Bo-what??

Boaco!!



I spent this past weekend in the department of Boaco (pronounced bo-ah-ko) visiting my friend Allison in Teustepe, with a side trip into the city of Boaco as well. As you can see above, Boaco is really pretty! Since I grew up basically around farmland and forests, I think big hills and mountains are neat and never tired of looking up to see something other than sky.

It takes about 4 to 4.5 hours from where I am on the coast to get to Teustepe, which is in the central part of the country on the other side of Managua. I took a 1.5 hour bus into the west side of Managua, then a taxi to the Mercado Mayoreo on the east side which takes around an hour depending on how many other people the taxista has chosen to pick up and drop off along the way (that was 2 going and 4 coming back, and yet it took less time coming back, go fig) followed by another 1.5 hour busride out to Teustepe, oh and another taxi ride from the highway into town. As much as I'd love to go back and visit again soon, I doubt I'll be making that jaunt very often especially because taxi rides in Managua aren't cheap.

Allison just moved into her own little house but Peace Corps doesn't really give us enough money to get set up properly so it was still pretty sparse (we get a settling in allowance that really will only cover a decent bed and a few other items, so borrowing stuff from friends and neighbors is pretty common). This is how we ate dinner on Saturday night:



yeah, my viewfinder didn't open up all the way on that one. And since there was no TV, we spent a lot of time watching Alli's kitten, Smudges, train to be an attack cat by attacking my shoes or my backpack or trash or Alli's hand. She is also apparently training to be a thief because at one point she crawled into my backpack and when I fished her out, Smudges was clinging for dear life to my change purse. I may have to get a cat when I get my own house because there's just nothing like waking up to see a kitten crawling up the mosquito net to greet you in the morning. Here she is, caught in the middle of darting in and out of the holes in the partition for Alli's bedroom:



We didn't do too much other than talk a lot because it's been two months since we've seen each other and hung out a little with her former host family, who are all quite nice and they invited me to come over for Christmas. After hearing their usual menu which went on for about 5 minutes, I think I just might :)

The trip was vastly too short and before I knew it I was back on the bus. The last bit of excitement on my trip was on the way home when I was seated on the bus behind a man who was traveling with his chicken (not unusual) and occasionally would lift the bird up so it could look out the window or get some fresh air or something (somewhat unusual). Sorry, it's a little blurry, my flash wasn't on because I was trying to be ninja about taking pictures on the bus.




Lastly, as anyone who's had the pleasure of sharing sleeping quarters with me knows, I tend to babble either coherently or incoherently in my sleep. This weekend I made a breakthrough: sleep talking in Spanish! Apparently it wasn't coherent, but Alli said I definitely was going on in Spanish, which is pretty cool because I've been waiting for that elusive first dream in Spanish and this means that I've probably been dreaming in Spanish but not remembering it. This goes right up there with my conversation with my friend Kate when we were both completely asleep in High School and the time in India when four of us were sharing a hostel bed and I said “Fine, I'll get my own room!”