Miskito Coast

Wow I thought Nicaragua was laid back but its nothing in comparison to this place, its so laid back its practically yesterday!

I have been to the Miskito coast on the north atlantic (carribean) coast of Nicaragua for a long weekend and it is world away from the Nicaragua I am used to.

80% of Nicaraguas population lives in the western pacific side of Nicaragua whilst the other half of the country is split into two very remote autonomous regions, the South and North Atlantic Autonomous Regions (check out map on google earth, link below)

I flew to Puerto Cabezas the capital of the N.A.A.R and the capital of Miskito Nicaragua. The Miskito people inhabit the north atlantic coast of Nicaragua and southern Honduras and still retain a facinating indigenous and linguistic history. The majority speak Miskita with Spanish or English as second languages, depending where you are)

I came expecting immediately to travel on into the heartland a bit but ariving on a weekend in typical laid back fashion there wasn´t a stitch of transport anywhere......."but today is Sunday", if I heard it once i heard it a thousand times!

A lack of transport didnt stop me adventuring into a closeby Miskito community where I met Geoffrey Prior and his family who invited me to lunch and to teach me Miskito. The English colonized the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua and left behind many oddities, hence Geoffrey´s somewhat anglo sounding name.

Miskita is not the easiest language to master but just in case you find yourselves on the Miskito Coast at some point in the future here are a basics:

Naki Sma - Hi/Hows it going?
Paen - Good
Aisabe - Goodbye
Klipraubia - See you later
Pless - Please
Tinki - Thankyou
Ninamdia - What´s your name?
Diadaukisma - What are you doing?

It gets slighlty more complicated when you want to count, for example

maltalkakabipurakum - seven
maltakakabipuragwal - eight

I kid you not. Not suprisingly the younger amounst them have adopted caribbean english for counting.

Anyway Miskita hospitality for the few remaining days I was there was more than gracious and thoroughly interesting and quite honestly it was a rench to return to the hussle of city life.

(written May 2nd)