That night, I slept like a lead weight. As soon as my head hit the pillow, i was out and not to be disturbed until the next morning. Now being used to constant travel, my sleep was hard and rejuvenating. It also didnt take much to get the batteries recharged. At the ripe hour of 8am, I was awake and moving slowly about the morning. Crisp Nicaraguan air filled the hostel along with the fresh aroma of somebody cooking breakfast. As soon as I stepped out of the dorm, I ran into the Nicaraguan guest who I had met the other night. He immediately greeted me and told me he had made me breakfast.
Sure enough, in the kitchen there was a fresh plate of gallo pinto and brewed coffee waiting for me. Once in the dining column, I sat down next to my new friend and began to feast. Dinner from the night before hadn't been much and it had been almost a day and a half without food before that so needless to say, this little traditional dish that should have already been dulled to my pallet was immensely pleasurable to my deprived taste buds. Every bite was savored and energy quickly returned to my dull frame causing my conversation with the Nicaraguan to quickly become much more involved.
He was a funny guy. Exuberant to speak what little English he knew and would often revert back to Spanish but follow up every sentence with, "you understand?" He was in Granada waiting for some sort of paperwork to come through and kept telling me how he couldnt wait to get back to his wife. For some reason, I couldnt figure out exactly what he was waiting on in Granada, but he was very upset with how slow everything was moving.
With breakfast said and done, I moseyed on over to the computers where I was greeted with a message from Dane, the drummer boy who I shared a bromance with and he said he was currently staying in Granada. This bit of news absolutely made my day and I quickly replied asking where he was staying and giving him a time to meet me at the gazebo in the city square.
Insanely excited about the unexpected surprise, I grabbed my guitar and hit the town. I killed time wandering for about an hour before setting up shop in the Gazebo. There I strummed and waited for another hour or so, stopping every now and then to listen for darbuka drums in the distance. There was never a sound. A little disappointed, I made my way back to the hostel (which upon further investigation, I have found that it is called Mochilas, not Azul) and checked my email. Sure enough, Dane had responded to my message with a hostel and an hour later in the day regroup at the gazebo. Sadly, I cannot remember the name of the hostel he gave me.
At the time though, my spirit could not be broken. Resigned to spending another day or two in Granada, I hit the town with my guitar again in search of his hostel. Like usual, everybody I asked had a different idea of where the place was located so I was willing to play the detective game. Every stop I arrived at where the hostel should have been, I would ask somebody else, receive and entirely new set of directions and then head on out. I probably followed senseless directions for an hour and a half before getting some that were worth a damn. The passerby I flagged down told me it was on the outskirts of the city about a mile away, but if I stayed on one road and just headed north, I would reach it.
So I set out on the dirt road, stopping people occasionally to ask them if I was still heading in the right direction. It looked very promising because everybody seemed to confirm that the place was just down the street. The last person I flagged down told me it was just a few meters away over the bridge that was approaching and to the right. I arrived to find that it in fact was not a hostel, but a preschool with the same name. At this hour, the heat for the day had set in and I was less than pleased to make the trek back into town entirely unsuccessful. however, there seemed to be no other choice.
Around the time I made it back to town, I made my way directly to the gazebo to see if my buddy was there. For the next hour or so, I was harassed by every shady Nicaraguan in town. Numerous people coming up asking me if I wanted pot, cocaine, even crack! until then, I had never been offered crack before. The pushers were easy though, they just took a few shakes of the head to send in the other direction. The beggars were more persistent, but still tolerable. After all, I was still under the assumption my buddy was going to arrive shortly.
In the midst of all the peddling, one particularly well dressed Nicaraguan kept coming over to speak with me and gazing up at me with very longing stares. He spoke very earnestly and for a while, I couldnt quite understand what he was saying. Bits and pieces were understood, but no full sentaences. Something about beautiful eyes... maybe a girl, I wasnt sure. He then started describing facial features how beautiful they were. As he got closer and closer to me, I began to hear him more clearly and quickly put two and two together. He was talking about me!. The dude was trying every move in his book and I kept inching away and trying to get the point across that I wasnt interested. In any other situation, I would have just left, but Dane was going to be meeting at the gazebo fairly soon, so I endured it. The guy wouldnt let up. It grew tiresome after a while and I tried to be more curt with him to get him away. Poorly played on my part because it only proved his desire to grow stronger. After waiting and waiting, I decided to get out of dodge and head back to the hostel. I was a little worried this kid was going to follow me, but i think i successfully broke his heart and turned him uninterested.
Of course, waiting for me back at the hostel was another message from Dane and I analyzed it with a little more scrutiny because obviously we both were missing something. Upon further investigation, it became clear that we were NOT in the same city. In Central America, names are recycled everywhere you go and that had been the case in what led me to the preschool. Another recurring structure in a Central American city is a Gazebo. Of course both cities have them! For the first time that day, I saw things clearly and the quick bit of sobriety hit me like a ton of bricks. It was a full day of search with nothing short of failure and the sun was now setting. Beaten from the days events, I messaged my buddy back with my findings and began to wind down for the night.
I hit a market where I picked up some vegetables and tortillas and went back to the hostel to cook dinner with the Nicaraguan guy. We relaxed, feasted and smoked a cigar to close down the night. I laid myself to rest early that night and decided that tomorrow I would head to Ometepe, the dual volcano island that had captivated my attention for what seemed like so long. Yes, tomorrow, the pilgrimage would begin. As for the night, I had a belly full of food and a room with a fan. All was well. Never before in my life had I learned to appreciate a full meal as much as in that moment after experiencing the pains of actually going hungry. It was almost a novelty.
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