Northern Highlands

Trip Start Jan 26, 2005
1
15
27
Trip End Ongoing


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Sunday, April 3, 2005

Drove to the norhtern highlands, where we were looking for a quiet place to relax for a couple of days, enjoy the scenery and meander through the countryside. We ended up in Selva Negra (black forest) run by a couple of Germans since 1888. Had a tank from the revolution at the main gate. It was a Finca producing the best organic coffee in Nicuragua. It supplies Star Bucks in the US. The food let it down a bit, had German greasy sausages the first night then Lengua de Res the second night. It was a local speciality... not knowing what Lengua was, i asked, and the waiter said it was a part of a cow. Fine i'll have it... It turned up, covered in a criolle sauce. The first couple of mouthfulls were great. I tried to discern what it was? was it liver? it had a similar texture, then i scrapped away the sauce and the penny dropped! I remebered my second week in spanish school and doing body parts: it was tongue, just 3 slices of tongue vaguely cooked. I required another couple of beers to wash it down 2 4x4 driving straight
2 4x4 driving straight
 .
On the 2nd day we ventured into the cloud forest amongst the creepy crawlies. I knew i had my work cut out to avoid Emma from spotting them, trying to divert her attention away from the biggest spiders... saw an agouti (huge rodent the size of a dog), lots of birds, nothing very rare, then she spotted a net of 100 spiders on a tree about 2 foot from her face! Small red bodies with very long legs. All of them were vibrating together. I felt a little anxious, it was like a swarm about to pounce! The path at this stage had got a little narrower and overgrown but i made her go past it but that was as far as i deared puch it! We headed back...
There was more wildlife lower down, passed a puma's cave and saw another agouti, then some turkeys pecking in the undergrowth. They were being stalked by something which scurried off when we disturbed it. It was catlike and black, probably a jaguarundi, a small feline! Not back for one day!
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