If you didn’t know, I’m currently traveling in Nicaragua. It all started in a grungy, dive bar in NE Minneapolis.
After our fair share of bottomless mimosas, (Ebenezer at Red Rabbit hooked it up and helped us find the bottom) una Reina IPA at La Doña Cervecería, a basket of tots and some reggaeton on TouchTunes at NE Moose Bar, Aminda and I were, somewhat coherently ;), talking about how we wanted to make our dreams of traveling and photographing happen. We started kind of jokingly, kind of seriously giggling about what would happen if we got an uber to the airport right then and there and somehow woke up in the morning in the middle of Central America. And that was that. We pinky promised that we would soon be photographing while practicing Spanish somewhere down south. So, long story short, we’ve been in Nicaragua for almost two weeks now and are LOVING IT.
A few of days ago we met a couple at our hostel, De Boca en Boca which is located in an incredible little city called Granada. The two of them were sitting on the couch in the common area and I actually texted Aminda and said, “Can we just take a sec to recognize how beautiful this couple is?” A few hours later they joined us for a glass of wine and we hit it off immediately.
Jena is from Canada and Tim is from New Zealand. They met on Bumble and were actually living only three blocks from each other at the time. Small freaking world, right? They recently made the decision to leave Canada and move to New Zealand, but decided to travel around Central America first. We chatted about the time they spent in Mexico and Guatemala, all of the highs - they spent time on Lake Atitlán, where I spent most of 2017 - and all of the lows, like the extremely distinct taste of a “sulfur burp” which you know all too well if you’ve had a parasite. They were open and honest and even shared a recent, rather traumatic story with us. All was going great until they got to Ometepe, an island on Lake Nicaragua that is home to two volcanoes. They were in their hotel room, hard boiling eggs when Tim went to light the other stove and there was an explosion. There was a gas leak and when he went to ignite the other flame the stove exploded, blowing the tiles off of the counter and leaving Tim with second degree burns which he needs to keep bandaged. As to not divulge too much about their painful experience, I’ll wrap it up with how impressed I am with their attitudes and positivity. This couple is absolutely lovely and I am so happy that Aminda and I were able to give them a little souvenir of their time in Nicaragua, that hopefully brings them warmth and happiness.
