Time and Temperature in Nicaragua

Late afternoon at Casa Merced

I’ve been trying to figure out why it’s so weird that it starts getting dark at around five here.  It shouldn’t be all that strange since where I’m normally at in November it’s already good and dark by this point in the day.  I realized today it’s because of the heat.  In the summer in the Pacific Northwest, it doesn’t get dark until after eight or nine in the evening, but here it’s warm year round (just slightly less so during the winter).  My body says that when it’s warm out, the sun should be out until late at night.  Nicaragua laughs at my body’s confusion.

Despite that, I’m really starting to take to things here.  This country seems to exist outside of time.  When people say nine o’clock, they may mean nine, or they may mean nine-thirty.  To many, I understand, this is very frustrating.  For me personally, however, having always had trouble with time and the relativity of it, it really kind of makes sense. 

Working on boating skills at Laguna de Apoyo

We went to the Laguna de Apoyo today to work on some rope and boat skills – throwing a coiled rope accurately is much harder than it looks on television.  The water was refreshing, but far from cold.  Apoyo is a crater lake warmed by geothermal activity of the nearby volcanos.  There are so many here that even the locals seem to have trouble keeping track of them.  They do make for incredible scenery, though.