Dia del Amor y Amistad

I would never, ever, in a million trillion years have been able to predict the happenings of this Valentines Day... which happened to be Pedro's (my Spanish roomate) last night in Nica. The night started out innocently enough, with Tona beers at our hotel in Managua, sitting around the pool and enjoying the evening breeze. Osvaldo joined us, and we soon decided to head out on the town for some dinner (as Pedro and I traveled from Cusmapa that morning and hadn't eaten anything since 6 AM). Our boss, Kevin, told us of a restaurant called the Routa Maya which sounded like a great place in theory, but the moment we arrived, we realized we were mistaken.

Upon arrival at any place where there's a live concert and people are:
1) Approximately 20-30 years older than I am
2) Sitting down
3) Dressed fancily
I generally tend to get out of dodge as quickly as I possibly can.

Osvaldo, Pedro, and I agreed that the 200 cordoba asking price was not enough to see the infamous romantical singer staged at the Routa Maya and we instead headed to El Plato de Oro... also known as the mysterious Chinese restaurant in the middle of Managua.

We ordered more beers and some WANTONS which Osvaldo had never tried... upon arrival of the appetizer the song "Wanton-a-mera" was air-guitared, bongo played on the table, and included lovely Ranchera-esque vocals. The wantons were sketchy, some sort of unidentifiable meat... but man I was HUNGRY and they were CRUNCHY. Yum.

Our waiter seemed entirely confused by the whole situation (IE: the working in a restaurant situation) and didn't speak to us the entire evening... I am not sure whether the issue was his lack of Spanish or my slurred Spanish or Pedro's dreadlocks or the air-band we had going in the back corner. Either way, when he brought us out plates of chow mein and chop suey... it took us a few moments to realize that we'd been served the SAME DISH. Yes. With the exact same taste, exact same ingredients. I called our waiter-friend over to the table and asked... "No es lo mismo?" (It's not the same thing?!?!) and he replied "No, uno tiene camarones, y el otro... no." (No, one has shrimp and the other doesn't"). Oh, thank you for your observation, good sir... but I think I was refering to the difference between chop suey and chow mein. He did not seem to get the drift.

Needless to say, we finished off our strange slippery Chinese cuisine, and after a few photos with the giant painted urn display we scooted our way out the door.

Pedro decided he HAD to buy some cigarettes, so we went back into the Routa Maya. The woman singing was seated like a matriarch and her red robes flowed across the stage. Pedro ran off and left Osvaldo and I in the lobby, and she started singing "OJALA" which is probably one of my top 5 favorite songs ever. Osvaldo and I proceeded to sing the entire thing at the top of our lungs (I am sure to the delight of the fancy audience), then Pedro returned from his mission and we danced a bit with the door attendant and went to...

Yet another fancy bar. Who takes me to these places in Managua anyways? Last time I went out there with Karlita on her birthday she ended up on stage at a sushi disco where everyone was speaking English and she was taken by a Chinese man with a glass of red wine to do a strange birthday dance which included kimono wearing and her bending over to have him pretend to spank her. Very, very strange. This time, we ended up at La Familia Goodoy. Carlos Mejia Goodoy is a famous Nicaraguan singer, mainly does folkloric and revolutionary music. The concert was 160 cordobas to enter, but we sweet talked the girl guarding the door into letting us in the back area. We bought a couple of beers there, then went outside to "have a cigarette" conveniently where the music could be seen. It was AWESOME! We were right behind all the seated old folks, nodding to sleep in their chairs. I proceeded to dance by myself (silly boys wouldn't dance with me) for the next hour, loving every moment of it.

We went back to the hotel after the concert and sat around the pool listening to Pedro's ROCK music and sipping some of the fancy rum we don't treat ourselves to very often. The hotel clerk came to ask us to turn the music down and Pedro replied: "what, you don't like the song? I can change the song?!" then proceeded to change the song and turn up the volume. I don't think we made friends with the poor chap, but he was a good sport.

And thus leaves Pedro, who hopefully will be returning soon to indulge in more adventures in fine Nicaraguan cuisine, who engages me in dance parties of all kinds, and who I have hug-a-thons with at 5 in the morning while eating ham sandwiches. Dia de la amistad indeed!