I Met One of My Favorite Humans in the Randomest Way Ever
The night before I was meant to go volcano-boarding in Cerro Negro, Nicaragua, I got very little sleep.
My friend Franzi, with whom I’d been traveling since Guatemala, had moved on to Granada without me, and not only was I alone for the first time in weeks, but I was now the only guest in my entire hostel.
I had one more night reserved in this hostel, which was more of a house with a few bunk beds in a few of the rooms, and it was independently owned by a man who also lived there. As committed as this man had seemed to helping me practice my Spanish and making sure I saw and did everything worthwhile, I felt unsettled sleeping alone in the house with him knowing I was alone, which is why I snuck out around 11pm to seek a more ideal place to crash.
When I arrived at a nearby party hostel, I asked the receptionist if they had any spare beds. Unfortunately, this place was entirely booked up; as was the hostel across the street, and the one next-door. (And yet mine was completely empty??) However, the man told me that he had a guest checking out at 2:30am, and that if I was willing to wait until then, I could have his bed. Given that my alternative was to return to an eerily quiet hostel with dusty sheets, a ceiling fan that barely worked, and a man that probably wouldn’t but easily could mess with me, the blasting music and high energy of this brightly-lit, sticky-floored establishment felt like a refuge.
So, I chose to wait. I actually did know a few guests here, who’d been on my shuttle from Honduras (and let me tell ya, crossing the Honduras-Nicaragua border by bus is a real bonding experience). Seeing their faces as soon as I’d walked through the door had instantly put me at ease, and I lay on the couch and listened to them chat as the rest of the party gradually dwindled.
By 3am, the receptionist and I had finally replaced the sheets on my new bottom bunk with our mobile flashlights, and I knew I’d be too sleep-deprived to enjoy the volcano-boarding tour I’d booked for the next morning, which had an 8:00am pickup time. I texted the guy I’d made my reservation with, asking if I could postpone my booking. By the time he finally answered to say yes, the sun had already risen, and I was back at my original hostel, throwing my belongings together. I’d slipped in a few minutes earlier, tiptoeing past the kitchen where the owner stood with his back to me, preparing the “free” breakfast that was included in my stay. I texted this guy back saying never mind, that I was already up and could rally.
A few minutes later, I reverted back to my original request.
When I finished packing, I wandered into the kitchen, where my host (if you could call him that?) greeted me and pointed to a large bowl of rice with beans, next to a plate of sliced tomatoes, telling me he’d made sure to prepare something without milk or eggs this time (aww). All the while, I stuck to my original narrative that I’d be picked up in a few minutes for my tour and then be off for Granada straight after. (At this point, I had booked a bed for tonight at the hostel across from last night’s party hostel, but how could I tell him the truth, assuming he really was just a kind soul?)
After he disappeared to his room with his own plate, I guiltily shoveled the (surprisingly delicious) breakfast into my mouth. I’d never been a fan of beans, but I would soon learn that this was a classic Nicaraguan dish called gallo pinto, and I would eat it almost daily over the next 2 months.
Now, with 3 hours left of my reservation back at the party hostel, I gathered my bags, handed off the cash I owed this man, and headed straight back to the air-conditioned bed I’d crawled out of only an hour earlier, with my alarm set for 10:50. Around 11, I waved goodbye to the new receptionist on shift and once again hefted my bags across the street to my new, quieter-but-not-TOO-quiet hostel, where I would be pleasantly surprised to find that my new room was ready for me to check in early. At last, I collapsed onto my third bed in two days—and the first one where I felt entirely at peace.
A few hours later, I weaved my way through the foliage and tables of outdoor vegan restaurant Coco Calala, scanning my surroundings for a decent place to sit. Most of the tables around me were empty, but they offered no protection from the relentless July rain that now poured over León. To my right, I spotted a large, rectangular table under an umbrella, where a girl close to my age sat alone, reading a book.
“Mind if I sit here? I’m trying to avoid the rain,” I said, already pulling out a chair.
“Nooo, you mean you don’t want to get soaked while you eat? Who wouldn’t?!” She said in a playful voice that sounded slightly British. The fact that the first thing out of her mouth was sarcastic, yet not at all mean, made me immediately like her.
I laughed and settled into my chair as she returned to her book. Over the next several minutes, she received a coffee she’d apparently ordered, and I awkwardly requested a spaghetti “bolognese” dish, wondering if she could understand just how broken my Spanish was. Then, I sat with my journal in front of me, resisting the urge make conversation — what if she simply wanted to read her book and enjoy her coffee in peace?
I don’t know if it’s because she was likely to also be vegan, or because she seemed so friendly, but I was hard-core friend-crushing.
Eventually, one of us said something. (Perhaps about my food looking good…?) Whatever it was, I was pleasantly surprised to find that she didn’t make an effort to wrap up our conversation and return to her book. Over the course of the next two hours, I would learn that her name was Luca, that she was German (but studied in Scotland, which was partly why her accent sounded the way it did), and that she was living here in León for a summer internship. Over caramel-drizzled banana bread, I told her all about the strange night I’d just had, we talked about how the norms and values here in Nicaragua differ from what we’re used to, and I took notes as she rattled off recommendations of things to do here.
She showed me the address of the immigration office where I could get my visa renewed, and I told her that if she only had to overstay her visa by 3 days, the fine at the airport would cost less than paying for an extension.
I found out that she had plans to go on an overnight volcano boarding and camping tour that weekend, with the same company I was supposed to go with that morning. I wondered if it was too soon for me to decide that I wanted to stay here in León at least that long, to join her.
At some point during our chat, I received a message from Leo, a tour guide who told me that he would have to cancel our free walking tour this afternoon because I was the only one who’d signed up for it in Spanish — tourists usually only did the tours in English, and I was welcome to join that one. Luca told me that she could give me a tour in Spanish if I really wanted. After paying, we left the restaurant together, and she did in fact show me around a little (we stuck to English, though) before dropping me off at Quiet-But-Not-TOO-Quiet.
Two days later, we went out for açaí bowls, and on Saturday, I joined the volcano boarding and camping tour (I was right, the volcano boarding was quite underwhelming. We both preferred the camping and hiking part.) By the time we got back on Sunday, it was clear that I had progressed from friend-crushing to having an actual friend—and it felt like we’d been friends for “ages.”
When I discovered that I would have to find somewhere else to stay on Tuesday because Quiet-But-Not-TOO-Quiet was fully booked, the possibility came up of me renting a room for a month, in a house like Luca’s. A few days later, I was a signing a slip of paper and handing over USD$220 for a month’s stay in my own room, which had just become available in the same house Luca was living in. In my eight months of solo traveling, I’d never stayed so long in a single place — and yet somehow, this month-long commitment was one of the easiest decisions I’d ever made.
From that point on, we spent every night until she left cooking or going out to dinner together, somehow never getting tired of one another. We spent our afternoons and weekends hitchhiking to the beach and back, attending daily Zumba classes, taking a surfing lesson, and searching for the greatest piña colada in the greater León area. (A bar on the beach at Las Peñitas won, by the way!)
This is the story of how I made the closest friend I’ve ever had while solo-traveling… under the most random of circumstances.
