A rat ate my homework...

Kayak Jam Poetry: When I signed up for a kayaking tour of the shark infested lake of Nicaragua, I didn’t expect to get a poet as a tour guide. My friend Whitney and I started off the tour with regular small talk and somehow ended up with a tour that involved ridiculously placed prose comparing a woman’s body to various trees, flowers, and rivers. For example, we saw a large old tree, which I would describe using such adjectives as: big, green, and lush. However, our tour guide said, “This ancient tree looks like a woman’s sensual body looking towards the heavenly sky.” The tour was almost 4 hours long, and our guide Mario never ran out of similes.

One of the new 7 wonders of the world: The island of Ometepe


Lord of the dance: Whit and I also went out dancing one night. We were having fun sitting at our table people watching when Whit was approached by a short guy that had had a few too many drinks. He got very close to her right ear and said, “DANCING.” Then he repeated, “DANCING.” Now I am assuming he wanted to ask Whit to dance but instead of saying, “Would you like to dance?” He just kept yelling “DANCING.”

Whitney and I are about to fly through the trees


Climbing the 2nd most active volcano in the world (again): Getting lost in the wild bush for a few hours is never anything to be too worried about, but I always carry an extra snack just in case we’re lost for an exceedingly long period of time. Plus, why ask for directions when you can go around in circles for hours? There is no excitement in arriving at a destination in a timely manner! It seems that every time I climb the Cerro Negro (the 2nd most active volcano en el mundo) we get lost somewhere along the way. It seems almost impossible to get lost since it is just one big massive black hole of sand, but we always manage somehow, someway. This time around 20 of us got into a low riding small pick-up truck (I somehow lucked out in the shotgun seat). The driver started the engine and the kids and I where off towards the cerro. This time around we were going to give an investigative survey (encuesta) concerning the natural wildlife reserve that surrounds the volcano. But after starting up the truck the driver failed to ask any of us for directions and chose his own made-up route. We didn’t realize that he didn’t know where he was going until 2 hours into the ride he stopped the truck and whispered to me, “Where are we?” Well, those are never the words you want to hear when you realize you are surrounded by thick trees and branches and the noon sun is slowly rising higher and higher in the sky. Not surprised by the fact that he was lost, I told him that the cerro was close and now we just had to figure out how to turn the truck around on a one-way narrow road. Since there were 20 kids in the back of the pick-up, they all jumped out to help physically lift the truck off of the ground and turn it around. After this mighty feat, we got back into the truck found the foot of the volcano and parked. However, since the cerro is made up of sand the truck got stuck, and the kids were forced to use their muscles again to heave to truck out. We walked an hour to the nature reserve, I had a poisonous snake placed around my neck, and then we hiked the volcano. What a day!

This video makes me laugh each time I watch it! Pay close attention to the waiter and the random man in the clip, because they seem able to ignore all that is going on around them.


This celebration is called La Gigantona (who is the giant Spanish lady in costume that is seen at the very end of the clip). The short man dancing around is her "native" Nicaraguan husband. She fell in love with him and chose to stay in Nicaragua instead of returning to Spain.

RATS! RATS! RATS!: It’s been a while since I have posted a blog, and I suppose it’s because I have felt a bit uninspired. The things that used to be so new have now become just ordinary occurrences. I have dealt with the fact that there are an abundance of bats, mice and insects in tropical climates, which are things that I don’t normally have to deal with in my home state of Colorado. None of these things have ever really bothered me and I hardy pay notice when they go scurrying across my line of vision. A few nights ago, I was unable to sleep due to a loud noise that seemed to be all around me. I awoke several times throughout the night, and felt like something had crept over my body, but by the time I opened my eyes that “something” was gone in the darkness. I slept restlessly tossing and turning until morning finally arrived. I got up only to hear more noise. Next, I put on a pot of coffee and started to pull out a large plastic bag that I keep all of my school supplies stored in. I dragged the heavy bag along the floor and noticed that I had left it unzipped. Then I saw that the papers inside (including some of my students homework papers that I had stored in the bag) were strewn all over the place with chunks of them missing. I was a bit puzzled because it looked like a large animal had chewed them. What large animal could get into my house? I recalled another volunteer who had had terminates eat his papers and thought maybe I had a termite problem (a big termite problem). A bit perplexed, I continued to drag the bag out into the openness of my house. I reached slowly into the bag with my hand (not thinking) and rummaged around for a particular paper. Then I noticed a funny smell coming from the bag. When a large rat the size of my foot (and I have big feet) hopped out of the bag hit my leg and ran for an exit. I stood up almost immediately shocked and shaken and started yelling. “Oh oh oh oh oh oh,” I uttered as I shook and jumped up and down. My neighbors came running into my house with a broom overhead thinking that I was being attacked. When they shoved open my door they found me hopping and yelling and pointing. They said “What Brie WHAT!!” and I couldn’t reply I just pointed towards the bag on the floor and then towards the door. They were super confused and I was still startled with my heart racing a mile a minute. I finally told them a rat jumped out of the bag, and my neighbor asked if it was still in the bag. “No, it ran out of my house,” I replied. She then proceeded to pick up the bag to bring it outside, but then dropped the it and screamed. It seemed that there were still more rats. Inside the bag, the same bag I had put my hand into just moments before were 15 rat babies. Now my neighbor was also in hysterics, I was still jumping around and another friend came into my house wondering what the heck was going on. When I mentioned the word “rat” she ran right out the door leaving my neighbor and myself alone with the bag full of rat babies. On the verge of tears, we both picked up the bag and brought it outside. She then set fire to the bag and I poured bleach all over my house. I washed EVERYTHING and BLEACHED everything. I was so disgusted! Shortly after the rat incident had occurred, a small gecko ran across my wall, which caused me to scream and jump. Later that night I saw a shadow creeping across my roof, I looked up again and to find the rat mother was back in my house looking for her family. I obviously figured out the reason I couldn’t sleep the previous nights, it was due to the fact that a RAT was running across my bed (with me in it)!

The Infamous Tilanic

Antibiotics are just like candy…or are they? Well, these days, I seem to be inflicted by one mysterious disease after another. And with the swine-flu going around I just hope I steer clear of that virus (so far it hasn’t hit Nicaragua). But lucky for me, I have numerous friends who own pharmacies. Yesterday, I went to hang-out with one of my Nica pharmacy friends. I told her I also wanted to buy some cough drops; instead, she provided me with antibiotics because she said “these work much better.” I accepted the medicine with a smile, but knew that I wasn’t going to take some mystery pills. For fun, I decided to look up the meds online and discovered that they are very effective in curing 2 infirmities: 1) Bronchitis and 2) Syphilis. Now while I am pretty sure that I suffer from neither of those, I wanted to know why she was under the impression that I had syphilis. I jest; she knew I didn’t have syphilis. The fact of the matter is that she had no idea what those antibiotics were actually suppose to cure (she’s not a doctor). I was a bit disturbed that my friend was diagnosing and providing antibiotics to the community. The week before this incident I was also provided with an offer to get a free antibiotic shot. Since when are antibiotics the cure all? However, I still find myself sick so maybe the syphilis killing antibiotic is the way to go…just kidding.

1 of the 2 volcanoes on the Isla de Ometepe


Follow the quaker (and no I don’t mean Quaker…I mean “quack”…like the sound a duck makes): Finding treasured natural beauty can be difficult in a country without trail markers and defined trails. It is always an adventure. First of all, I always hear through the grape vine of a beautiful sight to see, but the trick is getting to that sight. Thus began my trip to the waterfall. I went to find the natural wonder with a friend. We started off on a road, asked for directions to guide us to the huge waterfall (cascada), and we were told it was a 30 minute walk from where we stood. We were also told to seek out the “cow corral.” But, truly, what does a cow corral look like? I pictured it being a barn of sorts with cows in it. And it seemed that every corner we turned laid a house, with a barn, with cows in it. So how does one distinguish between a “cow corral” and just a “cow covering?” I am afraid that I am still not sure what the difference is and therefore cannot answer that question. We found ourselves asking a lot of people for directions to this infamous “cow corral.” Finally, when we found the “corral” it seemed that no one was home. Therefore, we continued down the path until we came to a small stream. We were met by one man on horseback and a second elderly man who was quaking like a duck. Great, I thought to myself, I have attracted yet another crazy person. The man on the horse told us that we had passed the waterfall already and needed to backtrack, but we would never be able to navigate it by ourselves (since there were no trails or signs denoting the location of the waterfall). So the man told us that the “quaker” would be our guide. Well, the quaking man started leading us into a forest, he had is machete out and was hacking away at the vegetation that blocked our path (I silently hoped to myself that was all he planned to whack at). We ascended a large hill and we were getting further and further away from the stream. I began to wonder where this quaker was leading us…if only I spoke duck! Turns out the man (while crazy) was quite articulate and did speak Spanish (although “duck” was clearly his first language). He told us we were headed toward the cascada, but I still doubted his claim. We drew further away and then reached a large cliff. He pointed to the bottom of the cliff, and told us that was where the waterfall was located. How were we going to descend the cliff (as I had left my rope climbing gear behind in the state of Colorado)? Turns out, a thin path wove down the side of the cliff and the man started down the side. If a 65 year old quaking man could descend the hill, well then so could I. I followed and after a short walk a large flowing waterfall emerged in front of me. It was a sight to behold; we thanked the quaker by saying, “Quack Quack” (but with a Spanish accent of course so that he could understand us). He left us and told us to just go straight up the hill again to find our way out.


Granada bell tower


Sticky fingers leads to a “¡Qué barbaridad!” being uttered: Semana Santa is a weeklong bacchanal that in my experience results in:

1.Bolos boarding local busses being either annoying or just passing out cold in a seat, and getting kicked off the bus due to lack of funds (Happy Easter…nobody rides for free).
2.Bad pick pockets trying to steal my Band-Aids
3.Hotels being booked and beaches loaded with people
4.Local transport running slowly and packed full
5.Giant Jesus statues being carried through the streets to the beat of a marching band
6.Firecrackers being shot off at all hours
7.Bells being tolled
8.And ZERO Easter eggs being hidden!

Now let me backtrack a bit. The weeks leading up to Semana Santa were spent planning a trip to the Rio San Juan, which is located in the southern part of Nicaragua bordering Costa Rica and it runs all the way to the Atlantic coast. Since I would have a week off, I decided it would be the perfect time to hop on the boat that heads down the river. In planning the trip, I did not make any reservations because the Rio is remote and it is difficult to contact places to stay. The plan was to hop on the boat, head down river, and see where the journey would go. We headed to Granada, where we would purchase our boat tickets and bought the tickets under the assumption that the boat was going to leave at 3pm that afternoon. This left us with a few hours to kill, and we headed into the city to eat breakfast. After eating we wandered around for a bit, and then thought it best to head back towards the dock. At the dock, we expected to see a lot of people; however, we didn’t see any people and instead I spotted a boat off in the distance, which led me to say, “I wonder where that boat is going.” Turns out, that boat was going to the Rio San Juan and we had missed it, because it left 1 hour early. After stomaching our disappointment, we decided to head to the Isla of Ometepe (an island with 2 volcanoes). We would still take a boat ride to get onto the island and we continued on with our new adventure. Of course, being Semana Santa, transportation and open hotels were hard to come by, but no matter, we continued on! When we got to the Ferry Dock we noticed the Ferries were numbered 1 and 3, which made me wonder, “Where was Ferry #2.” Well, it had sunk (but not very recently). We also spotted a ship called the “Tilanic,” which was supposed to be named the “Titanic;” however, due to a misspelling it was now known as the infamous Tilanic. Luckily, for the Tilanic the lake doesn’t have icecaps, but it is home to the only fresh water shark in the world (but I doubt a shark could sink a ship…unless it was a cousin of Jaws…and in that case, watch out!). We boarded our ferry and arrived at the isla, now where to go? We looked around for an open hotel, found a room and booked it! That night we stayed at the port, and the next morning we boarded an early bus to head to Charco Verde, we hiked around, saw some monkeys, ate some fish and continued to our next stop. The next place we went to on island was the isthmus, after putting our backpacks in our room we jumped into the lake to go for a swim. The following day we ventured to the “Ojo de Agua,” a natural spring (I think I got a parasite from this spring too…don’t drink the water when it is loaded with people). From the “Ojo” we walked back to our hotel took another dip in the lake and booked a taxi to take us back to the port city. The taxi was supposed to arrive at 5:30pm but as is custom, it arrived 1 hour later. We shared the taxi with another couple that were drinking Toña (local beer) like it was water. I just hoped that no one would throw up until the ride had ended. We made it back to the port, and slept soundly that night. The following day was Good Friday, and we knew that transportation would be tough to come by in the entire country. We lucked out and found a bus that took us into Managua; unfortunately, this bus contained thieves who unzipped my backpack in hopes of finding some “goods” only to be let down when they saw that I had no valuables or money in my backpack, only Band-Aids and tampons! I literally caught the thieves red handed and I gave them the evil eye and told them “¡Qué barbaridad!” The thieves awkwardly traded seats after being caught and remained silent for the rest of the ride. We got off in Managua, only to be lied to again, the taxi driver told us we could not get a micro to Leon but he could take us for $50. He wanted to get more taxi fare from us by taking us further. The taxi driver was shady and we got out as soon as possible, waited for about 10 minutes and got a bus to Leon.

A view of the city of Granada