solitude in nature (or was it just the exercise?)

At the end of my trip to Nicaragua, I spent a few days in the mountainous north, first in the small city of Matagalpa and then in a "mountain resort" called La Selva Negra.  Matagalpa has a small museum commemorating Carlos Fonseca (founder of the Sandinista Front but killed before he could enjoy the revolutionary triumph) and some nice coffee shops (a latte with a large slice of passion-fruit cheesecake for $3...) but little else.

Around Matagalpa, however, are the mountains, with their cloud forests in the upper reaches and the coffee farms just below.  La Selva Negra is located within a coffee farm, one producing shade-grown, organic coffee, all exported to the USA.  I took the $20 morning tour to see how they processed the coffee berries, but far more appealing to me were the 20km of trails through the cloud forests, with the prospect of birds, mammals (maybe) and the beauty of the forest.

On my first morning there I started walking at 6am, eager to get onto the high, more distant, parts of the trails before other people went out walking.  The trail I chose turned out to be one of the toughest, where I had to pull myself up some of the steeper parts using the tree roots, but I made it to the top ridge and didn't see another person for the first three hours of my walk.  At that point I encountered an American birder with his guide - whom I'd already said hello to the previous afternoon - and they invited me to join them for the day.  Of course I accepted - a free bird guide!! But it was interesting afterwards to compare the time I spent alone with the time I spent with the guide and his client and find that I much preferred the former.

The client had given the guide a list of the Central American birds he had not yet seen, so the guide was targeting these birds, constantly either playing their calls or making owl calls (other birds sometimes come to mob the owl), which not only didn't seem to be attracting any birds but was also quite annoying as it detracted from the real sounds in this forest.  I was able to add a couple of new woodcreepers to my life list, and an eye-ringed flatbill that I wouldn't otherwise have seen, but the best bird of the day - the resplendent quetzal - was just spotted sitting quietly on a high branch.  & out on my own again the following two days I was able to find a slate-coloured solitaire, an emerald toucanet, a pair of brown-hooded parrots and a white-faced quail dove just from looking and listening to the forest around me.  Much more satisfying!  In fact I was so happy to finally see the solitaire that I whooped for joy and spent the rest of that morning with a big grin on my face.

I was wondering what it was that made me feel quite so good.  At first I thought it might be the solitude combined with the beauty of the cloud forest, but then I wondered if it were just the effect (the endorphins) of several days in a row of hard physical exercise?  I should vow to keep up the exercise on my return home, a slightly late New Year's Resolution, but I know there is no point, that a machine in a gym will have nowhere near the attraction of a deserted hiking trail through a beautiful cloud forest.

wildlife-watching in Laguna de Apoyo

Whilst the Laguna de Apoyo has been designated a nature reserve, that hasn't stopped people building houses there, cutting down trees, burning rubbish, etc, so I didn't really expect to see much wildlife there.  & it's true that I didn't see any of the more exciting stuff like armadillos, ocelots, skunks, etc that are supposed to still exist there.  However the howler monkeys were everywhere, seemingly unconcerned by the presence of humans, so I was able to take quite a few photos of them (and moan to myself when they woke me around 5am every day with their roars).

There were some sizeable tarantulas around the area.  They would come out of their holes from around 6pm onwards.  We saw a few scorpions too.  & plenty of birds, including some very attractive species (the photograph below shows a white-throated magpie jay, which is very common there although difficult to photograph as they will not sit still for more than a couple of seconds).

& whilst not specifically looking for them, we came across six snakes, of four different species.  Here I am holding a scorpion-hunting snake.

cross-cultural sharing

I made very clear to the Spanish teacher that I did NOT want three weeks of grammar lessons.  If I need to know how to conjugate a verb using the imperfect subjunctive I can get the necessary information from a book or website; what I needed was practice in using the language.  Three weeks of conversation, basically, with explanations for areas where I consistently struggle (eg in ser v. estar and imperfect v. preterite when trying to translate that simple English word "was").

I hadn't really thought about what our conversations would cover, but in hindsight I'm thinking that she did really well to keep the conversation flowing for some 60 hours over the three weeks. Having found out about my work and interests on the first day I suppose she used that as a base, but I'm sure she also took advantage of my presence to find out what a foreigner thinks of some issues that are perhaps not openly discussed between Nicaraguans.

There were two main subject areas: Nicaraguan political history, and Nicaraguan social issues. Mostly she would give me a topic and my homework was to research it and return ready to discuss it with her the next day, so I actually got a double benefit as I not only improved my Spanish but also got to learn more about this country that I like so much.

So I learned more about the Somoza period, about Violeta Chamorro, about Alemán and his corruption ... about the Sandinistas too, and current views of Daniel Ortega and his wife ... but in some ways the social issues were far more interesting.  We discussed machismo, the shocking extent of single parenthood and of teenage pregnancies, of physical and sexual abuse within families, and of local views on homosexuality.  She surprised me by raising the subject of anal sex at one point (apparently encouraged for young people as a means of avoiding pregnancy - but also something her boyfriend was trying to persuade her to try), and during our conversations about child abuse she confessed that she was sexually abused by her uncle at the age of eight - and that I'm one of only two people she has ever shared that information with.  There were tears when she told me.  I also know at what age she lost her virginity, and that her father used to drink too much...  They were astonishingly open conversations.  Fascinating for me but also a way for her to hear a different viewpoint on things.  She told me on the final day that her boyfriend and family were teasing her about me, apparently she was talking about me and my life/views a lot at home - and she told me that our conversations had made her consider whether she really wants children, or whether it is just the social pressure that makes a Nicaraguan woman assume that she wants them.  Wow!  It was strange to get to know someone so well, to connect on such a level, and then just say "goodbye and thanks for the lessons".  But perhaps in some ways my transience facilitated her openness with me.

Back at the living quarters, all students are treated to one 'activity' each school day.  Occasionally a trip out of Laguna de Apoyo - a visit related to the local political history, such as the prison outside Masaya where Somoza's National Guard held and tortured political prisoners (the photo to the right shows blood stains on the walls of one of the torture areas in the prison), or a quick meeting with the woman known during the revolution as "La negra" (the number 2 to Camilo Ortega, who was never captured as her nickname was deliberately coined so as to mislead - he skin being quite light in tone).  She's still a feisty lady, who entertained us by recounting how her exasperated husband issued her with an ultimatum: "La revolución o yo!" (the revolution or me).  She chose the revolution, of course.

We were also shown some videos on the history of the Sandinista revolution and on more recent socio-economic issues in the country.  All tying in neatly with my language lessons.  All in all a very interesting three weeks.