The Tale of Dale Dagger

Alright,

So this one won't be long.  It's been a couple days and I've spent most of them pretty ill and trying to get better.  Drinking lots of fluids.  Crucial.  Anyways, today was better.  I was still feeling a little uneasy this morning but had a bowl of granola and went and worked in the morning and I'm feeling good now.  My cousin and his buddies were going down to a surf break down the beach about 50 minutes called Panga Drops.  I decided it was in my best interests to go with them and so my cousin gave me his underwater camera and some flippers and told me I could try and film.  We drove half way and walked the remaining half an hour over some rocks and down the remaining beach to get to Panga Drops (might have the spelling wrong).

During this half an hour I asked my cousin why it was called Panga Drops and this is the story he gave me.


I am editing this post, almost a year after creating it.  It seems that some of the tale that I heard was somewhat misconstrued from the way things happened.  Recently Dale left a comment on this post letting me know that some of the things that I wrote were incorrect, which can tend to happen when stories are passed from person to person.  I have removed my original version of the tale of Dale Dagger, however if you are interested in reading about this amazing story, you can find the accurate rendition of it at the following website:

The Tale of Dale Dagger

But back to Panga Drops.  According to Dale, some surfers came into Playa Giante and chartered a fishing boat (a Panga) and it's driver for a few days to take them to some surf breaks.  The surfers got the driver to take them to the location of Panga Drops which has an offshore reef which forces the waves to break earlier and bigger than they normally would on shore.  They got the driver to anchor near the break and film them surfing.  Dale said that he warned them that a swell was coming in and that they would want to move the boat further out but they didn't listen.  A big set of waves came rolling in and the boat was caught too far inside the break. The driver tried to un-anchor and punched it but only made it to the base of the wave just as it was beginning to break.  The wave was too big and flipped the Panga and dropped into the white wash.  The swell lasted for 10 days during which time the Panga remained capsized and anchored in the line up of the Panga Drop reef break.  This is how the Panga Drops got their name apparently, and also a piece of the tale of Dale Dagger.

Going to go swim in some waves and watch my cousin and his buddies surf ( I still need to get a board ).  I'm going to see if my camera is actually waterproof.  So either I will have pictures from the ocean or no more pictures from here on out.  Will maybe edit this post a bit later.  But there's a story at least to read in the mean time.  Vote on a mustache or tell me what other style you think I should rock if you still haven't.

Up the Giants Foot

The past few days have been pretty good.

The other day we had a 5.1 earthquake just off the coast of where we are living.  Apparently it shook the whole house, unfortunately I was swimming so I didn't even feel it.  I kinda wish I could've felt it but I suppose it's just good that it wasn't big enough to mess anything up.

After the earthquake, we enjoyed the afternoon in the sun swimming and laying around and then decided to hike up the Giants foot to see the sunset.  The hike was pretty interesting.  I was wearing flip flops and I didn't realize that there were sections of the hike that were basically vertical rock climbing sections.  Haha, I probably should have wore some shoes but it turned out fine so I guess flip flops were a fine choice.

After we got back from the giants foot, we had delicious homemade hamburgers and frozen chocolate bananas.  Dinner was so good.  I went to bed early because I was exhausted.  It's really strange being in a place where the sun is up from 6 am to 6 pm every single day.  I end up getting up at 5:30 and going to bed at 8:30 - 9 pm.  Such a weird schedule.  Got up at 5:30 the next morning and headed up to the property for a good morning of work.  I sanded posts for a while which will be used as knee braces between the beams and the support posts.  There is still a lot of work to do but it is coming along for sure.  We came home for siesta and went back up to do a little bit more work until sunset.  Went to bed early and got up early again haha rinse and repeat.

The next day we got up and went up to work for the morning, however we had a short day since we had to come home and get ready for the College Dropout party hosted at the restaurant next door (Celle Pamalos).  My cousin apparently likes to take any opportunity to dress ridiculously so he decided he would dress up in a diaper.  Ridiculous.  I decided to be one individual from a cheering section of a college sporting event. The party was pretty crazy, there were a lot of people from the community including a bunch of people who are at a yoga retreat at Agua.  The people at the retreat are apparently learning to be come yoga instructors.  They were probably some of the fittest girls I've ever seen.  Pretty awesome.  Went to bed around 9:30 as the party was dieing out at that point anyways.  I was also having trouble staying awake haha.  I was unfortunately really sick for a few hours last night and just haven't been feeling 100 % today.  So I've been trying to drink lots of fluids and decided to make an update to this blog.  There are currently 3 votes on the mustache style which is exciting.  It looks like the friendly mutton chops are currently in the lead.  But we'll see when it gets closer to Feb 14.  If you have an alternative suggestion, just leave a comment in one of the posts about it.

Anyways, I'll try and do something interesting to talk about in the next few days.  But I can't guarantee anything.

First Time Surfing

Alright.  So I've had a pretty good few days here.  Yesterday I got up early and went up to the property with my cousin to do some work.  Basically we are currently building a really big deck.  The deck is going to be 20 feet wide and 40 feet wide and 11 feet up off the ground.  A pretty big deck indeed.  Right now there are currently 15 posts (5 rows of 3 posts) which will be the main supports for the deck.  My cousins girl friend drew a pretty good design for how it will eventually look, I'll try and put it up in that photo album I've started.

Today I woke up at 5:30 ( I could not take the rooster this morning ) and I'm feeling pretty close to 100 %.  I had a small, dangerously good cup of coffee ( apparently Nicaragua exports really good coffee) which I could see happen on the regular.   It's just so funny because I don't normally ever drink coffee so it gets me pretty ansy.  Apparently it was some sort of holiday so the people in the village that we're in all went in to town (Rivas) to hang out for the day.  However, we forgot to get water over the last couple days so now we didn't have any and the stores were all closed because of this holiday.  So we ended up scrounging together whatever liquids we could and going up to the property.  We built a nice sitting area but it got too hot and without a lot of water there wasn't much we could do.  We came back down to the house for a siesta at which time I had some lunch and went swimming.

After swimming for a while, we decided to pack up a bunch of food and water and head down to Playa Amerilla which is a surfing beach that gets some pretty nice waves.  We got down there and my cousin gave me a lesson about surfing and some of the technique and then we headed out.  We were just about in the water when he noticed that the big board that he was lending me had some damage on the end of it, so we wouldn't be able to get it in the water or it would get water logged.  I took the big board back to our spot and grabbed his small board to use.  His small board is a lot smaller than the board that I was going to use so it was a little more difficult to do all of the basics that he taught me because it's so tippy.  However, he pushed me into a couple waves and I managed to get to my knee on my second one so that was pretty fun.  Except that I kinda got caught in the middle of a big set so I just spent a while getting tossed around in the waves.  I haven't figured out all the technique yet, but I really enjoyed trying to catch the few that I did.  It's so much harder than it looks, such a great work out.  I'm definitely going to have to try and get better at it.

We packed up and came home and got dressed up to go down to a Nica restaurant down the beach.  The restaurant is called La Gaviota.  We had deep fried fish ( so much better than it sounds ), sauteed prawns, rice, beans and vegetables.  Going to this restaurant down here is equivalent to going to the Keg or something at home.  We walked back home on the beach and decided that we should watch a movie.  ( There is a movie lounge next door, I'll try and get a picture of it. )

After browsing through the pirated movie collection, my cousin decided that Machete was the best choice.  So we are now taking some popcorn and watching Machete,  They just #%*@ed with the wrong Mexican.  With lines like that it has to be good right?

Which brings me to the end and on to the next order of business.  I haven't shaved since I left, so I'm currently sporting a pretty good beard.  I was trying to figure out if I should shave it or leave it when my aunt informed me that the bar next door is having a mustache competition on February 14.  That seemed like a pretty good reason to shave, however, I'm not sure what style of mustache I should go for.  So I would like some feedback from anyone who reads this.  I will take before and after pictures and post them up here.  I've put a poll on the side of my blog with some standard choices, if none of the choices match your idea then just leave me a comment on this post and I will take it into consideration.  Consider consulting the various mustache styles.

Swimming in the ocean

Playa Giante

So I've been here two days.  This is crazy.  I had a pretty early night for my first evening but I feel that it was pretty fair given the way the plane trip went.  I was woken up nice and early this morning (3 am) by a rooster that never got the memo about waiting for the sun. But apparently this is just how the rooster rolls so I think I'll probably get used to it. After ignoring the rooster for a few hours I got up to enjoy my first day here. We walked down the beach and had breakfast at a surf lodge. It was delicious and only cost $15... For 4 of us haha. Came back and went for a swim in the waves which is always a blast. I spent the day millin about the house and swimming. I'm still not quite 100% health wise but hopefully that will get better. I Took some photos to show where I'm living and some of the other inhabitants around the place.

    The place we're living has it's own pack of dogs which aren't trained but are the greatest dogs.  I think since they are a pack the younger dogs learn from the older dogs.  The boss dog is named Steech and according some our neighbors he is the boss all around town.  Whenever I go for a walk, at least one dog comes with me as an escort.  Apparently they even stay and watch your stuff on the beach when you swim.  Pretty cool.  One of the dogs recently had 7 Puppies ( 6 boys and 1 girl ) and I may or may not have woken them from their siesta.  I kinda feel bad because their mom was sleeping but once her pups were up they realized that they were hungry, ah well made for some good classic puppy photos.

  Tried to get a good sleep but still feeling kinda crappy so i was sorta up throughout the night.  The dogs went crazy when a horse tried to come onto the property.  They chased the horses off the property, but not before waking up every person asleep within our area.  Got up pretty early this morning, still not feeling 100% but better than yesterday.  We went up to the property and did some work until 11. Came back and swam for a while and helped my cousin design some things.  Came on the computer and decided to figure out how to get a photo album together so that people could see.  And that's my day so far and it's currently 3:14 pm.  I like it. haha anyways, I think that's good for today.  I'll try and write another blurb in a couple days.  Unless I do something really cool.

good start?

Alright,

so I managed to make it to Nicaragua. I would love to say that the trip down here went perfectly according to plan.. But I'd be lying. I managed to get food poisoning the night before I left which made for an extremely interesting layover in miami. I definitely don't recommend food borne illnesses and commercial air travel to anyone. But I'm starting to feel better and I'm extremely excited about being here. what an unreal place. I'll try to set up some sort of picture album in the next few days to show how stunning this place is.

Colter

And So it begins

This is my first post for this blog and since I have never kept a blog before, I'm going to make this one short and sweet. This blog will hopefully contain updates and pictures cataloging my trip to Nicaragua. I'll be leaving on the 16th of January and returning ... Well I haven't quite figured that part out yet. But I will hopefully be able to keep everyone updated through this blog.



Wish me luck,



Colter