Jinotepe

Our good friend P called from Jinotepe on Saturday (on our way to SJDS) to tell us about the perfect bike he had found for Sophia. One of the churches in town had a sale of donations from the States and the bike was one of them. He had them reserve it for us until we had a chance to come to Jinotepe to pick it up.

So, we went on Tuesday after school and caught the microbus to Jinotepe. Once there, we met up with P and had lunch at this amazing Malaysian restaurant that’s all vegetarian. Yum!

Then we checked out the bike. It’s pink with white tires and still had the plastic on in places. The nuns are no dummies and asked an outrageous price for it. P had already negotiated it down but it still seemed pricey. Anyway, we figured that the money was for a good cause and bought the darn thing.

Afterwards we went to the market to have some air blown into the tires and the seat and handlebar raised. That cost us another 8 Córdoba or 40 cents. Well, at least we got a deal on that… Now we need a pump, a kickstand and a lock. But maybe we can get that in Granada since we need to make the last Chicken bus home before they stop running.

Off to the bus terminal. The chicken bus is about to leave and he can put our bike on the roof. But it’s going to take us 90 minutes or longer to go home. The microbus would allow us to put the bike inside the van but they would charge us an arm and a leg for it. Highway robbery! So, we decided to go on the chicken bus after all and take a nice little ride through Masatepe, Diriomo, Diria and Catarina to end up back in Granada. Sophia is so psyched about her new bike that she rides it home from the mercado in Granada while mom is trying to keep up with her on hoof. First real exercise for me in more than three months…

Astrid