Dear Special Friends,

Welcome to the special "Food and Fasting" edition of Martin's life. This edition comes to you from San Juan del Sur, a Nicaraguan beach town on the south pacific coast where many of Nicaragua's wealthy elite (and an increasing number of other foreigners) build houses and surfers come to take advantage of the great surf and cheap prices.

FASTING

This email is called the Food and Fasting edition because this turned out to be the focus of the last month or so as I traveled from Guatemala to Nicaragua. Somewhat foolishly I started a fast just before Christmas, feeling that a detox was in order after living in one of the world's biggest and dirtiest cities for the last 14 months. My aims were to cleanse my body (which was showing signs that it was out of whack), cleanse my mind so that I could meditate more deeply and simply go without food for a while to sharpen my appreciation of what a wonderful blessing it is to nourish ourselves through the act of eating.

I would love to say that the fast was a success and that I achieved all my aims but right now I feel like it was a huge flop! Fasting in the past has helped me achieve these aims - a sharp mind, abundant energy and a deep appreciation of eating where even eating the simplest things such as a dry crust of bread or a piece of fruit becomes a sensual celebration. This time however I felt incredibly drained of energy, to the point of struggling to muster the energy to get out of bed, let alone meditate. What's more, when I did start eating again it felt even more unconscious and automatic than ever.

Just to give you an idea of what the fast consisted of, here is an outline:

Days 1 - 3 - light vegetable soups
Day 4 - water and some watermelon juice
Day 5 - just water
Day 6 - water and some watermelon juice
Days 7 - 10 - fruit and steamed vegetables
Days 11 - 30 - brown rice (when available), beans or lentils and steamed vegetables (all prepared with virtually no salt or oil).

Thus I came to the conclusion that food is just a small, albeit important part of the way we nourish ourselves. Equally or more important are the ways we nourish ourselves through the way we think, we way we act etc which are subtler things to be aware of and change. Of course, I already knew that, but now I know it in a slightly deeper way!

THE BAY ISLANDS

From Livingston in Guatemala, I headed to the Bay Island in Honduras to do a spot of diving. The Bay Islands are supposed to be the cheapest place to get a diving license. I calculated how much cheaper it was and it worked out to be about 30 dollars less than doing it in Australia, and thus not really worth coming here - unless you are already in the neighborhood. It was a good excuse however to get to know a little more of Honduras and listen to the funny way the islanders speak. The Islands were originally colonized by the British, so a weird and antiquated form of English is the main language spoken. While Jess worked on her dive license, I visited some neighboring islands called the Quays. Some of them were inhabited, every square inch of land having been built on, and others like the one we chilled out on New Years Day was uninhabited. To amuse myself while the others were nursing their hangovers, Fang, a new found friend of mine from Taiwan and I challenged ourselves to open a coconut using only our bare hands and a rock (actually that’s all we had anyway) ...................1 and 1-2 hours later, with some pretty serious blisters on my hands, we succeeded. Thankfully it tasted yummy.

A view to one of the inhabited Quay islands. Every bit of land has been build on. I have no idea what happens when a hurricane passes through

To occupy myself for the remaining days of Jessica’s dive curse I set to fixing the hostel kitchen where we were staying which had been damaged by one of the recent hurricanes. We did a trade, shelving in exchange for free nights of accommodation. Everybody’s happy! Oh, I also made a pretty mean cheeseless with a piece of fish I bought from a fish monger who was unloading his catch from the jetty that belonged to or hostel. From the Bay Islands Jess and I shot through Honduras for Nicaragua as Jess had a plane to catch in Costa Rica and only 3 days to get there.

A TORTILLA APPRENTICESHIP IN LEON, NICARAGUA

Our last days together were spent in León, Nicaragua, which is one of Nicaragua’s two main colonial cities. Leonese people (and to a lesser extent, Nicaraguans in general) are known for their open house policy: they open their doors and windows to the street and either sit on the curb with their rocking chairs or just go about their business indoors. This is great if you are curious like me, as you get to see inside peoples houses (they also say that Leonese people put all the beautiful and expensive things in the rooms viewable from the street so that you will think they are wealthy and important) so I imagine that what I saw in the houses, although often very modest, was not very representative on what in the rest of the house.

While in Leon, for some reason I decided that I had been in Latin America for over one year and that it was high time I learnt how to make tortillas - the authentic way. As luck would have it, I stumbled across a family who sold tortillas and the Señora agreed to show me the whole process from start to finish. I think she thought I was quite made for at least 2 reasons: 1, why would a foreigner, who must be rich because of the simple fact that they are a foreigner, want to make tortillas when they can just buy them (the Señora was very surprised to find out that Australians don’t generally eat tortillas and that in Australia it is not possible to just buy them fresh and hot from street corners as is the case in Nicaragua); and 2, why would a man want to make tortillas when it is women who do the cooking and not men. The señora was, I think, flattered all the same that I had come to learn from her and thus for the next 3 days I followed her around learning the ins and outs of tortilla making (see tortilla video).

The family lived in a small two roomed tin house. One room was divided into two bedrooms just big enough for the beds (five people slept in the house but I am not sure where) and the other dirt floored room served as the kitchen/living room. Life either revolved around the TV(s) in the bedrooms or the kitchen fireplace. Everything was cooked on a chimneyless wood fire that smoked the place out so much that my eyes were continually stinging and I often had to leave the room because I couldn’t breathe properly (It was no wonder, that the Señora suffered from a lung infection).

Being around the family for three days, I came to notice a few of the idiosyncrasies that I believe are common in Nicaragua. Firstly, on one hand this family was extremely poor and struggled to find money for the most basic of items (for example, most of the family rarely went to the doctor for their health complaints as they couldn’t afford it and the kitchen was in virtual darkness in the evenings because they struggled to find the funds for a new fluorescent globe), on the other hand, they happened to have 3 televisions and the kids had 3 Nintendo video game consoles between them.

THE BLACK CHRIST FESTIVAL

From Leon, I hitched my way up to Somotillo near the Honduran border. The countryside had struck me as stunningly beautiful on the way down from Honduras and so I wanted so see a little more of it. As luck would have it, I scored my first ever ride in a truck. Was I happy and smug! The truck was full of empty beer bottles and on its way back to Guatemala. During the trip we stopped to drain and sell some diesel from the truck’s tanks to a little truck stop on the way. The driver told me this was pretty common practice among Central American truckies and helped them make ends meet as well as pay the bribes demanded by the police and other corrupt officials along the way. It seemed like a nice circle of corruption to me - everyone stealing from someone else to give to the people stealing from them!

Supposedly the northern central area of Nicaragua is too dangerous to visit but as luck would have it, I was just in time for the Black Christ Festival that was to be held in a way out little town called El Sauce near the Honduras border and because of the festival and extra people, the locals assured me it would be pretty safe. Traveling through the beautiful dry and barren countryside, I really felt that I was in cowboy country. The countryside was very dry and sparsely vegetated but stunning at the same time. The festival itself was a bit of a let down: I imagined an “Indiana Jones style” dark and bizarre satanic-Christian ritual, instead, there was a whole lot of the usual - fairground rides and beer drinking. The black Christ which I had been so intrigued about was a miniature black figure of Christ which sat in the town church and was said to healing powers. The culmination of the festival was a parade where the Christ was carried around the town and then returned to the church. Oh well, it sure SOUNDED interesting and was a good opportunity to get off the beaten track and see some different parts of Nicaragua.

THE NICARAGUAN HIGHLANDS

My next destination was the northern highland region of Nicaragua which was famous for its coffee and cool climate. No buses went to that region from el Sauce, but I was able to get a ride on a truck full of pilgrims who had walked from their homes in the highlands to the festival and were now on their way back. The truck had no seats and we all just piled in the back. The truck was so full that some of the pilgrims hung onto the back for the whole 4 hour, dusty, bumpy cramped ride. At least THEY had fresh air however, the rest of us were cooped up, smelling each other’s B.O. the whole way. Still most livestock have it a LOT worse, so I won’t complain.

While in the highlands I stopped at a coffee plantation (or "finca") called the Black Forest (Die Schwarzwald). Many German immigrants were invited to come to Nicaragua last century and thus it was possible to see blond haired, blued eyed Nicaraguans in the highlands. The coffee plantation had been mostly converted into a nature reserve and had some stunning walking trails. I was there right at harvest time and got to see the coffee being harvested and dried (see photo).

GRANADA AND OMETEPE……AND THINGS TURN DECIDEDLY “FOODY”

From the highlands I headed south to Granada, the other main colonial city in Nicaragua. Granada sits on the banks of Lake Nicaragua, Central America’s largest freshwater lake (reputed to be the only lake in the world that contains freshwater sharks) and is a very touristy place indeed. Foreigners (mostly Gringos), drawn here by its colonial charm and the dirt cheap prices of Nicaraguan real-estate, have built hotels, polished wooden floor and halogen-light-lit cafes, juice-bars, wood fired pizza restaurants and at least in parts of the city it is difficult to know if one is really still in Nicaragua or has been teleported to San Francisco, Paddington or Norwood Parade.

From Granada I took the night boat to the Island of Ometepe, which is an island made up of two volcanoes (one dormant and the other one active) in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. It is surprising how rough a lake can get, and once we were on our way, and rocking up and down, with people vomiting all over the place, I was very glad I splurged on a first class ticket (I paid $6 instead on $3). I had been tipped off that first class tickets, had access to the open air while the economy section was an airless cell packed to the gills people next to the motor room. Normally I am pretty susceptible to rough seas but I am delighted to say that I didn’t even feel the slightest urge to go "vom-vom" over the edge even once during the trip. More-over I probably made a number of the passengers around me do exactly that, by smugly chowing down in front of them on the packed lunch I had brought with me.

One of my main aims for going to Ometepe was to spend for time on a permaculture farm named Zopilote which I had heard about from some other travellers (what is permaculture? See this link: http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/perma.html#defined ). As I headed to the farm the next day I was struck by the paradise that I had landed in; lush farmland dotted with little settlements on the lowlands of the island and tropical rainforest on the two volcano peaks which disappeared into the clouds.

Ometepe is quite unique, as unlike most of the rest of Nicaragua, it is still an almost completely self-sufficient place that produces a wide variety of crops and animals. Zopilote turned out to be a very young farm, having been started only 3 years ago, so my hopes of leisurely wandering through its grounds plucking and gouging myself on tropical fruits, nuts, berries and vegetables were severely dashed. About the only edible things currently mature and produced on the farm were bananas and lemongrass (at least both were in ample supply, but there is only a certain amount of bananas and lemon-grass one can eat!). There was however, a really great atmosphere made up of hippy-style travelers who had come to work on or just experience the farm. On my last day at Zopilote I gave a yoga class on a water tank platform that over-looked the grounds. It was such a blessing to share the yoga in such wonderful surroundings and with such great people.

THE CHEESE AND CHOCOLATE ADVENTURE

Over the next few days I visited other permaculture farms and at the same time became friends with a cook in one of the restaurants at a lodge where I was staying. On my last day the cook and I got to talking about cheese and he shared with me one of his favorite snacks – fried island cheese with chili and bread. The cheese was so good that I begged for the details of the cheese maker who made it. He obliged and so I delayed my plans to leave the island and set off to find the cheese maker. As it turned out the cheese maker, Manuel Salvador Guillen O’conner, lived in first village I stayed in when I came to Ometepe and was the father of the Señora in whose lodge I had stayed. Thus I got my introduction and he happily agreed to show me how the cheese was made. Manuel is a dairy farmer and has been making cheese for about 40 years. His family mostly sells the milk but when there is some left over, to preserve it, his family makes and sells cheese (the temperature on Ometepe rarely drops below 25 and few people have fridges).

I asked Manuel if I could go the full-monty and learn the cheese making process from very start and he told me to be ready at 5am the next day. As we herded the cows down from their green pastures with vistas of the lake and led them along the sandy beach to the barn to be milked I realized why the cheese tasted so good. These were SERIOUSLY CHILLED OUT COWS!!!!!!

Before the milking started there was an impromptu #### fight between one of the farm hand’s #### and one of Manuel’s prize ##### (#### fighting is very popular on the island). The ##### were fitted with blades on their legs and then let lose to attack each other. About 10 minutes later the farm hand’s #### had blood oozing out of its face and body from the deep razor gouges it had received from the other ####. It was clear that the other #### would shortly kill it unless the two were separated and so Manuel’s #### was declared the winner. The two ##### were then sent off to be patched up and recuperate before the next fight and the milking started…….

I was given the opportunity to milk a cow and realized that it is a lot harder than it looks. My technique sucked and quickly I had the cow all irritated and walking away and still there was no milk in the bucket. I let the experts do their job and got to try for the first time ever, fresh milk straight from the cow – warm, frothy and yummy!

Luckily, not all the milk sold that day and there was enough left over to make cheese. The cheese was made in Manuel’s backyard, under the veranda in an old wooden box or “canoe”, as he called it. Conditions were far from sterile with flies buzzing in and out of the milk. The cheese making was actually done by Sebastian, one of Manuel’s farm hand and was a very simple process that was completed in an hour: add some rennet to the milk, leave it to coagulate for 20 minutes, massage the curds and drain off the whey, add some salt, leave the mixture in a press over night (see cheese video). I bought 5 liters of milk and watched and mirrored the whole process along side Sebastian. The next morning I came back to check on the results. Success!!!! The cheeses had both turned out perfectly! I would describe the island “canoe” cheese we made as a cross between haloumi cheese and fetta cheese. It is quite salty and fries to a beautiful golden color.

To thank Manuel and his family for their generosity I decided to make them some hand made chocolates. I had never made chocolates from scratch before but I saw a traditional stone cacao grinder in a corner in the lodge where I was staying and was inspired. Cacao beans are sold everywhere in Nicaragua and so it was easy to get started. I made 4 flavours, mint, ginger, coffee and plain. All turned out to be winners. Stupidly I forgot to take any photos of the finished product but trust me, they looked and tasted great.

Leaving the island Ometepe - A beautiful girl with a beautiful flower.

TO SAN JUAN AND WE SAY GOODBYE FOR NOW

My last stop in Nicaragua was San Juan del Sur, a beach town on the south pacific coast. San Juan is where rich Nicaraguans (and an increasing number of foreigners) build houses and surfers coming to take advantage of the great waves and cheap living. I was feeling starved of the company of other travelers so I stayed in the most popular hostel I could find and hung out with Danes, Germans, Spaniards and the like, and took daily swims in the salty and cool water. San Juan’s beach is actually very average and I was planning to head down the coast a bit to see the really nice beaches, but in a spur of the moment decision I took the other bus and headed for the Costa Rican border.

To be continued......

Wishing you lots of love

Martin