The slow, beach life-- Dec 2005

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The Fishermen

One of the major events in my mellow, sun soaked days is meal time. We wake up in the morning and go to the market and get fresh vegetables and eggs and cook a fabulous, healthy meal for under a dollar. At night, we have taken to having communal dinners at the hostel. Communal dinners are one of my most favorite things to do. Yesterday, we went down to the port. There are all these little fish shacks with fresh fish caught just that day. There are numerous varities to pick from and you can buy enough fish to stuff ten people for under two dollars. For this reason alone, I do not want to leave Nicaragua. The fishermen are my favorite. They are these chilled out men with the smell of sea on them. I don´t know what it is about men who are at sea most of the day, they just have the most grounded and in touch energy to me. We have one  paticular man that we like to go to. He keeps his shack super clean and his fish very organised in a huge cooler. He opens up the cooler and let´s us pick what we want. But, if we happen to not pick the best fish of the lot, he is not shy in helping us finding a better one. We always ask him to filet it for us. And this man is the master with a sharp knife. It is a pure art form. Us gringos huddel around in amazement as is removes every unedible piece like the spine and bones and even the skin to perfection. For him this is simple and to us it is the highlight of our trip. Yesterday, he gave his sharp knife to Achim to have him give a go ahead at the skin removal... he did alright but needed some redemption. We almost walked away wih our filets when he pointed to the fish head and tail and other remenants and said, ¨sopa, sopa¨. Sure why not! so, last night Achim made a fabulous, healing fish broth and a coconut curry with the fish. We all sat around the huge picnic table and tried to eat slowly and savor our fabulous meal. At the end of the evening our bellies were full and we were satisfied with another lazy day on the Pacific. I love it when life slows down enough to appreciate all the little things and to where everyone becomes family!