A backbone-massage, the fish-recipe and Tomás' two-day journey back to Mexico.

The last days with my brother in Managua were very relaxing. I was very tired of my holidays; when still in Chihuahua, I had no time to rest. I was, either visiting family and friends, going to Christmas parties, or cooking. From our first day in Nicaragua on, we were always busy driving through the country, walking around or on boat trips.

The day my sister flew back home, was also the day I returned to the office, January 4th. Tomás stayed four more days with me. Since he already knew Managua (he was here with Allison, his girlfriend, in summer 2008), we had no longer interest in sightseeing. We just enjoyed the evenings doing little; we even went to a shopping centre merely to get a massage. The two masseurs (male and female) give a 10 minute backbone massage and charge only 3 Euros! We went twice there, the second time we switched masseur only to conclude that the guy had better hands. This long-haired masseur has big, firm hands, but knows when to apply less pressure and loosen his hands – I know this may sound gay…massage

Another evening, we had ceviche at a small place opposite from the SOS Village (it was actually a garage which went through a rough adaptation), these guys serve an amazing ceviche! It was a pity that Tita was not with us; she, as a member of our family, is a connoisseur in ceviche matters.

New year 2008 fish story: Two years ago, we picked up Playa del Carmen (Mexican Caribbean) as our New Year’s vacation spot; during our stay, we tried different ceviches each day, ten days in a row! The best prepared was in Tulúm, on a palm-roofed cabin right on the highway.
New year 2009 fish story: Last New Year's Eve we were in Brussels, and also had raw seafood for dinner: Oysters and scallops with lemon juice and salt...mmmh!

If you don’t know ceviche, I describe it as a hybrid between Gazpacho and Sashimi. It consist of raw fish (white flesh), cut in small cubes and marinated in lime juice until the flesh acquires a cooked-similar texture (and the fishy-smell disappears), then chopped fresh tomato, red onion, cucumber, celery, coriander are added, Voilá!

Tomás left on a Friday, bad timing! I wanted to take advantage of his presence to party in Managua. Actually, going out in Managua is really an issue for me, I have been here for almost 4 months and went out only two times. Once to see that Afro-Caribbean concert (I hate rastas), and last week; I went to a salsa-bar (I hate salsa) with people from the Village: two youngster and their youth leader, this is the one I cannot call any longer, the one marrying my potential murderer in 10 days.

As I was saying, my brother flew to Mexico on a Friday, but arrived home on Sunday. This situation started getting complicated when the night before flying, he noticed that his ticket was to San Jose, in the American California, and not to the San José in the Mexican California. The next morning we bought a new ticket from San Jose (US) to San José (Mex), but he missed his connecting flight in Houston. To make a long story shot here is the list of airports he visited on his odyssey back home:

1. Managua
2. Houston
3. San Francisco
4. San Jose, United Stated
5. Los Angeles
6. San José, Mexico

The guy in the new pic is Austrofred, the Viennese version of Freddy Mercury