Weekend in Estelí (1/18-19/14), or Another Side of Nicaragua

When I was trying to think of a subtitle for this post, I thought about all the ways in which I saw facets of Nicaragua that I had not before. For example, geographically, Estelí is in the north of Nicaragua, where it is much cooler than Leon. In fact, it was somewhat humorous, as many of the Nicaraguans there wear large puffy jackets that I associate with New England winters. I was wearing a t-shirt and the temperature honestly felt perfect to me. In Estelí, we stayed at Sebastian’s friend, Esperanza’s house. We tried to walk to a waterfall in Estelí, but unfortunately Sebastian wasn’t able to make it the whole way there. We also visited a nunnery in Ciudad Dario (named for Ruben Dario, the most famous Nicaraguan writer). It was a cloistered community, meaning the nuns are never allowed to leave the grounds. We met with the Mother Superior, and she asked me many questions about my faith, and it frankly ended up being one of the most in-depth conversations about religion that I have ever had in Spanish--or any other language for that matter.

From there, we took a bus to Matagalpa, where an ex-girlfriend of Sebastian’s lives. We spent the day with her and her daughter, and I managed to find the Patriot’s game on TV. Too bad they lost, but they really did not seem to be playing with intensity, and Brady’s throws just were not on target. Shortly after, while on the bus leaving Matagalpa, we passed a traffic accident, in which three people, two men and a woman, had died. The moment it became clear what happened, everyone on the bus except me jumped up and pressed themselves against the windows.  Again, I was struck by how many more cars it seems like there are on the roads. It seems like Nicaragua may need to do something at the national level to quell the rising tide of traffic accidents