Managua to Esteli. "We´re Jokers..."

...So I hung about at the hotel with bell boys and inflated prices the morning after I arrived. MaggieJo was to finish a meeting and pick me up in a combi minibus with cooperative workers from around the north of Nicaragua. This she duly did, and I realised my trip had begun when she wandered into the foyer with 2 guys and introduced me in Spanish. After a moment´s suprise I realised that yes this was perfectly normal as we are in Nicaragua. This has happened a couple of times since - I just forget, and wonder why people are speaking in a funny language. We then had a beautiful drive, which started dry and got greener, and passed a few lakes and mountains, to Estelli. And I listened to a bunch of very sweet coffee workers making hilarious jokes which I didn´t understand, so I spent alot of that journey with a confused smile on my face. The times they spoke directly to me I understood more than I expected, so I know that they are all jokers cos they told me so. With 2 new words in fact. And later, in Esteli, Juanita (Jane but she´s lived here a while...) told me one of the reasons she liked Nicaragua enough to stay, make a baby, and open a hostel is because of the humour... "Grown men will fall off a horse laughing at something". I´ll be back to Esteli another time as its ´near´to Yali, but I had quick scout around an it is pretty and friendly. No time to stop though - on to Yali!!