Letters From Nicaragua: Part 8 - Playa Maderas And Living Eco-Style

Late afternoon of our second day in Nicaragua, we finally reached the first destination of our trip: The Playa Maderas Eco Lodge. I didn't really know what to expect, but I did know that there was no air-conditioning. Coming from Florida, I had huge concerns about that, but as it turned out, that wasn't really an issue. The big surprise was that the last 45 minutes of the drive was going down a pot-holed, rutted up mess, that we would have said was a unknown road to a secret fishing spot. In Nicaragua, this was the main road to Playa Maderas. That last 45 minutes contained some of the worst living places I have ever seen in person. In my mind, I kept thinking of images I had seen from Africa. The people were dressed nice and clean, some were walking, some on motorcycles, and extremely rarely, in a truck. The average house I saw along the way was a one room affair, openings for windows, but no glass, either no door, or the door was wide open. Sometimes you would see the motorcycle parked in the middle of the house. My guess was that a good working motorcycle was worth it's weight in gold. I could not imagine what these people thought of us. Sam, was working his van between the potholes, and nothing much ever looked so out of place as that brand new Toyota van in this backcountry...perhaps a couple of gringos in a pickup truck with a paddleboard on top? One thing is for sure, everybody there knows about surfers, and that the trucks and vans that come through their villages are heading for Maderas.

When we finally got to the Eco-Lodge, for some reason, my first thought was that we had arrived at a prisoner of war compound in Vietnam. There was a giant wall, a guard tower and a small opening for our vehicles to come in. The guard climbed down, eyeing us suspiciously, and pulling out the clipboard that every single guard in Nicaragua seemed to have and began furiously writing down our tag numbers. I've often wondered what they do with that information, but at the time I was mainly worried that he would toss us back out there to the locals.

What I did not know at the time was that we had a secret weapon: If I thought Pam was good at winning over strangers, Miguel was the master. If there was ever a time that you couldn't find him, he would be talking to the 1) gardener  2) the security guard  3) or just about anybody that was looking at us funny.  Miguel and that guard were fast friends. Miguel's Spanish is superb and he is convinced that Nicaraguans are nice to him because he is Puerto Rican and being Puerto Rican is hip in Nica. I'm not so sure about that, but he is one smooth talker. I know we came to use his skills a lot on the trip.