Adventures!

The last 3 weeks have seen some interesting adventures.  It all started with an impromptu trip down south - almost to the border with Costa Rica- to the beach La Flor where una arribada - or an arrival - of sea turtles was happening.  This was considered a small event, but there were still up to 10,000 turtles arriving on a given day!  These turtles were about 45-50kg, so relatively small by giant turtle standards but very impressive.

They also do releases!

Even if there were no turtles the beach was beautiful and the sunset was incredible!

So many turtles.  They look like rocks from afar.  Apparently during the big arrivals the beach is absolutely covered.

So that was one unexpected trip - but definitely worth the 7 hours in bus one way...
The next weekend I had plans to hang out in El Sauce but that changed with ease.  Turns out that one of the Peace Corps volunteers has a family friend that owns a house down on the Laguna de Apoyo close to Managua.  He was in the country and she was going to go visit him and invited myself and the other Peace Corps volunteer and I readily agreed.  Good choice!

La Laguna.  Breathtaking.  And that white speck on the other side - that's Granada.  Tourist hotspot for all of Nicaragua.

The group.  Turns out the friend is an OB/GYN in Wisconsin who came to Nica 30 years ago on a 4th year elective and has been coming back ever since.  Very cool guy with a ton of interesting stories.

Living up the beautiful Nica morning with some great swimming.  THis is how life SHOULD be down here!

Then this past Thursday was Día de Acción de Gracias.  I had seen and heard some turkeys roaming the streets and figured thought it would be fun to try and do something.  I had grand plans for a feast that didnt quite come to pass, but we did get to enjoy a turkey - all the way from the slaughter to the eating!

That's right, I bought my turkey alive!  And it looks pretty big...

...turns out it's pretty much all fluff.  Here's the process in a nutshell.  Cut off head -> allow to bleed out> dip in boiling water in order to make de-pluming easier>clean>stuff>cook>enjoy.  This was the woman from whom I bought the turkey and who then showed/taught me how to prepare the bird.

Stuff that little bird!  It didn't want to sit in the traditional manner so we made do with a lot of string to keep things closed.

All trussed up.

Ovens are almost non-existent here so we made do - cook over coals with plantain leaves to help keep the heat in.  Cooking an American style turkey Nica style.  What a mix!

The "oven"

After about 4 hours we decided "That's enough!" and went for it.  Turns out it was a good choice.

It wasn't a feast, but the turkey was good, the stuffing tremendous and the apple crisp cooked in a solar oven quite tasty.  Turkey Day Nica style = a Success!