Sheep Guarding Llama

Today was extra hot.  Very, very hot.  We were melting all day.  No cloud cover at all.  The bright days are the worst.  When it is overcast it is wonderful here in Granada, but those overcast days seem to be few and far between.

Today is “Back to the Future Day”, the date on which Marty and Doc traveled to in the future of Back to the Future Part II.

I got some writing done today and submitted two more articles for publication which actually fills up my backlog through the end of the year.

This evening I went out and got some pastries for the family on my own around seven.  I got home and everyone really liked them and since I had taken pictures of the pasteleria they wanted me to go out and get more stuff.  So Liesl came out with me, around eight thirty, for a walk to get more.  But we found that they were closed.  So much for getting more pastries.

Since it is “Back to the Future Day” we were having family game night and playing Back to the Future: The Game Episode Three.  We could not get the controller to connect because the batteries were dead.  So Liesl volunteered to go walking with me to the corner store to get batteries.

Liesl and I had a very nice walk together, just the two of us.  We stopped by Licoria Mary on the way back and picked up some beer too.

Back home we played Back to the Future: The Game for a bit.  Then the girls wanted to play Broken Age.  Liesl ended up playing her game late into the night, long after Dominica and I had gone to sleep.  That means that Liesl is able to play that game without any problems even without us helping her in any way.  We did not watch any of the game with her!  She did it 100% on her own.

Today is Tuesday.  This week is pretty slow but we are planning to travel this weekend, potentially.

This morning we got Luciana set up on the HP Folio 13 to use Minecraft there.  Liesl has been using the laptop for Minecraft for a long time but it is more complicated than using an iPad.  Ciana has only been on the iPads.  Today she decided that she wanted to learn how to do it on the laptop so Liesl took breaks from school now and then to come over to the kitchen and work on teaching Ciana how to play the game on the laptop.  It was very cute all around.

This evening the entire family felt like going out and I had some ideas of places that had looked good from earlier excursions around town.  We walked downtown, through the Parque Central and to the south side and down the street there.  We looked at The Gran Francia Hotel on the corner, and it looked good, but decided to keep looking.

We ended up at La Claraboya which I had found the other night and have been telling Dominica that it looked good.  She looked at the menu, which is nearly all fish, and everyone decided that it looked good.

La Claraboya ended up being an amazing find!  We were the only ones there (one other table joined us later in the evening) and is the first air conditioned restaurant that we have experienced in Nicaragua!  What a treat.

It ended up pouring rain while we were eating dinner as well.  Perfect time to be inside, but we got to watch the storm hitting the downtown streets.

Dinner turned out to be completely amazing.  The food was all just great.  I had a shrimp on pasta with cognac sauce that was just fantastic.  This was our best restaurant experience yet in Nicaragua.  It was not cheap but it was well worth it.  All four of us loved our dinner.  The service was great too.

We will be coming back to La Claraboya again!

Even when I got to bed later than usual, still awake before six.  Today is very warm, bright sun and no cloud cover or shade.  It is Monday morning.

In our fruit delivery today there was pitaya (dragonfruit) so we bought a big one and I ate half of it with just a spoon and it was pretty good.  Then Dominica took the other half of it and put it into a delicious pineapple, banana, pitaya smoothie.  Making fresh smoothies every day is awesome.

Also in today’s fruit haul are sweet lemons, which most people here refer to as oranges, but they are actually lemons.  So many new fruits to try out.  Very fun.

By noon it got pretty hot in the house.  Of course I tend to spend a lot of my time standing by the pool so that I can work at the kitchen counter and that means that I am in the sun for much of that time so I tend to be really cooking.

I went out and picked up lunch to bring home and while I was out Dominica made homemade pina coladas from our fresh fruit and Flor de Cana rum.  Delicious.  This is how to work from home!

We opted for a quiet Sunday at home today.  Dominica’s ankle still hurts from she doesn’t know what, so she is not up for walking or doing anything until that is better.  We can’t rent a car today as things are closed on Sundays.  So we are just home.

We had a nice time just relaxing around the house.  In the early afternoon I went out for a short walk, just a few kilometers, around the city.  I went downtown and took a few pictures.  It was a nice walk and the weather was not too bad.

Luciana had a scare this evening.  She thought that there was a big insect in her room.  I ran in to check on her.  It turns out that it was a gecko up by the ceiling casting a bit, triangular shadow.  She was very glad to learn that it was a little baby gecko watching over her and keeping the insects away.  The girls love all of the lizards that live all over the house.  We are so happy that they think that they are cute and sweet as so many kids would likely be afraid of them.  We probably have a dozen lizards living inside of the house with us.

Since Luciana was asleep and Liesl was busy doing her own thing, we decided that it was time for Back to the Future: The Game.  We set up in our bedroom and began Episode 2.  After a little while, Liesl came in to join us.  She said that she was hoping for a family game night tonight and had been hoping that we would play Back to the Future.  So she was very happy.  She stayed with us all evening.  Eventually Luciana woke up and came in too but was upset because she did not want to play this game.  But she eventually snuggled in the bed with us and had a good time too.  She just likes to be contrary.

By the end of family video game night we completed the second episode of Back to the Future.  I have the third episode set to download during the night.  Hopefully we are able to play that tomorrow.

Got up well before six again today.  So weird.  Came downstairs pretty early and set up in the dining room.

We had been thinking about traveling this weekend, maybe renting a car and heading out somewhere to see some more of the country, but Dominica’s ankle was hurting her this morning and she would not be able to do any walking.  So that idea was out.

We got passion fruit in our fruit delivery this morning!  Pretty exciting.  We ate some then Dominica made smoothies with it.  Fresh passion fruit, now that is something pretty exotic.

We did not do too much today.  Hung around the house and had a bit of family time.  Liesl had requested Kathy’s Waffle House for breakfast today so for breakfast (well, around lunch time) we walked downtown and got a big breakfast there which held us through most of the day.

In the late afternoon I set out for a long walk to the west towards the Laguna de Apoyo.  I went south through the city and west along the cemetery and up the mountain road that runs up from there.  It was quickly a dirt path and I ended up climbing up a mountain through rural farming areas and a lot of very, very poor regions.  I made it past the fork in the road, more than halfway to Apoyo but it was getting late and the light was waning.

Partway up the mountain a group of kids came out and talked to me and asked me to take their picture, which I did.  They thought that it was great fun having someone walking by with a phone.

It was a good, long walk for me.  About ten kilometers with a good change in elevation.  I was totally drenched with sweat by the time that I was done.  Really drenched. It was so humid.

The walk back got a bit tough as towards the end I could not see the “road” I was walking on and it was incredibly uneven (and there was a lot of poo on it.)

This evening Luciana requested that we have pizza for dinner.  She had actually asked for it while I was out on the walk and Dominica had texted me, but the pizza place was not on the way home and I needed to get home and clean up before going out to get pizza.  So I came home showered and relaxed for a little bit.  Then I walked uptown to Pizza Vale to get dinner for everyone.

I ordered the pizza and just sat down to enjoy a pina colada while I waited for the pizza. I did not have the energy to go to La Colonia and go shopping.  I was planning to just relax.

It turns out, completely by chance, that tonight was a huge pay per view boxing fight at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan.  That it was being shown at the pizza place tipped me off that maybe someone from Nicaragua was going to be fighting.

It turned out to be a huge fight for the world championship and I got to watch the undefeated, ranked top boxer pound for pound in the world from Nicaragua beat his American rival.  It was a good fight and the pizza place was completely packed.  There was a lot of cheering and everything shut down while the fight was on.

After the fight, which was a really cool cultural experience, I walked back home and noticed that the streets were completely empty like never before.  The whole country must have been at home or out at a bar watching the fight.  Probably the biggest thing to have happened in a while.

I got home and we put on The Nanny and we ate our pizza.  The girls enjoy our evening family time.