Cigars, Freedom, and a Forest in the Rain

Breakfast at Paz de Luna

Monday morning (Day 5) we woke up prepared for a busy day of running ahead of us, as we’d be spending a little bit of time in 3 separate cities, and had reservations for tours in two of them.  As most of our stays did, Paz de Luna had breakfast included in our stay.  We walked to the back of the guesthouse, where  they had told us we would be eating, and saw one table with 4 seats.  This was another rectangular courtyard room where the entire center of it was a garden with no roof. The entire perimeter of the courtyard was a covered hallway/seating area.  We weren’t quite sure if this table was for us since if we sat there, there wouldn’t be room for anyone else.  However after walking past it and realizing there were no other tables in this area, (and it was right next to the kitchen) it was obviously for us.

We ate our breakfast quickly, and ran out to do some very quick shopping, and a little bit of site seeing in Leon.  We only had about 90 minutes for this until we had to get on the road to Esteli in order to meet our tour guide for a cigar factory tour.  The previous day, we had seen that the central park, which was about 5 blocks away had several vendors of souvenirs.  We quickly walked back that way and looked through some of the kiosks set up with thousands of locally created trinkets.  Each vendor wanted to show us everything they had available. We however wanted to quickly scan all the kiosks and only grab things that really jumped out at us, as we knew we had plenty of shopping opportunities ahead of us.

Leon Cathedral at Parque Central

After grabbing a few things, we turned to leave the park intending on taking in a bit of sightseeing and picture taking on the way back.  However, as we were about to leave, a woman in her early 30s or so tapped Aimee’s arm. Normally our response (as this is a constant occurrence in places that attract a lot of tourists) would be to try and quickly brush them off, however, there was a different sense of sincerity in her face.  She asked if we spoke Spanish, and I told her I did a little bit.  She began to explain that she had a very young daughter that had cancer and who was going through chemotherapy in the hospital.  She said that she needed money for formula for her daughter.

When traveling to countries such as Nicaragua, you realize how different the United States are from much of the rest of the world.  We are “the Melting Pot” with people of all sorts of backgrounds, and all shades of skin.  It’s very difficult to walk down the street and recognize who lives there, or who is visiting from another country.  Not so in much of the world.  When walking around Nicaragua, its very easy to determine who is a visitor, (at least certainly a visitor from the US).  Because its also an extremely poor country, it’s well known that even the poorest of the “Chele” visitors, have access to quite a bit more money than much of the people of the country.  There are many local people who have developed a good skill of playing on the emotions of visitors to generate an income.

As always, being a short term visitor, its difficult to tell if you’re talking to someone in need or a career panhandler.  In this case it was a woman that seemed to appear sincere.  Plus as we have good friends that are going through the troubles of a child that has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy, we know how difficult of an ordeal this is.  I asked the woman if there was a place nearby that we could by the formula for her.  (since at the very least, if this was just a scam for spending cash, this would throw her off).  Instead she seemed thankful and relieved, and said there were two around the corner and we could use either one.   I told her we’d walk with her to them, and buy some for her.

On the way, she talked a bit more about her daughter, as well as her ex-husband who had left her.  Aimee and I told her how we were on our honeymoon, and about our families at home.  After a 2 block walk, we arrived at the pharmacy.  She walked up to the counter and explained to the pharmacist what was going on, and the pharmacist provided the list of prices for different quantities.  We then took the bill and went to the cashier to pay for it.

We’ll never know if we helped a desperate mother in need, or simply enabled a local con-artist.  Our hope is that it was the former. Regardless, it gave us an opportunity to talk and meet with another individual from a different corner of the world, and even a chance of the story being sincere, it was worth it.

Roadside Produce Market: Between Leon and Esteli

After this slight detour, we really had to hurry back to the hotel to pickup our car, and hit the road.  We had a 2 hour drive ahead of us.

Horse Tied to a Post Along the Highway

As with each of our multiple long distance drives, we saw expansive landscapes, distant mountains, and lots of farmland.  This was dotted with ramshackle roadside villages that would lead into small congested cities of  25,000 to 150,000 people.  Driving in a small SUV crossover, we shared the road with large trucks, small motorcycles, horse drawn carts, random horses, cattle, dogs, pigs, bicycles often carrying 2 people, and/or quite a bit of cargo, and in some cities, rickshaws (motor driven and bicycle driven).  Theoretical rules of the road are similar to those in the US, however they are followed a lot less.  Red lights are often ignored, passing is constant (whether in a no passing zone or not).  In the cities, many roads are one way, and not necessarily marked as such.

Aimee was particularly amused by the fact that livestock are often tied to trees along the road to graze with no one in sight.  In some rural areas, they actually roamed completely free and unattended.  There were many times where we saw a herd of a dozen or so branded cattle walking in a group along the side of the road, with no one in sight to guide them.

Cow Grazing Along Highway

Herd of Cows Along Highway

Also interesting, was the nature of all the local public schools.  Schooling in Nicaragua is not compulsory, however there are still lots of public schools, and by the looks of things during the week, most children do take the opportunity to attend.  From the big cities to the smallest villages that we passed through there were tons of public schools everywhere.  The day is split in two, and the younger children attend in the morning, and the older chilldren attend through the afternoon.  The schools are easy to spot, as they are all painted in the national colors of white and sky blue.  The top halves of all the buildings and fences around them are white, and the bottom halves are sky blue.  Similarly, its easy to identify the throngs of children on their way to and from schools, as they have uniforms that are white shirts and navy slacks or skirts. Drivers in Nicaragua also are required to slow their speed to 25 kph in school zones, as in the US.  This definitely slowed down our travel, but for good reason, as it kept all the kids safe from the heavy traffic that would otherwise be flying by on the highways and roads.  Most amazing to Aimee and I, parents of 5 kids combined, is that in a country where many of the roads that the kids walk along to school are dusty dirt roads, most homes have dirt floors, and a lot of time is spent outdoors, every kids' uniform seemed to be spotless and neat looking.  This is a trend I've noticed in many developing countries from Belize, to Cambodia, to India.

School Letting Out

Ahead of us, in Esteli, we had an appointment for a Cigar tour.  Esteli is the center for production of Nicaraguan cigars.  Much of our travels were planned with the assistance of Lonely Planet’s Nicaragua guidebook.  These guidebooks are great for being very detailed, and providing suggestions for very localized tours, especially in “off-the-beaten-path“ locations.  In terms of cigar tours, the book suggests working through Leo Flores, and offers his personal cell phone number and email.  We went ahead and had contacted him ahead of time, and he arranged for a guide to meet us in a parking lot of a supermarket.  This morning, he had asked us to give him a call when we were about 30 minutes outside of Esteli. All of my correspondence with him had been in Spanish via email.  I was a little nervous about talking to him on the phone in Spanish, (I can get by speaking Spanish in person, but its much harder over the phone) I warned him in the email that my Spanish wasn’t very good.  Misunderstanding my reason for disclaiming this, he reassured me the tour guide spoke good English.

When the time came for me to call him, I rehearsed a few of the things I needed to say to him in my head, and tried to consider any follow up questions, and how to answer.  I called him, and when he answered,  I fumbled through a sentence or two in Spanish, and he then responded in English.  Awesome! That made the call a little easier.  He let me know that our guide would be awaiting us.  I had also previously asked if there was a place we could grab a quick bite.  He let me know it was no problem to pick up the guide and that there were a few restaurants in the area.

We found the MaxiPali supermarket where we were to meet Mario, our guide.  We pulled in and parked in a conspicuously empty section of the parking lot, so we’d be easy to spot.  Within minutes, Mario came walking over to our car.  He was about our age, maybe a couple years younger, had a shaved-to-the-skin head and very clear English with a distinguished sounding Nicaraguan accent.  And of course, his voice had just a bit of growl to it from spending many years smoking cigars.

He offered a few options for lunch: some fast food options, or he said there was a traditional Nicarguense

Lunch at Comidas Tipicas Sabor Nicaraguense

restaurant across the street.  We of course opted for the latter.  He helped us choose our meals from the array of dishes in steam trays behind glass.  Something without beef or pork for Aimee, and something WITH beef for me.  At the end were some gooey looking deserts, in small covered plastic cups.  The local flies clearly were most impressed with these, and we decided to grab one.  Though we couldn’t remember what they were called, we were fairly certain these were the dessert that Sergio and Tania had suggested a day earlier that we needed to try, made with evaporated milk, and all sorts of sugar..

Not surprisingly, the lunch was phenomenal.  After finishing the meal, we tried the desert item.  The consistency was a very thick and gritty goo.  The taste was creamy and almost sickeningly sweet.  It was very tasty, but so incredibly rich and sweet, it was difficult to finish it, even when only sharing one.

Mario, who had left us alone to enjoy lunch (we offered to buy him one, but he declined) returned to see how we were doing, and if we were ready to go.  We got up, used the restrooms, and were about to head out.

While we had been dining, we had noticed a very tall man in his late 30s/early 40s who appeared to be Caucasian, walk into the restaurant with a short attractive local looking woman.  They sat a couple tables away.  Both Aimee and I had noted separately that he seemed a bit out of place, but we heard him speaking  very fluent Spanish and thought perhaps he was just a very fair-skinned local.  As we walked past him, he looked up at us and in a very American sounding English, asked  “Where are you from?”  We told him “Nashville, TN.”  So as not to sound like an imposter with my Midwestern accent since he would likely know the difference, we further explained I was originally from Chicago, and Aimee from West Virginia.  He was from Crossville, TN---another city in the Mid-State Tennessee region!!!  A small world.

We only talked for a few minutes, but he gave us the very quick synopsis of how he landed in Nicaragua.  He said “When they passed that Obamacare, I had to get out of the country.  I wasn’t going to live under that, where there going to force me to get vaccines, and pump me full of mercury and crap.  I came here 4 years ago, and loved it, so I stayed.  I haven’t looked back since.”

This struck me.  “America, Land of the Free.”  A country founded by people who fled England where they felt the government had gotten too intrusive in their daily lives.  Here we are only a few centuries later, and people are leaving America for that same reason.

We shook hands and bid each other farewell, mutually laughing at this chance encounter of someone from our same area.

Mario joined us in our car again, and provided us directions through the narrow streets of Esteli ultimately pulling up along side a very non-descript small industrial looking building.  Once we parked the car and opened the door, there was no mistaking what was being made inside.  The air outside the building was filled with the strong aroma of fresh cigar tobacco.  This was the La Corona cigar factory.

We entered the building and the smell only got stronger.  Inside was a wall with a large mural of a building in Cuba, as well as two men’s pictures.  One was a much older gentleman holding a cigar, and the other a much younger one. The older was the original owner, and the younger was the son (or maybe nephew, now we can’t remember) of the factory.  Mario of course argued that Nicaraguan cigars were actually much better than Cuban cigars.  However, he went on to say that many of the Cuban cigars were made with Nicaraguan tobacco. And in some cases, Cuban cigars are simply Nicaraguan cigars relabeled.  The history of cigar making in Nicaragua did certainly have roots going back to Cuba, however with the Castro regime nationalizing all the businesses in Cuba, the Nicaraguan cigar industry got a strong jump-start, and some businessman looking for a new place to set up shop where they had the freedom to own their own businesses.

Before we began the factory tour, Mario asked us a series of health questions.  Do we have any breathing problems, asthma, allergies, etc.  We were taken aback at this, and even chuckled a little bit.  “No, we’ll be fine.”  He went on to say, he has to be careful because some people do have problems when they are around the fermenting tobacco.

He then opened a door to the next room, which was a large room of pallets piled about 4 feet high with

Tobacco Fermenting Room

layers and layers of tobacco leaves.  As soon as we walked into the room, an overwhelming smell of ammonia hit us.  Aimee immediately began coughing.  My throat and chest slowly started to tighten, and I as well coughed a few times.  Mario explained that as the leaves ferment, they emit ammonia.  This was all fascinating to us, having had no idea that cigars were fermented to start with.

We continued on into a few more rooms where the fermented leaves were partially de-veined and sorted by size and thickness.  The sorted leaves were then baled and moved to the aging room, where the bales would age for many years.  We walked into this room next.  We were still near the

De-veining and Sorting

fermenting room, and ammonia was still strong in the air.  When we moved into the aging room, the ammonia smell diminished, but an overpowering smell of cigar tobacco replaced it.  Though the smell was good, my lungs and throat closed up a bit more.  I’ve never had any asthma type problems, but every breath I took was creating a strange wheezing sound coming from my throat.  I coughed a few times, but it only improved a little bit.  Mario explained the different sources of tobacco in the different bales.  He allowed us to smell a few different bales so we could smell the differences in the variety of the leaves, depending on how and where they had been grown.

Aging

After this room, we went into another room where leaves were being sorted by color and being selected to be used for either filler, binder, or wrapper.  We then returned to the room we started in, where a couple dozen workstations had people hand rolling cigars, measuring them, weighing them, cutting them, compressing them, and adding the tip to them.  Some of the people rolling them, were also smoking cigars as well while they were working.  As we were talking, a woman came in and sat at a desk at the front of the room, facing all the workers.  She picked up a book, and began reading in a very loud voice.  Mario explained that every day it is her job for a period of time to read a book to the workers from various types of novels, poetry, or inspirational works to help pass the time while they worked.  Mario asked one of the workers to show us how to roll a cigar, and then we each got our turn.  Aimee got hers right the first time.  I attempted, but ended up with a
very poorly rolled loose cigar that was too short.  I’m pretty sure mine was tossed in the scrap pile as soon as we left (or perhaps sent to Cuba).

As we finished up the tour, we had the opportunity to pick out some cigars and buy them.  The team that hand labels, and inserts into the cellophane wrappers, prepared the box for us, while we talked more with Mario.  We talked a bit about our trip, and current events.  Many people throughout the trip asked us about the upcoming election and our thoughts.  (We expressed our strong concerns with both options).  Mario did say that he admired Trump’s business acumen, but didn’t go so far as to say whether he thought he’d be a good president.  As the conversation wandered further, he talked about some of the things he doesn’t understand about the US, such as rules about personal activities.  He said he, as a cigar smoker, understands that at a restaurant, there may be people who don’t want to be bothered by

Aimee Successfully Rolling a Cigar

cigar smoke and the desire to ensure places for these people.  But he didn’t understand why there were some restrictions in some areas preventing people who WANT to smoke to be able to do so with others

Cigar Rolling Fail

who share the same desire. Furthermore, restrictions on certain freedoms like ordering large soda sizes in New York, or attempts on limiting supersized fast food options and snacks available in kids meals made no sense to him.  For the second time in as many hours, I had to stop and think about freedoms that now exist in other countries, but no longer exist in ours. Compound this with a conversation I had 5 years early on a trip to Cambodia, where a woman from Iceland explained that her understanding was that history books are selectively censored in the US, “unlike in Iceland,” and that growing up most of her history books were stamped “Not for distribution in the US.”  It certainly makes you second guess where we are as a country today.

Ryan and Mario

Once our cigars were ready, we took them and left.  Mario said that he had one more part of the tour at a small museum up the street.  We headed over to a small building across the building from a fairly modern

Mario and Ryan outside the Museo Municipal, Esteli

looking sports stadium.  Mario explained that the location of the museum was special as there was a battle that had taken place at that location.  Inside a curator gave us a tour in Spanish, and Mario translated for us.  There were many artifacts from ancient petroglyphs, to war history, to pop culture history with items like rotary phones, typewriters, and record players.  (Seeing items from one’s childhood in a museum, shortly after one’s 40th birthday suddenly makes you feel a lot older, by the way.)  Of all the items however, the one that Mario clearly had the greatest affection for was a sculpture near the front door.  It was one piece, but had 4 faces on it, one on each side.  Each face represented the different ethnicities of the Nicaraguan people, but symbolized how they all come together as one to make up Nicaragua.  You could certainly sense the deep pride within him about his country and his people.

Petroglyphs in the Museum

At the end of the tour, we asked if he needed a ride home.  He told us that we were ending in his own neighborhood, and he lived close by.  We thanked him for the great tour, and quickly jumped in the car to speed off for the 90 minute ride to Matagalpa to make our next and final tour of the day.

Cows?

Driving on the roads of Nicaragua, you definitely see a lot of things that seem strange to the visitor from the US.  On our way to Matagalpa, in the pouring rain, we saw one of the strangest things we saw on the road during our trip.  It was a truck full of cows.  We followed this truck for 30 minutes or so.  This may not seem that far out of the ordinary...except these weren't live cows.  They weren't dead cows either...but instead a bunch of giant fiberglass cows.  (as well as three men hiding from the weather under a tarp in the back of the trailer.)

When we booked our night tour for this evening in Matagalpa, we had asked for this tour to be done a little bit later than they usually offer it, since we were coming in late.  They said this was fine as this too was a private tour.  When we got in to Matagalpa it was about 5:40pm, and we were supposed to start the tour at 6:00pm.  My iPhone GPS showed clearly where the Matagalpa Tours office was, however, it continued giving me directions to turn that would have had me going the wrong way on one way streets.  After spending 15 minutes or so trying to navigate the maze of one ways, we finally got to our destination.

Our guide, who would take us out on a night tour of the Apante Nature Reserve, was a very short, thin, lightly bearded man in his 30s or 40s rising to only about 5 feet tall.  He introduced himself to us: "My name is Jose. Or Joseph,"

As we had been approaching the office, there was a bit of lightning and light rain.  After our debacle on the beach at Chacocente, Aimee was quite hesitant about venturing back out in a storm.  She  asked Jose if the weather was a concern and we also explained we didn’t have flashlights.  They asked if we had rain ponchos, which we did, and they said they had flashlights for us, and it shouldn’t be an issue.

Matagalpa tours also provided the car and driver out to the reserve.  We climbed in the back, and drove the

Night Hiking in the Rain

short distance out to Apante.  As we parked, the rain was still a heavy drizzle.  We walked into the darkness of the reserve along a very wet and muddy path, our ponchos keeping all but our feet dry.  Jose scanned the trees at the entrance, looking for sloths, but unfortunately none wanted to be seen that night.  As we continued on the 90 minute hike, we did get to see several Golden Orb Weaver spiders, some with as big as a 4 inch leg span, a “small” leaf cutter ant mound with the workers milling about, and a crab spider.  Jose explained that the leaf cutters have extremely strong jaws, and that they used to be used in placed of stitches, as the ants would be encouraged to bite into the broken skin, and the bodies would be twisted off of the heads, leaving the teeth clamped down across the break.  We were then cautious to make sure none of the ants had climbed onto our shoes, or up our pant legs, as this didn’t sound pleasant at all.

When Jose found the lair of a crab spider, which was a small hole in the ground, he attempted to get the spider out with a stick.  He tried for several minutes to coerce the spider out with a stick to no avail as we initially walked past its home.  At this point the rain had begun to fall at a good solid pace, and the ground around us was getting quite wet.  We moved on and continued the tour.  On the way back however, we stopped at this whole again.  This time Jose was not to be out done.  He reached deep into the dark hole 18-24 inches with his bare hand and dug around.  At one poin the finally pulled out the crab spider, which was also about 4 inches across and had large pincers like a crab.  It wiggled out of his hand fairly quickly and landed on a piece of wood over the hole.  It scampered about for a few seconds, and then found its way back into the safety of its lair.

We continued back towards the car, as the rain fell harder.  This time though, we were a bit more comfortable as we had the cover of the ponchos from the rain, the cover of the jungle from lightning, and the aid of flashlights against the dark.  When we got back to the Matagalpa Tours office, we asked Jose if he would be our guide the next day for our Chocolate and Mocha tour.  He said he didn’t know yet, but hopefully.

We thanked him for everything, and jumped in our car to find some food and check into our hotel which was still another 20 minutes north of town in a much more isolated section of the mountains, considered to be one of Nicaragua’s many “cloud forests.”

We couldn’t quickly find a fast food restaurant on the way, but did find a La Colonia grocery store.  We searched it quick for some prepared sandwiches, however the sandwich section of the store was closed for the day, and we opted for some junk food instead.  As we headed out of the North end of the town, we missed a turn to the main highway, and detoured a few blocks down some city streets. Heading north, there was a significant rise in elevation, and suddenly there was a street in front of us that looked like a wall.  We both exclaimed at the steep slope with our eyes wide, and asked each other if the car could drive up a road like that.  We began ascending slowly, putting the manual transmission in first gear and ascending the steep slope.  As we began the 2 block long ascent, it actually seemed as if the car could almost tip backwards.  It certainly didn’t seem like this was a safe angle to be driving a car.  As we got to the intersection at the top of this hill, I couldn’t see the road over the front of the car, and had to sit up and forward to try and make sure there weren’t any obstacles in front of me.  This was certainly a new driving experience, even after years of driving in Tennessee, and experiencing the Mountains of West Virginia in the Spring.

After a few more streets like this, we made our way back to the highway, and continued to weave and ascend into the dark mountains as it continued raining on us.  Eventually we made it to the Selva Negra mountain resort, found our way to the reception building, checked in and were taken to our bungalow.

At this point it was all-out pouring rain.  A young man led us from the reception area to our bungalow

Bungalow in Selva Negra

walking under an umbrella to our car.  Everything was completely dark.  He walked up to a utility pole, and pushed a button, and suddenly the road was lit up from a streetlight high above.  He showed us where to park, and led us about 200 feet from the road to our house down a very wet sidewalk weaving through foliage, trees, and hedges that we couldn’t quite see.  He showed us the house, and we walked inside.  Aimee was immediately and visibly thrilled by the lone photograph on the wall of a capybara standing in a field, and decided she immediately liked the lodging.  I was excited about the spotless living room and bedroom, and the much more updated quarters and better condition of the bed and bathroom vs. the accommodations the night before.  Now however we had to get our belongings.  There was a porch with two rockers on it, and we thought we’d wait a few minutes and see if the rain let up.  It didn’t.  To make it worse, the light had been turned on in the street was now out.  I made a number of dashes to the car to get the bags, trying not to get completely soaked.  Finally we had our belongings, and turned in for the night, enjoying the much cooler temperatures of this location as compared to everywhere we’d been up until now, and excited about the next days tour---a tour that was one of the first things we found and was anticipated to be a highlight of the trip.

Waiting for the Rain to Stop