In early April, just days after the Samana Santa week (holy week which culminates with Easter) I headed into town with my Rivas shopping partner in crime, Kammi, to stock up on groceries at Maxi Pali.  Knowing that food deliveries often take place on Mondays and that it’s pretty common for the store to be completely out of an item, especially after a large holiday, we waited until Tuesday to shop so we would not arrive in the middle of restocking and miss any wanted items.  So after we allowed for a full day of restocking and arrived at 10:30 am Tuesday morning, I was surprised when I couldn’t fine 1 liter bottles Coka Lite (Diet Coke).   After checking out and loading our gazillion bags of groceries that were going to feed our families for the next two weeks into my truck, we drove into town to the original Pali store.  I ran inside hoping to hit the mother load and instead only found about a dozen 12oz. cans of Coka Lite.  I bought 8 of them and thought I’d use this as an opportunity to back off of the stuff.

The following week I made a trek to the local market just 5 minutes past the entrance to Eliana’s school.  It’s a good place to go when I only need a handful of items to hold us over for a few days, but my family can’t live off the food there.  It’s more of a convenience market.  While their supply of dry foods is fairly consistent, I once noticed that all their bags of rice had bugs in them.  Ewww.  Their produce supply is unpredictable and often not worth the drive.  So I only go when I really don’t want to drive 45 minutes into Rivas and what I want iis something I know they always have.  I headed there for garlic and onion and looked for Coka Lite as well…but they didn’t have it.  I really thought stores would have been restocked by then.

I returned to Maxi Pali at the end of April and still no Coka Lite.

Monday, May 7th, a full month since the first day of no Coke, Eliana and I were in Managua paying immigrations so we could stay in the country for an another 90 days.  The following day we were picking Fred up from the airport.  Whenever in Managua, we take advantage of the larger, more fully stocked super markets and PriceSmart (owned by Costco, recognize that Kirkland logo?).  We can get all sorts of treasures in Managua that we can’t get at our Maxi Pali and that we used to take for granted in the states, such as: Hershey’s chocolate bars, Wheat Germ, real vanilla extract, quality granola, cocoa powder, dried cranberries, relatively healthy cereals, large blocks of sharp cheddar cheese, and 40oz bottles of crunchy Jiff peanut butter (I have only spotted natural peanut butter once…the next time I see it I will by 10 bottles!).  I KNEW I could get Coka Lite here, and I was prepared to stock up as much as I thought our car could handle while still accommodating the luggage Fred was bringing back.

We hit PriceSmart first, an exact replica of Costco only the prices are in córdobas, and they did not have their usual shrink-wrapped set of 4 Coka Lite bottles for $4.  We later went to La Colonia, one of the more expensive and higher quality super markets, and what?!  There was no Coka Lite there either!  I took pictures of both their refrigerator and room temperature selections because they were so large that I was befuddled there was no Coka Lite to be found anywhere.

While checking out I asked the clerk why I couldn’t find Coka Lite anymore and he informed me they don’t carry it anymore.  To clarify, I explained that I can’t find it any where, at any store, nor in other towns, and he answered that you cannot get it anywhere in the COUNTRY anymore. It’s been replaced by Coke Zero.

Usually I very much enjoy having little choices of food options here.  It cuts my shopping time in half as I don’t have to decipher which product is the healthiest, cheapest, or whatever measure I am using for making a decision that day.  But taking away my Coka Lite is an entirely different situation.  I had a, “Back Atcha” thought flash, reminding myself that this was the price for choosing a simpler life with fewer choices.

It shouldn’t bother me that much, really, because I don’t like the Coka Lite.  It doesn’t taste like Diet Coke, it’s sweeter, like Pepsi.   And when I went back to the states in January and had a Diet Coke I didn’t like that anymore either, because it didn’t taste like the Coka Lite I had grown accustomed to.  I was stuck not liking either but wanting them both.  The issue is that it tastes really good with Flor de Caña Rum.  Really good.

So I find myself missing a soda I don’t actually like for what feels like the wrong reasons.  I’ve started drinking more water or fruit juices diluted with water or mixed with Canada Dry Club Soda because it’s the only carbonated water I can find.  The drink must have more sugar than my Coka Lite, but I presume it’s still healthier.  And thankfully, the mango, guava, and mixed juices also also excellent with rum.