by Marie Mendel
I was in El Realejo in northwest Nicaragua sitting on the damp, moss covered stone brought up from the nearby river Las Lajas some 500 years ago and listening to Hilario Alemán tell the story of how he found the remains of the oldest brothel in Central America while excavating foundations for his home. About one meter wide, the wall had been built by Doña Isabella de Bombillia, the widow of Pedro Arias de Avila (or Pedrarias), first Governor of Nicaragua.
My eyes tracked along the wall from where a cement toilet box had been perched to a barbed-wire fence to cows lying on the old stones, trash on both sides. Though it was hard at times to understand Mr. Alemán, I gathered somebody had written a book, El Burdel de las Pedrarias, and then an archaeologist had shown up.