Saturday, December 21, 2013

Nicaragua day 5 - machine guns, bats and iguanas


We went to a fancy restaurant last night that specialised in local Nicaraguan cuisine (which, of course, involves, bananas, beans and rice). The restaurant (in contrast to our hotel) is in a nice part of town. It was quite some distance and, not feeling terribly confident about driving at night, we decided to go by taxi.

The taxi pulled up in front of the restaurant right next to a guy carrying a machine gun. I couldn’t quite figure out whether the guy was protecting the restaurant patrons or something/someone else but there were other people standing with machine guns at other street corners nearby.

The dinner was ok (I don’t think Nicaraguan food is in my top 10 of most global cuisine). I was more interested in the bats that were flying around our table. The bats were pollinating the banana plants flowering in the garden beds adjacent to where we were sitting. It was like seeing a David Attenborough documentary – but in real life.

Today we went to one of the major markets to look for some materials we needed for an experiment. Hmmm…how to describe the market experience? I guess it’s a bit like the Queen Victoria markets but more crowded and dirty and full of smells that make me want to gag. The worst part was definitely the section that sold meat…it almost made me want to become a vegetarian. The saddest part was seeing live iguanas (giant lizards) tied up for sale.  

2 comments:

Victor said...

What do people intend to do with the Iguanas they purchase?

Adaptive Radiation said...

They apparently cook them up in a stew. Poor things (the iguanas).