Adventures in the North: Esteli

5:30am came too fast on Friday.  I didn't get any sleep because I was so excited (and sad) for my last weekend. Esperanza made me a hearty breakfast of eggs and gallo pinto to help wake me up.  At 6:30 I was packed and walking out of my door.  My house is right in front of the clinic.  The line of people was incredible.  I felt a little guilty for walking right past the patients with a simple " Buenos dias" and a smile. I walked down Calle Atrevesada looking for a bus.  Nothing.  I turned left on the Masaya highway and walked down the road some more.  This is the sam route I tok when I went to the hospital, but usually I could catch a bus pretty easily.  As I was walking I heard the familiar call of " LAUCA LAUCA LAUCA!!  MANAGUA!  MASAYA! LAUCA!". An express bus was sitting on a side street cramming people on board.  I ran across the street and jumped in, thus starting my chicken bus adventure to the north.  LAUCA is what the bus people say for the bus stop in front of the University of Central America. It is fun to yell out loud. 

Within an hour and a half, after 30 stops along the side of the road, I was in Managua.  I crossed the street to wait for Etienne and Anne. Once they arrived we got a cab to the other busstop, Mercado Mayoreo, about 18 minutes away.  We bartered with the drivers and got one down to 80 cords for all three of us. When we got into the market, the bus was already leaving, so we ran to get in. It was hot. But we all had seats. I slept through the whole ride pretty much. The bus ride was about 2 hours.  It got kind of boring.  The scenery was getting prettier and prettier, but it was difficult to see through the tinted windows.  I snacked on a treat that I had bought at a bakery near my house: torta de leche. It is delicious and gluten free.  

When got into Esteli around 11 and we had no plans.  We were dropped off at a gas station/ pharmacy.  Etienne got out his guidebook and asked a thousand questions to the employees inside.  We didn't really know where we were.    Eti brought out a map and asked a random dude where we were, and he replied "You are in Esteli"....

Esteli is situated right on the Pan American highway. It is quite different from the city scene of Granada.  It is bustling, cars everywhere, very alive.  There is also a bit of a problem with drugs and prostitutes.  We saw a few of the latter. The girls looked really young. It was a bit disturbing.  But overall, Esteli is a nice town, full of Nica flavor.  It isn't really a tourist spot, so if you want to get immersed, this is the place to go. 

We found a hostel: Hostel Chepite.  This place is for locals.  Not very touristy. No internet.  You ask for sheets. Very simple.  But it was the cleanest hostel I have seen here. Also it cost us 90 cords a person.  Pretty cheap. We walked to the center of town and all around the markets.  We had lunch in this place that looked like an old airplane hangar.  I do not recall the name, but for 70 cords it was pretty good.  we bought some cacao and Nica music instrument. All in all, it is a pretty boring town to visit for more than a day.  I think you lived there, it would be different.  The people are all super nice  We had women coming up to us making sure that we had a place to stay. We were invited over just in case. 

We had coffee in a place called Mi Cafe.  It was a little hidden gem.  Very cool inside and great coffee.

We decided we wanted to take it easy since we had a long day tomorrow in Somoto Canyon. We ate tacos for dinner, delicious. And then we met up with Stephanie from Canada.  I wrote about her in an earlier post.  She wanted to take us to her favorite bar.  We agreed and we were off.  We walked along the Pam American highway for about 7 minutes and she said "okay we are here!". Where?  I looked around and saw auto shops, a pulperia, and then I saw a beer girl.  She had a cooler of Victoria and was handing them out for free in front of the building that resembled someone's house.  We grabbed our free beers and walked inside.  And we were in someone's house. Kitchen to be exact. Continuing on we were then led through a living room.  A family was gathered around a tv spending quality time together.  We were literally in someone's house. We said our hola's and buenas's and kept going through their house.  There was a staircase in the back of the house.  Once we climbed it, we were in a bar.  Bar Rincon. 100% Nica style. We were the only cheles.  There were different groups of Nica's there as well.   Hipsters, metal kids, making out nicas, college Nicas. It was really good mix of people. It was awesome.  Stephanie was a bit of a celebrity there.  The bar tender played all of her favorite music on the YouTube and took really good care of us. Some of her friends came by and we had a blast with them.  

Obviously, we drank rum.  And obviously when you have me, who loves rum, and the French and the Canadian, we stayed out too long. Like 1230. But we had a 6am wake up. We came back to the hostel and listened to Santana ad had a few laughs.  We pissed off the rest of the hostel, which was full of Nica laborers, who got us back at 4am the next morning.  Farting, laughing, hocking loogies (not sure how to spell that word). Just a joy. Our bad, I guess.

All in all, we were pleased with our Esteli trip.  Early Saturday morning we caught our bus to Somoto... the best place on Earth. :)

Stay tuned for Part Somoto. Gotta do some stuff.