Manda in Nicaragua: Make the foreigners pay $2 to get in, cover their faces with mud, and parade them through our town...

"Natural Springs" That's what Jorge told us. Jorge is our Nicaraguan friend that drives us to a good number of our projects. And last weekend, he wanted to just hang out with us, and visit some "natural springs" near León.

So, we agreed. And Saturday afternoon we were all ready. Swimsuits on and towels in our arms we climbed into the back of Jorge's pickup truck. We drove for about 30 mins, enjoying the natural Nicaraguan fauna and flora pictured below:

When we got out, we were surrounded by a bunch of kids from the community, shoving clay pots and candle holders in our faces saying, "Doña, for you!" We politely refused, knowing that later they would expect payment. Then we grudgingly paid the entrance fee (FORTY-FIVE CORDOBA! That's like... $2.... Ok, I guess it wasn't that bad). The kids followed us all the way down the path until we got to the natural springs. Right before the springs were in view, one of the kids warned me, "que no pases dónde no voy yo, hay agua muy caliente, very hot, de cien grados o más" or in other [English] words, "don't go where I don't go, there's really hot water, very hot, 100 degrees or more."

100 degrees Celsius... That's boiling... What kind of natural spring is this?!

Sure enough, and we rounded the corner, we were not greeted with what we had imagined, namely, a tropical paradise with turquoise water and preferably even some colorful little fishes. Instead, we saw a large area of dirt, about the size of two soccer fields. And spread out throughout this area were little steaming ponds of boiling mud.

And so our little group of gringos wandered around all these little boiling mud holes in our bathing suits, towels in our arms, feeling like the stupidest foreigners in the entire world.

This is a video of our situation, taken by Charlie "el chino"

In this picture, Megan's facial expression captures our emotions: (Megan is wearing purple and the ever-helpful Jorge is the Nicaraguan on the right)

Boiling mud, with the Volcano Santa Clara in the background.

But it was still really cool, even the ground was super duper hot. And there were a bunch of these boiling mud ponds, so we wandered around them for awhile. One of the kids stuck a stick in and pulled out a giant glob of mud. He waited for it to cool down and then told us to put it on our faces. We chuckled and said no thanks. Then he said, "pero va a ponerle más be-you-teee-ful" or "but it will make you more beautiful." Eventually we caved, and let the 10 year old little boy put mud masks on us.

So we were getting ready to leave, thinking it was a rip off for 46 cordoba, when we realized that we had no way to wash off our faces. One of the other kids told me that there was a river "just over there" that we could wash off in. So we headed down the path...

For the following twenty minutes of walking, we taught the kids how to say "Are we there yet?" in English. We followed this path through the forest/jungle, through their town, and followed a dry riverbed for another little while. The kids swarmed around us running ahead to hide in the bushes and then try to scare us, and lagging behind to pick up some more pebbles for their slingshots.

Walking through their town was quite the experience. All eyes were on us. It was then that it occurred to us that these kids really had a nice set-up going on. Make the foreigners pay $2 to get in, cover their faces with mud, and parade them through our town...

Eventually we got to a giant cliff. Great. Make the foreigners pay $2 to get in, cover their faces with mud, and parade them through our town, and push them off a cliff.

But then the kids get us to take a closer look, and it wasn't a real cliff, it's just would be like a 95 degree, 100m ascent climbing from rock to rock. And down below there was a little pond and a river flowing from it. Yay! Water! Yay! A half a dozen cows, bathing in our precious water...

But the children began scrambling down the face of the cliff thing. We told them we didn't want to go down, there were cows in the water. They insisted, so we followed. Remember that we all (except Marcie...) still had our faces covered in mud.

They explained that there was more water higher up that the cows weren't in... And there was. Hidden from our lookout at the top of the cliff, there were a couple of other pools of water.

But where did this water come from? I'll tell you. It comes straight from the cliff thing. Oh ya, and the whole town happens to be at the base of the Volcano Santa Clara. So, the water that comes out of this cliff thing from heaven is warm. That's right folks. Warm water. And I had not felt warm water in over two months.

So we were able to make use of our swim suits and towels, and of course, all the kids stripped down to their underwear and jumped right in with us.

It was during this experience that I shared a mango with a Nicaraguan boy, who was wearing nothing but underwear, who shot said mango down from the tree with his slingshot, and I ate it while swimming in a natural hot spring in Nicaragua.