Second Highest on the Totem Pole

Christy Nichols
8 min readApr 14, 2023

Listen to audio here: https://venture-within.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Second-on-the-Totem.m4a

Traversing through miles of partly lush, partly dry farmland, acres of plantain trees and sugar cane fields, our road trip motored us past silhouettes of volcanos rising from the horizon, hovering over the two-lane highway that chicken buses, big rigs, herds of cows, motorcycles, horse-drawn carts, and our Land Cruisers all shared in not-so-equal parts.

There would be surfy beach stops to explore sunset tide pools and dine on fresh-caught fish tacos. There would be city stops to wander through weathered cathedrals and taste-test modern non-fish vegan cuisine. We’d horseback ride through swampy green, scenic trails populated with flighty white herons. We’d hike up active volcanos and later feast on more fresh-caught fish tacos.

There were 10 of us in the group. Family #1, parents to a just-turned-one-year-old and a 6-year-old, and Family #2, parents to a just-turned-7-year-old, and an 8 ½-year-old. (The ½ is important). A 22-year-old nephew of Family #2 had joined the caravan, all of us strapped securely inside two packed and loaded SUVs, we set out for the North of Nicaragua for a multi-family family vacation.

In case you lost track with all the numbers I just haphazardly littered this page with, that’s two…

--

--

Christy Nichols

Educator, business owner, writer, do-gooder (mostly), trouble-maker (sometimes). Life Coach, Book Coach, Nicaragua Retreats hosted by www.venture-within.com