives (I brought my own steel, not my knives since life in a duffel bag) and good enough cookware. My camera didn’t do the meal justice but I served a local version of my braised, pulled, and fried crispy pork served over mashed yucca root and topped with spicy mango salsa and pickled radishes. All ingredients were from the public market. Tortillas are also readily available. Either by guys on bikes riding down the street yelling “tooooooooortiiiiiiilaaaaaaaas,” or from older, stoic looking women firing them over grills made out of old car wheels or whatever else can hold a fire. 6 of them cost 30 cents.  Today I made breakfast tacos using tortillas I bought from a lady selling them out of a space with a dirt floor and tin roof. There was a crib with a child in it next to her. She was not very nice. She formed the tortillas on a make shift table topped with tiles and then grilled them over car wheel grill. They were fantastic.

Wrapping up the market, check out the pictures. The market is a labyrinth. It’s vast, it’s alive, it has everything. It’s somewhat split in to sections. The fish section is easy to find because the smell. Fish smells. But it’s fresh. I know it’s fresh because their gills are still moving. If I’m going to buy fish I’ll only buy fish that are still alive, albeit barely, and in the morning. They are not stored on ice. Then there is the meat section. Hooves, heads, stomachs/tripe, intestines, everything. This is the real deal. Locals eat this stuff daily. I guess I can consider myself a local once I can eat the offal without thinking twice. Good chance I never make it to true local status. To round out the food available, there are eggs, two kinds of crumbling cheese, giant sacks of various rice, beans, and other grains (Gallo Pinto, which is rice and black or pinto beans, cooked separately, and then fried together is a staple of the Nicaraguan diet. They eat it every single day). The market also has all of the staple produce and probably 20 other fresh produce items I’ve never seen before. There is a lady selling fried blood sausage with Vigorón (a sort of coleslaw native to Granada) on a plantain leaf. I mention this lady because she is popular and I ate there. I thought it needed more salt. The local I asked said it did not. I did not know how to say agree to disagree in Spanish. Now I bet everyone reading this who speaks a bit of Spanish is going over in their head how to “agree to disagree.”

Second, I spoke to the chef at the restaurant next door, Miss Dell’s. It just opened a month ago and is getting some great buzz. The chef there is from Martha’s Vineyard. He sold his restaurant and farmers market and started a passion project here. Having never worked in a kitchen I desperately need experience from an established chef before even thinking of starting my own anything. We talked for a while about the local ingredients and what it’s like to run a restaurant here. He’s going to talk to his partner and we’ll follow up in a few days. The prospect of working again, even for next to nothing, is exciting. This isn’t about earning income yet, it’s still an investment in myself. I also spoke with the owner of my hostel, an expat named Gabe. We discussed what it takes to open a business here and play by the rules. The costs and amount of red tape are alarmingly low. It’s not something I’d actually consider until I live here, work here and hopefully decide I like it here, but it’s good to know. My initial instinct says he’s a good dude, unlike a few other expats I’ve met where my gut says be nice but keep a distance, they might want something. I’m hoping he can intro me around town and recommend things to do.

In conclusion, what I’m actually experiencing is vastly different than what I pictured. I pictured settling in to a foreign place, writing business plans and getting going on a successful path. Kind of like how I picture Ernest Hemingway writing novels and short stories in some secluded space surrounded by awesome. It’s not like that. This is going to be a grind. Probably how Hemingway’s life of writing actually was. Bring it on. I’m not giving up. Here are some other bits and bobs I think y’all might be interested in:

• There is no hot water
• Nicaragua has 19 active volcanoes. I am doing an 8 hour guided hike of Mombacho, one of the larger volcanoes, tomorrow
• I saw lava for the first time doing a nighttime tour of the Masaya volcano
• I am thankful for my darker skin/features. I fit in better until they hear me talk. Some Americans look really out of place with their flip flops, cargo shorts, freshly bought Hurley tank tops, and Oakley blades
• I never used to use Oxford commas and now I do
• The pizza here isn’t half bad
• I’m going to build a sourdough starter and if it works, find an oven to bake it in. I’ve heard sourdough is really tough down here due to the climate. I’ll be the judge of that
• There are barking geckos here. Which is scary since I’m often the only one in the hostel once the staff goes home and if the other two rooms are vacant
• No matter what happens, the life lessons I’m gaining from this simple living in a poor country are invaluable

Here are some photos from Bogotá and Santa Marta Colombia before I broke off on my own. Notice the quality difference between these photos taken with an iphone and the Granada photos:

And here are some photos from my first days in Granada: