Gigantonas

These large, colourful lady puppets are usually manned by boys, accompanied by a gang of their friends, one of whom should have a large papier-mache head of a dwarf man and the others skipping about drumming out a noisy rhythm with little drums. The puppet represents a Spanish colonial woman, and the dwarf her admirer who follows her reading poetry and moralising. It's a tradition going back years and even includes an annual competition to pick the best combination of dancing lady, moralising man and costumes. A gigantona preparing to dance in the competition in the square.

The boys see it as representing their neighbourhoods and parade around the streets throughout the entire Christmas period hoping to earn a few pennies as they go.

With Rachel outside a gigantona workshop

The Purissima

Before heading to Leon for the rowdy Griteria festival in honour of the Virgin Mary, we joined the more religious, community-based Purissima celebration in Sontule on 7th December. Rogelio and Lucia play a central role in the event at the local, no-frills Catholic church and put an admirable amount of effort into preparing and providing gift bags for all attendees, from adults through to children. As a result, hundreds of people turned out and packed into the church.

Jonny particularly loved his first appearance in church, weddings and funerals excepted, for about 20 years.

At the end of the service, the kids queued up eagerly outside to receive a bag of sweets, a drink and a little toy.

The adults each received a bag containing a plastic cup, a drink, an orange, a banana, some syrup-soaked pumpkin-type vegetable, a few bought sweets as well as home-made banana and toasted maize sweets. Our first Christmas presents of the year.

Beef casserole in Sontule

We had promised to cook a meal for the extended family in Sontule for some time. Shortly after Jonny's arrival in Nicaragua we loaded up with stewing beef from a friendly local restauranteur in Esteli and headed for the hills. It's tricky to know what to cook for so many people with no oven so we settled on a beef in red wine casserole with mashed potato. The meal officially opened the family's new dining room, linking the house to the kitchen and was accompanied by speeches from Rogelio, Lucia and us. Some loved it, some left it (it was a bit rich for all Nica palates) but all enjoyed the sense of occasion and trying our meal. It was amusing to note that they nearly all preferred the rice-crispie cakes which we had made for a previous party and which we found distinctly unimpressive, particularly as they didn't set.

Volcan Masaya

Another top class Nicaraguan tourist attraction is Volcan Masaya. Here you can drive your car right to the rim of a large, active volcano where molten lava lurks within the deep crater. We were told this sign was put up only 6 months ago and has been eroded by acidic, sulphurous gases.

Our little yellow hire car can be seen alone in the carpark on the left.

We turned up for the twilight tour which involved viewing three large crater from various vantage points whilst trying to avoid clouds of sulphur; walking through tunnels made by lava flow many years ago; sitting in the pitch black at the entrance to a cave as thousands of bats rush past; and looking into the crater after dark to see the glow of the lava.

Sunset over the volcano

Walking through the lava tunnel

Precautionary gas masks as we approached the crater rim.

The Griteria in Leon

Being a Catholic country, the Virgin Mary is a significant figure and a great excuse for a party. She is celebrated throughout Nicaragua, but particularly in Leon, on 8th December. We're not sure why it's this date but we joined in anyway. Following on from more sombre and religious celebrations of the Purissima on the 7th, the Griteria is mainly concerned with noisy fireworks, free sweets, garish shrines to the Virgin Mary in full view in people's homes and lots of partying. The key question to learn if you want sweets is, 'Quien causa tanta alegria? '(Who causes so much joy?). The answer from the Catholics along with a handful of sweets is, 'La Virgen Maria!' There are also a few songs if you want even more sweets but we didn't manage to learn those. Some of the sweety stations were quite hard work, battling against local professionals with backpacks laden with free sweet treats.

People were letting fireworks off all over the place, but the main display was in Leon's central square next to the cathedral. As usual, safety precautions were left to your own judgement. In a gloriously Latin American disregard for public safety, men ran through the crowd carrying wooden bull shaped frames above their heads from which fireworks flew randomly in all directions causing spectators to squeal and run for cover. The bright lights in the photo are the firework bulls.

There was no cordoned-off area as local men lit rockets with cigarettes and launched them from their hands.

To finish off the firework display, a dubious piece of corporate sponsorship came alight, 'Long live the Virgin Coca Cola'

Somoto canyon

Up in the north of the country, near the Honduran border and not too far from the sleepy town of Somoto, lies the convergence of two small rivers to form the Rio Coco, the longest river in Central America. The first two miles of the Rio Coco just happens to flow through a spectacular, steep-sided canyon. It was only discovered as a tourist attraction five years ago and still receives very few tourists considering its beauty. This is probably set to change shortly, as the location gains in fame as it is now an official national monument, featured on the new 50 cordoba banknote and highlighted in new guidebooks. With Jan and Nick at the head of the canyon.

We've visited twice now and loved jumping in and out of the water, clambering over the rocks, peeking into caves and hiking up to viewpoints with local community guides. With Jonny on what turned out to be a day for lots of swimming and floating.

Swimming through the stunning canyon with clear waters and bats overhead.

Spot Simon jumping off a very high rock into one of the deeper parts of the canyon.

We encountered this little tortoise crossing our path but he quickly retreated into his shell.

Cerro Negro

Cerro Negro is one of the smaller peaks in the line of volcanoes which runs more or less from northwest to southwest Nicaragua, following the coastline of the Pacific. The volcanoes are a stunning backdrop whenever we're travelling around much of the country.

Cerro Negro is an active, black ash volcano. It looks a bit like a giant slag heap and stands in contrast to the surrounding slopes which are now covered with vegetation. You can't see molten lava but there is a lot of smelly sulphurous gas and yellowy-green rock around its two craters.

We've been there twice now. On the first occasion, with Rachel's cousin Jonny, we joined a tour group and clambered up carrying large boards of wood which we then used to sledge down a steeper and smoother side of the volcano. This was very much a 'manage your own risk' activity. We were given guidelines on tapping your feet to slide at a sensible pace, or lift your legs to fly down and usually fall off. We were kitted out in orange boiler suits with patched up holes and a pair of safety goggles.

Everyone arrived down at their own pace, gravel-splattered, filthy, but uninjured and reasonably exhilarated. Jonny just holding it together as he hit the steep lower section.

Rachel relieved to be down in one piece.

We returned with Jan and Nick, this time finding our own way there in a hired pick-up along unsigned, sandy tracks. This time we walked up and down and made the most of a gorgeous sunset. The way down looked pretty dramatic from the top, but actually was a really great way to descend in big, sliding strides.

New Year's Eve

Feliz y prospero ano nuevo a todos y todas. We're a bit late with our New Year well-wishing as we've been busy having so much fun travelling the country with Jonny (Rachel's cousin) in December, enjoying the festive period and then exploring some more with Jan and Nick (Rachel's aunty and uncle).

We spent New Year's Eve in two different parts of the country. It began early in the hills at Lagartillo. We were up at 5am to join a large group from the community in a walk in memory of six of their family and friends who were killed in a Contra attack there on 31st December 1984. We more or less walked the route that the women and children of the community took that day to flee to the town of Achuapa, around 6 miles away. The walk to the cemetery was enjoyable through beautiful scenery, but also poignant as we chatted about their memories of that day. Nick (who lived in the community in the late 80s) set off fireworks along the route to mark the event.

Words were spoken and a song was sung at the cemetery in honour of the communities heroes and martyrs.

We crammed into the back of a pick-up truck to get a lift up the steep, bumpy track back to the village and on to the second part of the day. The central area of Lagartillo had been transformed with red and black Sandinista bunting and balloons. A stage had been set up for music, poetry and long (and to our ears), fairly dull, political speeches by local Sandinista councillors. There were hundreds of people there and the community provided a delicious beef and vegetable stew, tortillas and a maize-based drink for everyone.

The event was drawing to a close at around 5pm when we set off for Leon with Nick, Rachel and a very talkative Spanish man intent on teaching us ancient Spanish songs for a good part of the journey. Back in Leon, many streets were roped off by residents who had rigged up big sound systems and pinatas and had their plastic tables and chairs set-up on the streets ready to party. We arrived at a friend's house around 11pm where we ate roast chicken and rice before shooting off to the old fort above Leon for a great vantage point to see fireworks being set-off from houses all across the city and to drink a toast to 2010.

Birding with Nelson

Nelson is a good friend of ours from Sontule who came to my classes. Apart from being an enthusiastic student and a hard-working farmer he also studies birds in the Miraflor national park and keeps records of the species that he spots. Part of that work is trapping in nets to record the passing of migratory birds.We got up nice and early and once the cows were milked and we had a bit of food in us we set off with Nelson, his two daughters and Rachel's cousin Johnny, getting a good 6am introduction to the Nicaraguan countryside on only his second morning in the country. We had already prepared two nets the night before and only had to open them out and we set up another one 50m away. Then we lay in wait a few rows of coffee bushes away.The first couple of times we checked, the nets were empty and we were beginning to wonder if there were any birds at all. But soon they started to turn up. It was very fiddly getting the birds untangled without hurting them so we left that bit to Nelson. Once out they were popped in a sack.Back at our little den it was time to search through the books to identify what had got itself stuck in the nets.Some birds were calmer than others.

Everyone had a go at identifying, a task that proved very tricky at times when faced with a page of ten small green hummingbirds with just a fleck of white or a dark beak to separate them.
We trapped nine birds altogether, including four different kinds of hummingbird. It was a lovely morning, very interesting, and in great company.