Mira Flores - The Highlands

Day 434.

Now we had made it all this way it was time to venture into the Miraflores area itself. Endless green valleys of farmland and cloud forest - and we would be heading right for the top. Amazingly the chicken bus chugged along for 2 hours up near impossible gravel hills, slowly but surely conquering each and everyone. The bus views were spectacular - all but the last 5 minutes when we climbed into the clouds and arrived at our accomodation for the next two nights.

We would be staying at a self sustainable farm at the highest point in Miraflores. Admittedly the clouds (and the cold) took us by surprise, and we were anything but appropriately dressed for such climates. Nonetheless we didn't take long to settle in, we were to be the only guests and were well looked after by the Nicaraguan family that lived on and ran the farm.

When I say farm this really had it all, growing rice, beans, vegetables, bananas, making cheese, coffee & butter just to start with, that's not forgeting the countless ducks and chickens endlessly patrolling the grounds, not wanting to reduce the number of the latter however we opted for sin carne for this particular stay.

Fortunate enough to luck out with a cabana right amongst the flowers and banana trees - we would come to appreciate this even more when the stormy clouds hit the following day. That being said we enjoyed plenty of home grown coffee and hot chocalote to keep us warm whilst tucked under our blankets - the rocking chair on the terrace being a favourite spot of mine.

It didn't take long for us to tire of the local children, who seemed to have endless energy (I must say I lasted longer than limbster) on this occasion at least. However it was certainly a contrast in lifestlye watching a 6 year old boy hack away at the tree with a 2 foot machete in hand before finishing off helping with the coffee harvest, not quite the average day of a child in England.

After 2 nights we took a local guide to trek down hill, and most importantly back into the heat. Great practise again for our Spanish - not that we had a choice, with only English here we would really be screwed, think its time to admit that limbster might well have surpassed my initial advantage in Spanish , finding myself asking for help more and more often, something needs to be done...

Arrived to San Jose to be hosted by a younger local family. Much more basic (squat toilet 30m away amongst the banana trees kinda stlye). This of course was irrelevant to some of us who only heard the words ''i'll go outside my door thanks''. Although basic we had the most incredible views of Miraflores and really zoned out of everything here. Thankfully this new home meant a new variety of food - and although the core rice and beans 3x per day remained constant a small bit of creativeness made all the difference here.

Favourite pastime here was reading and listening for the passion fruits (yes them again) to fall from the tree beside us - this was surpsingly regular with the wind and we were quick to scoop them up and tuck in!

After this visit we will definitely be detoxing of the rice and beans - feel like we've eaten enough for a lifetime, and would prefer to avoid the awkward looks in the bus that without a doubt follow. Not a tourist in site on this 4 day adventure, only countryside, cowboys and plenty of farms - the Nicaragua we had been hoping to find!

We headed back to Esteli in time to knock on the door of local cigar manufacturer in town. This certainly wasn't an official tour kind of place but the supervisor let us in on the assumption he would pocket a nice little earner from us.

This meant for a great experience, watching the workers put together cigars from scratch in minutes and to the perfect specified size was a sight to behold (400 per person per day being the target!). Of course for the workers cigars come free and plenty took up this offer which meant for a lot of smoke indeed (we were even offered some freshly rolled ones to smoke during the tour but politely declined out of fear from coughing our way around the factory) . That doesn't mean however we didn't leave with slightly heavier pockets - how could we have refused!

Back to Granada tomorrow and ready to head South - but certainly a Nicaragua highlight to date.Weiterlesen