Windmills

We have just sprung free into Nicaragua from the hot and dusty Costa Rican border, where I had nearly lost any and all faith in Central American bureaucracy. We are traveling through a field of wind turbines along the Interamerica highway. The kid across the aisle from us, the kid with the impossibly optimistic temperament, the kid who will ride a bus for days on end through hell and smile, is staring out the window at the modern windmills.

(A local source, possibly a cab driver, has it that these are owned by an American company that sells the generated power outside the region.)

Behind and to the left of the windmills, Volcán Concepción of Isla Ometepe rises from Lake Nicaragua. To the right, the kid's head obscures the lesser Volcán Madera, the menacing circumference of which we would later attempt to bike for a few sad miles, until the steep inclines, the leaden heft of our gearless/brakeless (though not out of fashion, as is the case for bicycles all over New York City) bicycles, the heat, the humidity and our general poor form conspire to leave us hyperventilating and pushing our leaden steeds right back to the hotel.