La finca de pinya en San Ignacio

I have been remiss in blogging. Lo siento. On Tuesday afternoon, after a full morning of clases de espanol, we went to visit a pineapple farm.  On the way there, we stopped at a roadside fruit stand where you could order fresh pineapple juice – made to order!  Muy delicioso!!  I ordered mine with banana, but you could also get it with papaya or simply plain. It was 15 cordobas – about 60 cents for about 12 ounces of juice.  La finca de pinya was owned by a man and his family, who had gotten it during the land distribution in the early years after the revolution.  He told us all about how pineapples are grown and then showed us around his small farm.  I hope that I am not the only one who mistakenly thought that pineapples grow on trees.  In Nicaragua, they grow on plants on the ground. Did you know that it takes 18 months to grow the first pineapple on a plant and that each plant grows only one pineapple?  New plants grow off of the first one, but the next pineapple still takes 12 months to grow, and subsequent ones take 6 months to grow. After the tour, he treated us to platefuls of his fresh cut pineapple.  It was really quite an experience.  Another thing I learned is that due to the gases that blow from the nearby Volcan Masaya, only pineapples can be successfully grown in this area.  The gases are too strong for other fruits, but the pineapples tolerate it.  Like most Nicaraguan farmers, they also grow fruits and vegetables to live on, and raise chickens as well.