It´s raining lizards

Today I heard the song "Piano Man" translated into Spanish. Not the point of this post, though...

Wednesday night: Joseph, Caroline and I went to a place we´d heard had good burgers (the last "burger" I got consisted of shredded chicken and mayonnaise on a hamburger bun, so I was skeptical). The food was great, but right as I took a bite out of my burger I felt something heavy fall onto my hand. It felt like a french fry had somehow flicked up, but when I looked down there was a lizard halfway on my hand and halfway on my burger. I screamed (out of shock, not fear) and Caroline and Joseph both thought the lizard was climbing out of my food. There are little black lizards everywhere, and I´d heard about them falling off ceilings before but had never personally experienced this wonder. I was laughing so hard I couldn´t breathe, much less speak English or Spanish, so it took a good 5 minutes to restore order. I had to assure our waiter about 6 times that it was fine, that I didn´t want a replacement burger, that everything was ok, etc etc.

Afterwards, we went to a restaurant/bar called Olla Quemada (burned pot) to hear a local band play. The place was entirely packed and maybe 10 people in there were Nica, while the rest were fellow gringo travellers just looking for a good beer and some nice music. We got there early enough to get a table, but it turned into standing or perching room only. The people watching was spectacular. Caroline and Joseph had to get up early-ish this morning to catch a bus back to Managua for their noon flight, so we left around 10 and said goodbye for real this time.

Thursday (today): After my breakfast of yogurt, cereal and coffee (which feels like a luxury after 6 weeks of beans and tortillas for breakfast), I started talking to an English girl and a Swiss girl in my room. They were heading to the beach today, which I was planning on doing, too, so we rode out to the beach about 45 minutes from León together. It was so gorgeous. The sand was dark but the water was fairly blue and clear, plus we literally had the entire place to ourselves (minus the pelicans and sand crabs). I also realized that this was the 3rd time I´ve seen the Pacific in the last year (San Diego, Chile and now here), but the first time I´ve really swum in it. We played in the water for maybe an hour, then hung out on the beach for an hour, then got back in the water for awhile. After lunch we caught the bus back to León right before it started raining. Speaking of lunch, I´ve been increasingly glad on this trip that I don´t have any food allergies or generally picky eating habits. Maybe I have low standards for food, but at least I never go hungry. One of the girls was vegetarian and couldn´t find anything on the menu that looked good, so she just didn´t eat for the entire day. I, on the other hand, dominated my plate of fish, rice, cabbage and tortilla.

Oh, side story: the bus we caught from the beach left from a market on the other end of town in a more indigenous community. Right by the gate into the market was a woman selling live crabs, mollusks and eggs. Chicken eggs? Nay. Turtle eggs. So much for wildlife protection laws, I guess.

I am supposed to meet up with Judith, the Austrian girl, for a drink at 8, so I need to go find some dinner before that. Tomorrow´s a double volcano hike (more on that after I make it through alive), then hopefully Saturday I will head to Matagalpa. Travelling by myself is so interesting. Sometimes I think it might be nice to have a buddy for moral support, but it´s really freeing to realize that there is no one telling me where to go or what to do. I am in complete control of my time and my agenda. It´s a little scary if I think about it too much.