Spending a longer period of time in one place for a slower travel experience has shown us the benefit of connecting with community, and the many benefits of that. Having built a friend group with several other children her age, Z was invited to spend a day at one of the families’ home, playing altogether as a group making art and dressing up for some dramatic performances. This left G and I with some very unusual-while-traveling child-free time to explore, just the two of us. With the chores for the day of the laundry hand-washed and hung, and the floors mopped up, we went for a walk to Zapote, a restaurant at the Selvista guesthouses on a beautiful property.
Along the walk we saw enormous jackfruit growing from the trees. As various trees were marked with signs to tell what they were, we also enjoyed having a closer look and learning the different species of flora while we walked.
The view from the restaurant’s patio was a beautiful vista over the trees, out across the lake towards the volcano Concepcion, which makes up the other side of the two-volcano island of Ometepe.
The food was delicious and made from local ingredients. We had the nachos, which were unlike any we had tried before, the chips made of slices of thicker, seedier tortilla, and a salad of local vegetables. A jackfruit lassie topped it off, as I couldn’t just walk past all that jackfruit (a fruit we had tried fresh earlier in our visit), in a smoothie form. Surprisingly, it wasn’t pink like the flesh of the one we had opened up, but it was tasty.
