Stations In A Third World

 About 3320 miles from home. And about 70 miles from the main city. I drove freely along the Pacific coast line; warm wind flowing through my long brown hair, tangling itself on the way out. Eventually after a while, you are going to run out of fuel. Figuratively and literally LOL. Fuel light beeping away and flashing annoyingly alerts us its time to refill the tank. But there are no local stores around, from what it seems to my naked eye. Our driver then pulls over into what seems like a local’s driveway with a small hut in front.

The woman and child come running out to greet us and I soon realize this is a family owned, local gas station. Around 5 big recycled water bottles filled with a pink solution (gas) are lined up to the left on a shelf. If you’re feeling astonished that gasoline is pink, I was as well! I’m not sure if gasoline is pink everywhere around the world but it definitely was here in Nicaragua. Driving a small SUV on an empty tank, I gave the woman $60 American. Yep gas isn’t really cheaper over here, especially in small yet exquisite beach towns away from the main city Managua.

 Not sure how much technique is needed here, but the concept is really simple. They have a big empty Fanta bottle which is cut half way in the middle and you enter that one into the neck of the tank and put the gasoline bottle in behind it and let it fill. After that they handed me a new one to switch out. This vehicle took about 5 whole giant bottles. If you notice through the trees you’ll see the big blue pangas that I talked about in my last post. This is when I discovered El Astillero right across the street.

and the neighbors had a bull!

Thanks for reading! These photos are raw and very real. I hope you enjoyed an insight of what a gas station in a third world country could be like.