Musings and Final Words… (Just Fucking Read It)

Reflections from a Hammock: Why Nicaragua Wasn’t Just a Trip, It Was a Turning Point

I’m writing this from OB 9 months later, but my mind is still back in Marsella, where the power cuts out, the sunsets last hours, and people give a shit when they ask how your day is going. It’s been a few months since we left Nicaragua, and still, I can smell the wood smoke from Machete’s oven, hear the jungle bugs singing through blackout nights, and feel the salt drying on my skin from yet another “just one more wave” session with Romo.

We didn’t go to Nica for a vacation. We went because the world got too loud. In OB, life somehow became a string of Amazon packages and overpriced tacos. We needed simplicity. We needed air. And Nicaragua gave us that in spades.

From Pizza Nights with the expats we swore we’d avoid (yet somehow now call friends), to beach vendors trying to sell me lawn clippings as “weed,” to swimming under a pitch-black sky with only the moon and our laughter to guide us — we were living again. Not just existing. Living.

We joked about the power outages, our broken generator, and the random earthquakes like they were minor inconveniences, but honestly, they reminded us how soft we’d become. And maybe it’s okay to sweat a little, live with uncertainty, and not have everything on demand.

But what made the most significant mark? The people. Jackie. Romo. Cori. Erick. Our Nica fam — not because they had to be kind, but because that’s just who they are—people who would give you the shirt off their back and make you laugh while doing it. People who made a random OB couple feel like they belonged.

We’re still buying land there. That’s not a question. It’s the plan. Because something in our bones said, this is it. This is where we want our next chapter to unfold, where Angel and I can keep chasing sunsets and building a life that feels more like us.

So no, it wasn’t just a trip. It was a reset. It was a reminder. And maybe, just maybe, it was the beginning of everything next.

See you soon, Nica. We’ll be back with Dougie, hammocks, and hearts wide open.