Backtracking to Weddings and Travels

I’m going to backtrack a bit. We are going to jump back to July 17th, a fine day: the birds were chirping, the sun was shining, and all was right in the world. Those were the simpler days and life was good. I was in Managua and had met up with Stella at the airport to head off to Masatepe. The reason for all this travel: it was Hilda’s wedding. For those of you not taking copious notes about my life, Hilda was my oldest host sister during training and she was marrying her boyfriend of 6 years. To be honest, I don’t know what was more exciting during all of this; seeing Hilda and the family or meeting up with Stella. Well I guess that is not exactly a fair statement. Both are important for different reasons and it is like comparing apples and mangoes. I really see my host families as family now and rely on them for support and often just call my sisters to say hi and see how things are going. I was so happy for Hilda and I knew the marriage was meant to be. Her and Gonzalo seem so perfect for each other and after owning the bakery together, marriage will be a piece of cake.

 

The wedding itself was much more elaborate than I was expecting. I felt like a schmuck showing up in khakis and a polo shirt. I was going to wear my guayabera, but even that wouldn’t have been classy enough and I looked weird since it wasn’t fitted. The entire family was in suites and ties and it was more like an American wedding. Hilda’s dress was made in Miami and all the members of the wedding party had matching designs. The only incident to remind us that we were in Nicaragua was that the power went out and had to have the wedding in the dark. Thank you Daniel Ortega and your campaign promise of no more power outages. Anyways, I was proud of Hilda, it felt as if my own sister was getting married and everyone just seemed so happy. Hilda had a continual smile on her face and she did not seem worked up at all. From tv I had the perception that weddings are stressful events that usually more miserable for the bride and groom, but Hilda seemed to be having the time of her life. 

 

The wedding was a huge event in itself and in Nicaragua that is usually where the evening stops. Not so with Hilda and Gonzalo, they pulled out all the stops and rented a restaurant for the reception. In all honesty, it wasn’t purely Nicaraguan, Gonzalo has a lot of family in the States and I think that played a large factor. I wasn’t complaining, they had a 6-layer cake, disc jockey, free drinks, and a catered dinner. It was top-notch and everyone was having a blast. I give Hilda credit, she stayed in her wedding dress all night and as you can see by the pictures it had quite a train. Another Nicaragua moment was that their first dance together was to none other than “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic, the typical love song here. Besides that small cliché moment, the night took off and I spent most of the evening on the dance floor with Stella. That is not to say that I am a good dancer, but I just didn’t care and I hope that Stella didn’t mind me stomping all over her toes. It was a great night and has just made me that much more excited for Al and Melina’s wedding this September. I am counting down the days and I can’t wait to show off my inadequate dance moves.

 

I’ve been forgetful the last month. First I forgot to mention Hilda’s wedding and next I forgot to talk about going to Selva Negra with Stella. Just to catch you all up: Stella had a meeting in Managua in July and that meant she could extend her visit to include the weekends before and after the conference. The first weekend we spent at Hilda’s wedding and the next, Stella came up to Matagalpa. We planned on just relaxing and not doing a whole lot. I hadn’t seen Stella before the previous weekend for about 2 months and we just wanted to hang around the city. Ideally I wanted to go to San Dionisio and my whole town was waiting for Stella’s arrival, but it would have been too much time on the bus and we compromised to stay in the city. It worked out, it may have only been two nights, but we made the most of the three days. For one we had a picnic in the park. This is kind of a joke because my idea of a picnic was buying half a rotisserie chicken for myself and a bag of chips and refried beans as our appetizer. Ha, not your idea of a picnic, but it worked. We also took an idea from meeting up with my friends Angus and Emily and we headed up to Castillo de Cacao. Sadly it was closed, but we snooped around anyways and walked around. The place is famous because it makes local chocolate and is supposed to have a decent tour with plenty of free chocolate. I was expecting to walk around a big factory with fancy glass observing decks but instead it looked like someone’s house. I swore we went to the wrong place. That is Nicaragua for you, but it was still a pretty place. I peeked into the windows and I have no idea where they make the chocolate, but it was a nice walk.

 

To end our weekend we headed out to Selva Negra which is a locally famous destination to go hiking and a tourist haven. Everyone in town talks about a) how expensive it is and b) how cold it is. True, the place is uber expensive for a Nica and a Peace Corps Volunteer. I think lunch was about $15 a plate and it is like $40 a night so Stella and I just went there for the day and packed our own snacks. Also, I have to give credit, it is colder in Selva Negra, I won’t say it is helado, but the temperatures are probably high 60’s. It is technically a cloud forest and is one of the few protected forests in the region. We went on the longest hike, but for tough people such as ourselves it wasn’t enough. Please, we have climbed Mt. Washington, Monteverde in Costa Rica, and Volcan Arenal, no skimpy cloud forest would tire us out. Either way it was a good day trip and worth doing to escape the city. There wasn’t much for taking pictures. I tried to get a picture of the city off in the distance, but it just doesn’t work on those small point and shoot cameras. I could have taken some pictures in the forest, but I can describe it well enough in words. Imagine a forest, now put it on a hill and imagine it perpetually wet. There you go, that is Selva Negra; maybe add some moss or air plants for good measure.