Day 1 in Nicaragua

Yesterday I finally left Buenos Aires (whaaaaa) for Nicaragua. I was wildly disappointed to discover that my elite status on Continental had been taken away since I was no longer as faithful a customer as I had been before (poopy) so I had to fly economy class with all the other plebians. The strangest part of the whole trip, however, was the random stopover in Houston, TX, where suddenly I could eavesdrop on random conversations of people all over the place. I didn't think it would be strange to hear English being spoken in all the reaches of my earshot, but it was. Thankfully it was only for a few hours... my flight to Managua was back to being spanish-focused, and once I arrived in the airport I was back to my new idea of the norm.

Managua is different than Bs As in about as many ways as possible. The airport didn't even have internet (we'll come back to that later), and the percentage of people that speak functional english is somewhere around 2 or 3... not that thas was a huge problem. I arrived at the airport without actually knowing what I was going to do when I got there... I didn't have an address to go to, I didn't have someone there to meet me, I didn't know a phone number of anyone in the organization... and the fact that internet was non-existent made all these suddenly a huge problem seeing as I had no way of finding anything out without access to my email. Oh fun.

After a few false starts with the pay phones and random people's cell phones, I managed to find a phone that cost $1 a minute to use, and I called the only phone number I have memorized... my parents. Via a few phone calls to the States and harried instructions on how to log into my email account, I got a few phone numbers to try. Eventually I got in touch with the admin here at blueEnergy and she freaked out and sent me a special driver that's been hired by blueEnergy to drive people around. Aparently the taxis here are so unsafe, no one takes them.... I wondered how there were so many cabs on the road then, but no one could answer that.

I was brought to a house that is owned by blueEnergy in Managua. No one else was around besides this old dude who's been hired to look after the house. He was extremely social, and talked a mile-a-minute in spanish that I could barely understand (the accent here is extremely different than in Argentina) but I got enough to know that he was hitting on me (gross... seriously dude, you're over 60) and couldn't believe that I was in my mid-20s and still not married (apparently 20something women are already mothers here).

I realized how much had changed in my environment, however, when I took a shower to freshen up. First, there was only one knob to turn on the water... signifying there's only one water temperature.... cold. Oh yum. Then, there wasn't a shower head, just a spout that peed water much like a dog... water pressure? what's that? and wait... you want a steady stream of water? hahahaha! Unfortunately, my camera is no longer in my possession.... I think the security checkpoint guys at the airport thought they'd enjoy it's uses more than I would.... so I couldn't take a picture of the apparatus.

I eventually won my battle with the soap and water, and emerged from the "shower" as "refreshed" as I could be. Another 2 hour conversation with old-dude knocked me out completely, and I slept like a dead person with the fan blowing over me all night.