February 1
Went down the street and had the last lesson of the year with Roger Jr.
Back to the hotel for breakfast at 7 and then finished packing. We went for coffee and then bought a bag of sliced fruit for me and a bag of sliced papaya for Juanita. On the way back we ducked our heads into Abdallah Travel’s office and were told they got the message. I had booked the shuttle the day before and gave the Mercado Oriental in Managua as the destination. Later in the evening I had realized my mistake. The bus depot for the buses to the north is next to the Mercado Mayoreo. Oops. That would be nasty. The moment I realized the mistake I went out and mentioned it to the desk clerk/ hotel owner’s daughter/ sister of the owner of Abdallah Travel. She said she would phone them in the morning.
She had.
At about ten to ten we went out and handed in our key and said goodbye (hugs) and sat in the rocking chairs by the Hotel Jerico entrance. At ten my iPod announced “ten o’clock” and the car for the Mercado stopped out front. How’d he do that?
This car was a private car in better shape than last year’s. He also knew where the Mercado Mayoreo was. Last year the driver had tried to dump us by the side of the road at a spot where the bus would pass by. I resisted. By the time a bus gets there, there is nothing but standing room. It seemed that he had two problems. First, going to the market would mean he had to drive slightly further than if he was taking us to the Managua airport. Second, he didn’t know the way to the market. I had to give him directions and encouragement. “Turn here.” “Not far now”
This year’s driver knew where the market was, but was foggy about the bus depot. He tried to drive further into it before dropping us off. With a little encouragement he dropped us near the street that goes into the market. We walked a little ways in and something seemed off about being able to connect to the depot so I asked somebody for directions. See. A man can ask for directions. Maybe it has more to do with stopping driving than with directions. Asking for directions while driving means you have to stop and ask for directions. Stopping walking to ask for directions is an entirely different matter.
My geo sense was right we had been heading in the wrong direction. We went back out to the main street and started walking east. When we started crossing the driveway. There was a bus leaving and a bus behind it. The tout for the second bus was yelling “Matagalpa”, our destination for the day. I asked if there were seats. He clamed there were. He didn’t say there were none together. I hadn’t asked that. I did ask if it was an Expresso or not. He mumbled that it wasn’t in a low enough voice that the answer was uncertain. Expresso make fewer stops. They may have more leg room as well. I would hope so. The tout took Juanita’s bag and put it on the rack near the front of the bus and put mine in the rack over where I would be sitting. We managed seats across the aisle from each other. I don’t think it would be possible to get both my knees in the allotted space, but with one knee in the aisle I managed to find a position that would not cause long term paralysis.
We paid our fare of sixty-five Cordobas each (US$2.16) and settled in to the three-hour bus ride. Pretty quickly the bus filled to standing room only and the cast of characters changed over a bit as people got off and other people got on to replace them. At various places vendors got on and hawked their wares and got off a a stop or two down the road and then crossed the road to wait for a bus going the other direction. I handed out a few curved illusion tracts and had a bit of a conversation with the fellow next to me until the town of Dario where he got off. I could barely hear him with the general noise and the wind noise form most of the bus windows being open, but we tried. He was replaced with a woman with her child of about ten years of age on her lap. She was not overweight but tall for a Nica. We all three managed to survive on a school bus seat designed for five-year-olds that I could fill all on my own if I manspread enough that my knees fit. Good thing I was on the aisle. I wear SEV tee shirts with a zippered pocket on the left armpit. It is designed for a smart phone. I have had that pocket picked and my iPod stolen while riding the aisle seat of a bus in Masaya. I am more aware now and don’t take the iPod out on the bus and pay more attention to the pocket when people are in my space.
Arrived at Matagalpa.
