¡Sábado Gigante!

This weekend, Jess and I took a visiting friend to the city of Estelí, which regular blog readers have heard about in the past. Estelí is a decent sized city that is known as “El Diamante de Las Segovias,” or, The Diamond of the Segovias (the mountain chain through northern Nicaragua and Honduras). It’s on the way to Managua, and it’s also the city where we go to do banking, shop for special foods, and exchange books at the small satellite Peace Corps office. We have spent a little time in Estelí with virtually all of our visitors, so with Dana, visiting med school student and former roommate of Jess’s, we wanted to do something different.

We left Somoto around 7:45 and took an expreso bus that arrived in Estelí at 9. Our first stop was a late breakfast at La Casita, a organic farm that also sells light food, plants, and other nifty things. Here’s a picture of the food we got.

In the picture you’ll see whole wheat bread with brie and swiss cheeses, mango yogurt, pineapple yogurt, coffee, hot chocolate, and a Nicaraguan treat, arroz con leche, or rice pudding. It was a great meal, and the grand total at the end was 159 córdobas, or just about $8.

After breakfast, we walked around Estelí and made our way to the cowboy boot shop. This store makes custom cowboy boots in any color or style you want. They even make iguana skin boots, if you are willing to pay. We don’t have any pictures of the boot store, so I apologize for that, but we will show you a picture of Dana’s boots when they are finished being made. She found a sample she liked, and the owner of the store measured her foot by having her step on a piece of paper while he traced the outline. The boots guy says the boots will be done in two weeks, but Jess and I have learned to allow an extra buffer week, so they should be ready by the time Dana leaves. They are going to be quite schnazzy, and Jess and I are already thinking about the designs we’d like, which we’re planning to pick up right before we finish next year. The boots cost 1,500 córdobas ($75), which means that it’s a very pricey investment, but well worth it considering the quality.

Continuing on our way, we stopped in a few used clothing stores and tried on crazy outfits. Lots of fun. Jess found a great winter coat for $10, but who needs a winter coat in Nicaragua? After that we went to the grocery store where we bought chocolate milk, which isn’t available in Somoto. It’s a nice treat, and we only get it about once a month. We saw this truck outside of the grocery store. Jess wanted to buy it. Matt said no.

This tigrillo lives in a cage in Esteli. Very pretty animal, but he must have a sad life...

The next scheduled stop on our tour through Estelí was a cigar factory. The company is called Nicarao Cigars, and their product is available in the states. They even have a few pictures of famous cigar smokers, like Arnold Schwarzenager and Sylvester Stallone, with their cigars. Below are some photos that outline the steps taken to make cigars from tobacco.

Nicaraguan cigars are world famous and are one of the main products Nicaragua, and the Estelí region, are known for. It’s tough to look at the cigar business as a positive thing, but it’s one of the few industries where Nicaraguans can earn a fair profit in the international market. The cigar industry started after the Cuban revolution in 1959, when a bunch of Cuban exiles came to Estelí with the seeds of Cuban tobacco. They experimented with the volcanic soil and found that conditions in Nicaragua are as good as, if not better, than the conditions in Cuba. And, hindered by the US embargo on Cuba, these farmers found a way around the restrictions by selling their product in the states by labeling it as “Cuban Seed,” not as an cigar made in Cuba. Therefore, if you do see any cigar sold in the States with any kind of Cuban label, it’s probably grown in Nicaragua, making it perfectly legal to sell in the US. Slowly but surely Nicaraguan labels are catching up to the Cuban immigrants, and can boast that a few of their Nicaraguan cigars are ranked as highly as their Cuban competition.

Here’s the process:

A tobacco farm on the way down from Somoto. The picture was taken through a bus window, so the quality is bad, but you get the idea. The tobacco is grown, harvested, and hung to dry in the big brown barns you see.

The leaves take about a month to dry and come out looking like this. If the leaves are still in good shape, like those in the picture, they are used to make the capa, or the outside wrapping of the cigar by removing the leaf’s veins and then trimming up the edges. The scraps from the capas, as well as the leaves that dry up all crumply are used for the filling. This guy here is showing us a stack of “Cuban seed” tobacco, although he also uses tobacco that is imported from Indonesia and Connecticut (that’s right!).

Leaves waiting to be rolled.

The cigars are made by dampening the capa, placing the capa on a rolling device, filling the capa with the other pieces of tobacco and then pulling a lever that rolls the whole thing up. Next, the cigars, which aren’t very tight and can look lumpy, are placed in a mold that gets pressed together to smooth out the cigars. Here’s how it looks:

And the room they work in.

After about 15 minutes of compression the cigars can be trimmed and removed from the mold to dry. They are stacked in a warehouse in packs like this and can sit there quite a while until they are boxed and shipped to their destination.

The final product looks like this!

Here is a picture of the various brands that this factory makes. Overall, it’s a very interesting process, but, as health professionals, Jess and I still frown on actually smoking the cigars!

After our tour we caught an early dinner at a Cuban restaurant, where we all enjoyed great Cuban sandwiches. A basic Cuban sandwich is smoked pork with mustard and pickles on a thin, crusty bread. This restaurant has all sorts of varieties, all of which are delicious. They also serve a Cuban specialty called Yuca con Mojito, which is boiled yucca plant covered in a very garlicky, very buttery sauce. Also delicious. Sorry there aren’t any pictures. We ate too quickly to take any…

Driving home to Somoto.


A Concert in Somoto

To close out our Sábado Gigante, we all went to a concert in Somoto of an artist called Perro Zampopo. Perro Zampopo, real name Ramón, grew up in Somoto and has become fairly famous through Central America. This was his first concert ever in Somoto, and we were able to sit right up front for the show. Afterwards, Jess, Dana, our old friend Ian, and I all stuck around to talk to the band. In this photo, Ian is reinacting a moment from the concert and ruining a perfectly good conversation between Ramón and I. Ian begged me not to put this photo on the blog (apparently his parents read our blog), but I feel a little revenge is in order.

Jess, Dana, fellow PCV Katie and Perro Zampopo

Overall, it really was a Sábado Gigante, and we had a heck of a lot of fun. Now, on to answers to some of Mrs. Lyttle’s students’ questions.

Why haven’t we heard a lot about Astro lately? We want more Astro!

Astro is doing just fine, but right now we’re in the hottest part of the year, so he spends most of the day staying out of the heat. We promise to put up more pictures of Astro soon. Here’s one to tide you over for the time being.

How do you win at Bananagrams?

I’m not quite sure why this question came up so much, but you win at bananagrams by using all of the pieces up first.

What are some of your hobbies in Nicaragua?

Jess and I don’t have too much time down here for hobbies, because we spend so much more time cleaning the house of washing clothes. But, when we do have free time, this is what we like to do:

Matt Both of Us Jess

Play guitar Practice the xaphoon

Write Garden

Read

Cook

Watch movies

Go for hikes

Do you know about the Iditarod?

As Mrs. Lyttle’s son, Matt has known about the Iditarod for a very long time. Jess is just becoming familiar and really appreciates all of the information the students sent along. Plus, we also like thinking about cold places, because it’s so hot, so keep of the notes on the Iditarod.