on getting lost in central america, being carefree, and traveling sensibly

I went to stay with my best bud Maura this past weekend in Fredericksburg. About 1/2 an hour after leaving my house, I got a text from her that said "hey, do you need directions?" to which I thought, "oh yeah, directions. those could be handy." Apparently I thought that just having been to Fredericksburg several times meant that I would magically find my way to the doorstep of her new house without ever being told where it was. Point of that intro is: whenever I travel anywhere, I generally tend to be a little more care-free than is appropriate.

Like the one time when I got lost in Nicaragua.

This memory popped into my head this morning and I started dying laughing when I thought of it. Maybe it won't be as funny translated into a blog post, but I'll still share it because it might bring you a smile :)

So one sunny sunday afternoon in Nicaragua, my friend Sami and I decided to go visit Casa Bernabe (the orphanage I went to over spring break). We were at the Manna house, a little outside of Managua, and needed to go south to Vera Cruz, a tiny little place it seems like no one in Nicaragua, or at least in the Manna house, had ever heard of. But we knew it was south and we knew the kilometer we needed to get off at, so (against the advice of everyone we talked to) we decided just to wing it, hop on a bus, and find our way there instead of taking the expensive route of calling a taxi. Mistake numero uno.

I will say, Sami is one of the best people I could have gone with. She is goofy, hilarious, and a proactive traveler (something you will see from this story, I certainly am not). In fact, we first met when our flight from San Salvador to Nica got cancelled. Here is what happens when your flight gets cancelled in central america: instead of announcing it, the flight crew wheels out boxes of free dinner to distract you and make you not want to yell at them. Worked on me. But Sami, she's the one who had the good sense to ask what was going on, figure out what flight we were going to take (five freaking hours later), call the Manna house and explain the situation, and just generally make sure all was well and we were taken care of. If not for her, I would probably still be in El Salv, munching on chicken and rice and wondering what in the world was going on.

Anyway, on this sunny sunday afternoon, Sami and I hopped on a bus at the entrance of El Planetario and began our trek to Bernabe. The first bus ride went smoothly. Nicaraguan buses are slightly ridiculous and sketchy, but I ended up sitting behind this precious little girl who wouldn't stop staring at me, either because I was one of two white women on the bus, or one of two white women she'd ever seen in her life. It was cute, and added to a feeling of comfort that made me think that nothing was going to go wrong with this trip. Sami and I knew we had to get off at siete sur, a rather busy bus stop we'd been to before. So when we got there, we stepped off....and realized that we had no clue what to do next.

Our next step was to somehow figure out how to get on Caratara Masaya, a highway that would take us south. So we (and by we, I mean Sami) asked a nice woman selling yummy looking things I couldn't identify which bus number we needed. It was 117 or something. And then we waited. And waited. And anxiously jumped up when each bus arrived, afraid that the next 117 was going to pass us by. Several long minutes in the hot sun later, 117 pulled up, and it seemed that everyone at siete sur had picked up on our cluelessness. The woman vendor screamed at us and waved us in the direction of the bus. A man next to me literally grabbed my elbow and said "Este bus! Este bus!" and pointed frantically, as if I was too dumb to notice it myself (which, let's face it, I probably was). At least some Nica's had my back.

So Sami and I boarded our second bus, totally and completely unsure as to where we needed to get off. But we were headed in the right direction. I remember saying to Sami, "I'm sure we'll recognize where we need to stop!" (WHAT WAS I THINKING. I am a nut. I can't even maneuver my way around Charlottesville without getting lost, but somehow I was confident in my ability to navigate in a foreign country I had been to ONCE before. And what I thought I would recognize, I have no clue). About 20 minutes into our ride, Sami said to me, "I think we should go ask the driver where our kilometer is, and where we should stop to get to Vera Cruz." My response was, "Nah, we've totally got a lot longer to go. Let's just ask later." Twenty minutes after that, Sami said, "Do you think we should ask him now?" Me: "Nah. We're good." Five minutes after that, Sammi was getting worried. "Alright, I guess we can ask now," I said.

We made our way to the front of the bus and asked where our stop was. All I caught of the driver's answer was "veinte y cinco minutos". I looked at Sami, whose face dropped. "Please tell me he didn't just say what I think he said," I asked her. Yup. We should have gotten off 25 minutes ago. Awesome.

The bus dropped us in this rando Nica neighborhood. And I mean totally rando. I still have no clue what it was called. We wandered around, not knowing what we should do. We didn't want to call the Manna house and admit to our stupidity (aka, MY stupidity), so we decided to ask around for directions. I tried to take initiative, because our situation was entirely my fault. But here's the thing - I knew how to ask the questions we needed to ask in Spanish, but I couldn't understand the answers. This is what many of our interactions went like:

Sami or I: Excuse me, do you know how to get to Vera Cruz or Casa Bernabe from here?
Nica person: (confused look as if they've never heard of either, or maybe we said something wrong in Spanish)
Sami or I: You know, Vera Cruz? V-E-R-A C-R-U-Z?
Nica person: OH, si! blahblahblahblahblahblahblah somethinginreallyrapidspanishwithlotsofhandgesturesandpointing
Sami or I: umm, thanks.

And then we would walk away defeated, and once with a map someone had drawn us which was a square picture of some bar, a circling arrow around it, and a star at the end. Helpful. And also, at this point, I am doubled over with laughter. I am walking around, utterly lost, in a spanish-speaking country, and I think it is hilarious. I'm sure Sami wanted to punch me in the eye.

We realize, after a long time, that we must wave down a taxi if we ever want to get out of here. We were a little nervous, because just the day before someone had told us stories of fake taxi drivers in Nica who mug you at knife point. So we said a little prayer that we wouldn't die, checked the license plate of a taxi driving by and saw that it looked legit, and hopped in. Our driver (of course) didn't seem to understand a word we said. But finally, after a lot more pointing and gesturing, he dropped us off at the gate of Casa Bernabe. I'm still not quite sure how we managed to explain it to him, but boy was it good to see a familiar location (and then to see some familiar faces of some of the best chicos and chicas in the world!) All in all, it took us about two hours more than it should have to get there....mostly due to me being an unprepared idiot. But it was totally worth it, made for a fun story, and I would do it all again. Just maybe next time with directions.

Moral of this (sorry, long) post: don't go somewhere without having a clue where you are headed. and don't ever rely on me for anything. Or, better yet - do both of those things and maybe you'll end up with a funny story.