Mercado Madness

It was another good weekend here in Nicaragua, with not one but two trips to the market! On Saturday, Joe and I did a short day trip to Masaya, which is a pretty little town about 30-45 minutes from Managua. We caught a microbus at the major private university in Managua – the UCA – which was cool to see. The area around it definitely had a ‘collegey’ feel, with lots of activity, vendors, posters, students, etc.

In Masaya, Joe took his Ucayali to a guitar shop to be fixed. It definitely was not your typical guitar shop though – it was tucked back in between some houses, and was basically just a barn with a dirt floor where the owner made these beautiful custom guitars for about $100 dollars.

From there we went to the market and got the usual supply of fruits and veggies. We also scored a bunch of movies – Benjamin Button, Burn after Reading, the Changeling (note the Brangelina theme), Harvey Milk and Charlie Brown. That should keep us busy for a week or two!

I also picked up my first sunburn of the trip at the market. After whining Saturday morning about not getting enough color here, I got my wish…though red was not the color I had in mind. All the kids have been teasing me about it too – maybe because people here don’t usually burn like us gringos.

Sunday we started the day off with an impromptu parade, if you can call it that. At 8:30 am, we suddenly heard drums and a siren. Everyone ran out to the street from our neighborhood, and shortly thereafter a band walked by playing all sorts of instruments. They were followed by members of the local soccer teams – it turns out this little show was all to kick off a new season of soccer. All in all, it lasted about 5 minutes – just your typical Nicaraguan randomness in the street.

The second trip to the market was also on Sunday, and there was one big ticket item we were looking to buy. I told Kelly and Joe I would get them a grill to mix up the dinner options. Logistically, I wasn’t really sure how we were going to get a grill from the market to our house – at least the kind of grill I was imagining. However, I soon realized that the giant Weber grill I had in my head was not the kind of grill typically used in Nicaragua. Instead, the grill we ended up with looked like this, and cost about $4.50:





It might not look like much, but we couldn’t be more excited. It’s certainly an upgrade over using the neighbors’ grill which, by the way, is made of a hub cap and the front part of a fan. And to break it in, the inaugural meal was cheeseburgers, onion rings and a cucumber salad which I made all by myself. It was delicious!