Holly Beck

Darkness had taken over the streets of Managua and we were parked at a gas station pump, the keys locked inside, the car alarm blaring its annoyingly loud series of beeps and honks. We looked at each other in disbelief as a gas station attendant suggested we break a window to get at the keys. “But we just bought it five minutes ago!”
Think shopping for a used car in the States is a nightmare? You should try it in Managua!

We had been meaning to buy a car for a while. After too many three-week trips spending $1,500 on rental cars, “buy a car” had been added to the to-do list. The previous trip, it hovered near the bottom of the list, but this time it was pushed all the way to the top. This trip after a final week of rental car indulgence, the swell dropped and we decided it was time to embark on that mission to Managua.

Brian Hopper and his sweet local-style ride, making a call to help us find one of our own.

A friend of ours named Brian had bought an old red Toyota 4Runner for under $5k in Managua a couple of years ago. It was beat up and adorned with stickers, dark tint, and running board lights. The windshield washer sprayers had even been turned around and filled with flashing LEDs. It was super sweet and we were envious. We wanted something like that so that the cops and everyone else on the road would think we were locals. Brian tried to hook us up with a 4Runner through a local friend of his that was only an hour away, but it was a 1990 and they were asking $7k. Ryan decided it would be better to pay a little more and get a much newer car that would last longer. No getting out of going to Managua.

We arranged to pick up Brian’s mechanic and bring him on our journey to give an expert opinion. On the way to town we came across our buddy Shay, broken down on the side of the road. The alternator on his Mitsubishi Montero had seized up and he needed a pull. We hooked up a 6ft long thick metal chain and pulled him for an hour and a half, going no faster than 40kms/hr, all the way to town. Of course we were happy to help out a friend, and our destination had been the mechanic anyway, but it definitely got us off to a slow start.

Rigging the pull chain…
The chain came un-done right in front of a big group of guys who are working to pave the road. Great timing! We had plenty of hecklers and even some help.

We made it to Managua a little before lunchtime and our mechanic Isaac took the wheel. He drove us to one used car dealership after another. We speak Spanish, but Isaac took the lead and did most of the talking. We were looking for a Toyota, either a 4Runner or a Prado, and wanted to spend about $10k. We wanted something enclosed rather than a truck so that we could keep the boards inside and not attract any extra attention from the cops. The cops love to pull surfers over to extort a few bucks so it’s best to keep the boards out of sight.

Our mechanic Isaac is awesome. Such great energy from this guy!We would have been lost without him.

We looked at a bunch of cars, and test-drove about a half dozen. Isaac did all the driving. He would comment that the engine felt a little “bronco”. At first I thought that was a good thing. Broncos are strong right? Apparently, “suave” is what you want.

The car shopping begins…
This one had sweet stickers, but the engine was too bronco!

Crossing the street to check out some options for sale.

Engines sold a la carte!

We were rolling with $11k in cash on us, mostly in $100 bills. Ryan had put 90% of the cash in an envelope and used first aid tape to strap it to his thigh under his pants. It was hot in Managua and we were all sweating. Around 3pm Isaac and I were listening to the spiel from another dealer while Ryan had started to walk around the back of the car. He yelled at me, “Beck!” I walked over to see what he wanted and there were three hundred dollar bills fluttering in the wind. I scrambled to grab them and he was stressing, trying to hold his pant leg closed to keep more bills from flying out. Apparently his sweat had softened the envelope so that it ruptured and the bills were trying to escape. He tried to slyly hand me a wad of hundreds and shoved the rest in his pocket. 100 hundred-dollar bills is a fat wad!

No one but Isaac noticed, but we were laughing later at what anyone else might have said, “The gringo is melting and it turns out he’s made of money!”
Pocket full of hundos…

By dinner time we had narrowed it down to a white Prado with 160,000kms on it and a green 2000 4Runner with only 90,000kms. After some negotiation we got both prices down to $11,300. We took a break and got some greasy food at On The Run to think.

The Prado looked nicer and was a little bigger inside, but the 4Runner was lighter with better gas mileage and lower odometer count. All three of us decided independently to pick the 4Runner. A final negotiation got the price down to an even $11k. There’s no taxes or licensing fees or stacks of paperwork to deal with like in the States. You just go to a lawyer’s office and wait while they draw up a bill of sale, listing the price as much lower so that you have to pay less for insurance, then head back to the dealership to trade stacks of cash for a set of keys.

Signing the bill of sale…Sweating in the lawyer’s office waiting for paperwork. Happy to be almost done.

Handing over the cash.

Our new ride! 2000 Toyota 4runner!

The gas tank was empty so before heading back home in our new ride we had to stop and fill up. The streets of Managua are difficult enough in daylight and the sun had set so Isaac offered to drive at least until we reached the highway. He pulled in to the gas station and we all got out, leaving the keys inside. I went in the shop to grab some drinks for the ride home and when I came back to the car Ryan and Isaac were frantically trying to figure out a way to break in while the alarm was screaming.

“What happened?”

“I was standing there and all of a sudden heard a beep and a click. The damn thing locked itself with the keys inside!”

As I said in the beginning, one gas station attendant suggested we just break a window. We weren’t about to do that. At the same time, the manager ran out and started hassling the attendant who had been pumping our gas. He asked Ryan, “how much did you pay him?” Ryan said 900 Cordobas. Apparently, the attendant had figured out a way to change the display that said how much was owed. He showed Ryan the display that said 900, and Ryan gave him the money. The manager somehow knew and pushed a button that showed the true price of only 720 Cords. He’d ripped us off and we would have never known had the manager not showed up to call him out. All that was going on while the alarm was still blaring.

Another heckler showed up just to watch the three of us frantic trying to figure something out. Finally he held up his keys and said, “I’ve got a Toyota, maybe my key will work.” It was worth a try. Sure, enough, his key opened the door and Ryan quickly hit the button to silence the alarm. What are the chances?

Upgrading the tires.
First surf trip in the new ride.
We went for a cruise with our buddy, Shay.
We had driven several hours to a funky little beach to try to wrangle a boat. Ryan and Shay went off to speak to some fishermen. None of them were too eager to drop what they were doing surprisingly. You’d think they’d be eager to earn some extra cash!

We finally scored a boat and took a really long ride to a funky little left. It was small and mushy but at least we had it all to ourselves.
Post-surf Cokes, before the long drive home.

The upgraded homestead.
: )

It’s May and the end of the dry season. The dust flies with every step and the hills are brown. Plants cry out for relief and skinny horses whinny their agreement. Everyone is waiting for the changing of the seasons. The thunder clouds gather to the South, giving us hope but still no relief. I did a little rain dance one evening and looked to the sky for an answer that still hasn’t come.

In the meantime, we have settled in to our routine. Coffee made with water heated by a wood fire.

I made a big bowl of guacamole from enormous avocados and got excited about planting cilantro seeds so that soon we will have some of that necessary ingredient. For some reason it doesn’t seem to exist down here.

Brian, using my TRX for a post-surf stretch.

Our friend Brian Hopper showed up to say “hello”. We met Brian a few years ago. He’s from San Diego and owns 80 acres a few miles North of here. The day we met him we had just planted our first 18 trees on our lot and were at the restaurant telling stories of our exhaustion. He showed up and announced that he had just planted 2,000 teak trees. “You win!” Now there are eucalyptus and palms as well growing on his lot.

Brian had great information to share about solar panels and water towers. As soon as we realized it was Sunday, he invited us over for a BBQ to check out his land and solar setup.
We gathered a few of the friends staying at the hotel and headed out to pick up some beers and ice. The corner store was bustling with Sunday afternoon delinquency and debauchery.

Brian’s solar controller.

We grabbed a few beers each and set off to walk some of Brian’s 80 acres. I got really excited about this bridge. This time of year the river is dry, but by August it will be raging!

The crew was awesome! Joe, Brian, Dave, Shay, and Ryan.

After the long hot walk, we were stoked to get back to the house and smell garlic and shrimp cooking in the kitchen.

Shay has been living in Nicaragua for a handful of years and while you might think that would make him totally accustomed to the heat, he was surprisingly the most excited about getting back to the shade!

After another quick walk, the rain finally started falling! We rejoiced! We then rejoiced even more when we made it back to the hotel and participated in the weekly taco night. Hurray for Sundays!
Waking up to a rain-filled wheel barrow was thrilling.

Ryan, trying to get the fire started with wet wood in the dark.

Bring on the rainy season!!!!

Sunset over the Pacific

When the sun sets in Central America a new cast of characters comes out to play. Pesky mosquitoes, big fat toads, fast hopping frogs, banded geckos, and bats rule the night. Fortunately, our casita is equipped with screens to keep out most of the unwanted pests, but ants, spiders, and geckos still found their way inside. There seemed to be an unending trail of ants parading up the wall and into a hole in the corner. They carried off tiny grains of sugar spilled on the counter while sweetening the morning coffee, and larger bugs that died of natural causes. I didn’t particularly mind their cleaning efforts, nor did the surprisingly loud chirp of the geckos cause me to lose any sleep.

A strange bug.

The bats however were another story entirely. Most nights we saw them flying in fast circles at the top of the restaurant palapa. They were high above and harmless. We staggered back to the casita each night around 8pm, exhausted from a full day in the sun. Rather than bothering with lighting any candles, we usually went straight to bed, anticipating an early morning of starting the fire for coffee and making it into the water before the peak high tide. One night, Ryan woke me around 11pm with the flashlight following a bat on its circular path around the room. It seemed a little disappointed in the small size of the room and was loudly bumping into the walls on each orbit. Occasionally, it would dart lower, making a pass only a few feet above our heads, but it wasn’t enough to disturb my sleep and I rolled over and went back to sleep. An hour or so later Ryan woke me again. “Look!” He pointed the flashlight directly above us and it seemed the bat had tired and was resting in classic bat pose, hanging upside down, peacefully wrapped in it’s wings. “He’s sleeping, it’s fine, go back to sleep.”

Another few hours had passed and the bat was done with his nap and circling again. This time, Ryan had had enough. He went outside and grabbed a 7ft long piece of bamboo we had cut to transplant, and began using it to sweep the ceiling and try to shoo the bat out the open door. This sent the bat into even more of a frenzy. I put the sheet over my head only moments before Ryan swatted the bat, sending it into a dive. It landed on my shoulder with a gentle thud then bounced into the corner. Ryan immediately threw a towel over it.
Just when he had it cornered, we heard more flapping. “Tell me there isn’t another one!” Unfortunately, there was. I got one quick look at the little guy huddled in the corner before Ryan scooped him up and tossed him outside. He looked like a little brown mouse with a wider head and longer arms that held his wings.

Cute little bat

“Why do you have to mess with such a cute little thing?” I asked. Ryan reminded me of the story we heard on NPR a few days before the trip about rabid bats. I wasn’t worried, but the rest of the night he insisted on sleeping with his neck pillow as a bat guard, worried about Rabies shots in the stomach.

My boyfriend Ryan and his bat guard

I fell asleep dreaming of all the empty nighttime waves we would score as vampires. A few days later we had our builders come out and plug up the small holes in the roof, and the bat battles ended for good.

Bat-proofing

When we got home, Ryan still had bats on the brain. He started thinking the bat might have bit him. We researched rabies and bats online. From what I could tell, most rabies came from vampire bats which do exist in Nicaragua. But, were these cute little bats in our casita actually dreaded vampire bats?

I found this photo online of a vampire bat. Our bats didn’t look nearly as scary, but then again, I never got a good look at the face. I tried to compare this photo to the photo included above of the bat on the blue broom. They looked similar, I guess, but it’s hard to tell.

After reading more about rabies I learned that once symptoms of the disease start showing, there is 100% mortality rate. Basically, if you get the disease, you die, every time. Of course, you can get shots, but that’s not as easy as it seems. After a whole lot of hassle, calling the doctor, the county, etc. Ryan finally started getting the first of 10 shots, all in the butt. He wasn’t happy, but at least now he can mess with whatever critter comes his way for the next two years without any chance of getting rabies!

We’ve been home for almost three months now and it’s been a little painful. I went to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving, to Hawaii for a week in January, and we actually had a week of surf and weather in California that was about as good as California gets. I appreciated being home. But now, that has worn off, and I’m craving being back down South. I realized there were more photos that still haven’t been posted, so i’m trying to live through them right now to experience life in Nicaragua.

After the house was built the scrap materials were dumped in a pile along the fence. Our contractor informed us that he knew someone that wanted to buy 6 of our planks. He asked what we wanted for them. Not sure of what they were actually worth, we decided to the barter system was a good idea.

We had seen a cool ramada at our friend’s house that he used to support viney fruit trees. So, we suggested a trade of those planks for whatever they were worth in the type of wood used to construct a ramada. We weren’t sure how many we’d get.

A few days later, the guy showed up with a horse-drawn carriage full of long pieces of wood.

It actually took him two trips to deliver it all, and they were much taller than we had expected.

The following day, he came back with his younger brother and they quickly constructed our ramada which then attracted birds and hanging plants (brought by one of the best young local surfers in exchange for the pair of boardshorts we gave him).

We hung the plants from the corners and planted passionfruit and other viney crawling fruits at the base of each post (they weren’t planted yet when this photo was taken). Eventually, the vines will crawl up and their leaves will make shade so that we can hang hammocks from the corners to provide a cool vivid place to hang out.

Ryan pulled some scraps out of the wood pile to build a raised planter for herbs like cilantro.

We also bought a few pots in town to plant chile seeds. I wonder if they have sprouted. I wish I was there to watch them grow little by little everyday.

After really working the shoulder muscles hauling rocks and buckets all over the lot, we finally bought a wheelbarrow, then wondered why we didn’t just buy it on day one instead of waiting til the very end of the trip.

A kid that herds cows everyday showed up see what the gringos were up to and point out the different types of spiders swarming our wood pile. There were so many spiders it was incredible!

The Butchman, waiting for the laundry to dry.

This is Felipe, one of the hotel employees, an excellent soccer player, and new surfer just figuring out how to get in the tube.

We are already making plans to start building the big house. Ryan stands on the car to check the view and try to figure out exactly where to place the house on the lot to maximize the view.

I brought our solar shower so that we could take warm showers at night. Even though the weather is really warm, it’s still nice to get a warm shower.

Sunset from the porch.

Hopefully we’ll be back there again soon!