10 Observations

At this point, we'd like to tell ya a few random things we've noticed. (Written on February 1st-ish.)

1. There are dogs everywhere, but no puppies, despite the fact that dogs are having unprotected sex on every street corner. Some of these dogs are also enthusiastically gay.

2. Throwing just about anything out of the bus in Nicaragua is a normal thing to do. Window= Trashcan.

3. "Taking the bus" includes trusting our backpacks to the top of the "chicken bus" school bus, and getting very very hot and sweaty and chatty. Just when you think one more body can't possibly fit onto the bus (because there are three people to every two -person seat, and dozens in the aisles) someone comes on the bus with handfuls of pillows or bags of fried chicken to sell, which people subsequently buy, consume, spill on their seatmates, and throw the leftovers out the window. The experience is so surreal when compared to life as we know it that all you can really do is laugh about it.

4. The only people who give accurate information about bus schedules are bus drivers. Everyone else will and say you have to take a taxi. It's funny to have to fight to have this "authentic" experience of taking the busses (which were pricelessly entertaining- see above.)

5. We eat lots of street food, because it is just so very awesome and cheap. We paid about 15 cents for fresh delicious donuts on the street in Granada.

8. Fried Chicken is the national food of Costa Rica. It's so amazing that the monkeys will steal it from you.

9. Coolest animals we've seen: a quetzal, baby howler monkeys, coatis, a sloth, a family of capyberas (i think- they're those huge rodents.), green poison dart frog, vveeerrryyy long and big millipede, and huge iguanas.

10. We rarely see only one person on a bicycle at a time. Usually, someone is sitting on the crossbar, and sometimes someone else is hanging off the back. A related point- babies don't go in baby seats. We've seen babies sitting on bicycle crossbars, being held by moms on a motorcycle while dad drives, and sitting on the lap of a man who was driving, while drinking a beer. (In that case, we saw the baby hit the man in the face- he didn't even swerve.) And, 10.5, the babies and kids here are so well behaved (except the one in that front seat...). Really, none of the kids are whining on the long hot bus rides, or crying or hitting. Pretty amazing to see.