Awkward Gringa Finds Partner in Crime…Also Named Kate

We all had a fantastic weekend…seriously great. I had spent the week in Managua taking care of some routine medical one year in country exams and giving a training session to the new group of health volunteers on how it is to work with a Nicaragua counterpart. We decided to celebrate Nelson’s birthday in the northern Nicaraguan city of Esteli. Due to a week long road block of protestors, Lindsey and I were unable to arrive in Esteli until Saturday. It ended up working out fine because we got a free ride from Don Douglas (truly amazing person-basically a man of all trades…he brought us our mail during training, drove us to training sessions, brought us to the doctors or lab if we were sick…he always has a smile on his face). Anyway, so the way up to Esteli, while delayed, turned out to be better than expected.

Fast forward to Sunday…Saturday was spent scavenger hunting around the city, celebrating Nelson’s birthday out at a great rancho style restaurant/bar/club at the Luis Enrique Mejia something concert. Now don’t get too excited…he’s not the famous Nicaraguan singer who sings “Yo No Se Manana”; he is his uncle. A bit older-50 years older-but strangely just as attractive. He sang the “Cumbia Chinandegana” and read a note that I wrote to him out loud, congratulating Nelson on his birthday. Good times…okay Sunday.

Sunday started out well. Kate is a small biz volunteer working and living in the city of Chinandega. We started out the day with delicious breakfast sandwiches on whole wheat bread, stuffed with egg, bacon, mozzarella cheese and tomato. That was followed by a hot and sweaty walk/hike to a beautiful and chilly waterfall. We swam under the fall and lay in the icy water, then hitched a ride with a group of Red Cross life guard volunteers. Everything had gone so so well! We then grabbed a lunch to go from the Hostel that we stayed at, as well as a round of Mojitos. (We thought we had plenty of time.)

Our plan was to walk to the gas station around the corner and hop on a bus going to Managua. We would then get off the bus at the intersection of the highway going to Leon. At that point, we would then get on another bus heading to Chinandega. It was such a simple plan…so we thought. What actually happened: we schlep our bags to the gas station 4 blocks away and half power walk half run to try and catch a bus that we thought was going to Managua. It was not. With a burning in our calves, we ask around and hear various answers that the bus is possibly going to pass by and that the bus is definitely not going to pass by. Okay. Being the flexible Kates that we are, we get in a taxi, expecting that because it is empty, it will leave right away. After telling him that there are, in fact, no cars coming and he can pull out onto the highway, we realize that he is waiting for someone. Still yelling at him in annoyance, we get out of his cab and flag down another and ask him as politely as our tempers allow us to, to please take us to the bus stop. At the bus stop, we calculate what time we need to arrive in San Isidro (the highway to Leon) in order to catch the bus. This bus will get us there 5 minutes or so after the time that we need to be there, so of course, we get on. Why not. We get off at San Isidro, on the phone with Lindsey, who is on the bus that we need to be on. We get in yet another taxi and get him to take us to the bus! Yay! We are finally on our way. On the bus, we settle for a second, looking around for Lindsey. Where is she? Shit. Wrong bus. This bus is literally crawling down the highway, as we call Lindsey and realize that she is on the bus, stopped on the highway, about 3-4 blocks from where we are now. In bus it should take us 2 minutes to get to her, but it takes us 10. After getting on this slower than death moving bus and then off it and then on it again, and having all of the other passengers look at us with emotions that ranged from sympathy to anger to pure confusion why we were acting so stupidly, we finally get to Lindsey. She is standing next to the bright yellow school bus, waving her hands to us, looking a bit frantic, but mainly relieved and happy that we made it. Apparently the bus had waited for us for 10-15 minutes. We 2 Kates climb on the bus, apologizing to our fellow passengers for being the cause of their delay and find some seats. Wow. Just another encounter of the awkward gringas, doing strange things, but in the end, turning out to be an adventure.