We’ve been off the grid in the hinterlands for the last four days, so we’ll be posting a few catch-up blog posts over the next day or two.

*******************************************************************************

You tend to imagine, if you’re traveling through a foreign third-world country where you have no previous acquaintances, that you have a certain degree of anonymity.  You could do anything and be anyone!  However, if you’re traveling with your three children, you might want to think again.

The city of Esteli is fairly large – population over 100,000.  But it might as well be Podunk, KS for us.  I’m getting the idea that the places we’re going don’t see a lot of families of five.

Our hostel in Esteli

Our first hint of this was as we were just arriving in our hostel in Esteli.  As we stood outside the door, laden with baggage, a man stood up in the back of a passing pickup truck and started yelling something.  As a rule, I ignore strange men yelling from trucks, so I just kept walking.  Bob heard something that made him turn his head, though, and then wave back.  It turns out the man was yelling, “Jen!  It must be Jen!  I’m Brian!”  It took a few minutes of perplexity for us to remember that when we’d made a reservation for the Somoto Canyon tour (located a couple of hours away) the next day, the person with whom I’d corresponded was named Brian.  Brian stopped by to see us a little later, and it turned out we’d identified him correctly.

Later in the restaurant across the street someone else accosted me by name.  It proved to be the owner of the hostel, whom I’d spoken with on the phone but had never met.  (All our accommodations have recognized us right away, of course – but not usually when we’re elsewhere in the city!)

Luckily no one seemed to notice us at the Italian restaurant…

…or the ice cream parlor.

Friday was a bit more unsettling.  We were standing in the bustling Esteli bus station (well, the north station, which is about 4 blocks from the south station), trying to figure out which bus we were supposed to board.  (We were heading to an organic coffee farm, Finca Lindos Oyos, in the cloud forest north of Esteli, and had rather inadequate directions.)  Bob had gone off to look at the notice board, leaving his bag behind.  As the crowds swirled around us, a woman suddenly walked up and I thought she said, “Finca Lindos Oyos?”  I nodded uncertainly, and she suddenly beckoned, said something in Spanish, grabbed a few of our bags, and took off through the crowd.  Running after her, I saw her bring our things onto a bus, while I shouted what I thought was “Stop!” in Spanish but in actuality, Bob later confirmed, was just nonsense.

Imagining various horror stories of unsuspecting tourists being lured onto wrong buses and robbed of their possessions, I was at a loss for how to proceed.  I saw the kids had followed me,

Maybe it’s Rose the well-traveled turtle that they’re recognizing.

so I yelled for them to go back and stay with Bob’s bag, hoping it wasn’t already gone.  Then I boarded the bus and saw that the woman was gesturing to some seats.  She must have read my thoughts because she yelled to another young woman that she should explain to me in English.  This other woman turned out to be the daughter of the owners of the finca, and said that she’d come to save us seats because otherwise we might not have gotten them.  She had enough details about us and where we were going to put my mind at ease – and we were grateful for the intervention, because even though we were half an hour early the bus was getting pretty full.  (As it turned out, we ended up sitting with all our bags in our lap.)

We’ve seen people we actually do know, as well.  It seems that there’s a fairly well-worn tourist path for people who are looking for eco-conscious, socially responsible travel in Nicaragua.  At the Hostel Luna, we saw people from both La Mariposa and Ranch Esperanza.

So, it turns out we won’t be going on the lam or starting a drug ring on this trip.  Too famous for that.