As we expected, we spent the last couple days around Masaya. One day was mostly spent exploring the city, finding coffee, and relaxing. The next day we made our way to Apoyo, the crater lake for a rather large volcano. The waters were warm and azure, and it is allegedly the lowest point in Central America, with a depth of “at least 200 meters.” It was beautiful, and although our book didn’t give us good directions and it took us about 3 hours of busing, hitching, and walking to get there, the little resort we stayed at for lunch and the swim was quiet and beautiful, and we had a light and fun conversation with the host (who, with no other visitors, had no one else to talk to).

We contracted with a taxi to the airport the day before, and everything went smoothly getting to the airport, through customs, to Miami and then Chicago, and driving back home. Of course, in the middle of that next night, I woke up feverish and vomiting…. but I’m pretty much recovered.

So what would I say about traveling to Nicaragua?

Spanish is relatively important to know and understand. I would probably say moreso than in Asia (at least the places I’ve been in Asia). Through most of my Asian travels, it was relatively easily to understand, with some work, the meaning of what someone was trying to communicate, and it was fairly common to meet people that spoke some- or even good- English. It was not nearly as easy in Nicaragua, and I have some theories why. The first is that Spanish is frequent enough of a study in the US that the vast majority of travelers seem to already speak it, so the Nicas rarely need to try to communicate to non-Spanish speakers, and English probably doesn’t outnumber French or German by much. Tourism is also rather small, and a lot of people may not be accustomed to speaking to someone who doesn’t understand them. Lost of people- outside tourist restaurants and guest houses- don’t try to speak slowly and clearly when you say you’re having trouble understanding (I’ve observed the same thing with US Citizens trying to explain something to non-English speaking foreigners).

It also seems that there is a different level of social politeness in Nicaragua than in most of Asia. While traveling through Asia, I would often be asked all sorts of questions by anyone around. In that respect, the Asian peoples I met were very forward and expressed a lot of interest. If they spoke English well, these could be very long conversations. If they didn’t, it could be, “You are American?” and “You like Thai Whiskey?” and that about it.

In Nicaragua, the people were much less forward about conversation, though extremely friendly and willing to talk. I had quite a few very good conversations with Spanish-only Nicas (the host at Masaya, Apoyo, the girl on the bus at Umetepe, a couple cabbies), but it usually started with us asking a question to break the ice.

A final interesting point about Nicaragua compared to my other adventures: people are much less likely to try to rip you off. Prices range from even-keel to slightly inflated, and even the folks who are charging exorbitant fares are usually very quick to come down to a good price. That’s if you’re in the streets. We talked to a rather sheltered Canadian that was getting taken for everything, but he just rented a driver for the day (or maybe week), never took the public bus, and never entered an actual streetside shop (imagine his surprise when we told him the price for a liter of beer (<$2) was less than he was paying for a six pack). All in all, though, in spending time with the locals, prices are usually pretty reasonable (with a few exceptions, of course). This may, of course, be because there is relatively little tourism and an increase in dumb travelers willing to pay $6 for a six pack will change the social perception of travellers… but for the time being, it’s a rather nice change.

So there we have it. The broad, general, traveler-observations I made about Nicaragua. A beautiful place (where else can you go to see… what was it …. 29 volcanoes?), very nice people, intriguing political history.

I suppose it is still yesterday morning that we left Leon, the “intellectual capital of the country.” It was kinda interesting, but another decaying colonial city with a lot of churches. By this time in the trip, these things are less interesting to me. It has a beauiful range of volcanoes, and an extremely vicious surf and nature reserve, but all of these were day or 2-day trips and we wanted to go up north. So we left for the only bus to Matagalpa, in the north central highlands, at 5:30 am.

We had mixed reports on when, and if,a bus actually ran to Matagalpa from Leon, and the best we could find was there was a morning and an afternoon bus, sometime around 4:30am, and 2:30pm. So we figured get up by 6, catch a bus back to the highway intersection in Managua, and then up to Matagalpa, if indeed there was no bus.

But there was! And from 7:30 to 11:30 we bounced back and forth on terrible, miserable roads that normal US citizens might call impassable. It wasn’t impassable, as we proved, but it sure wasn’t very fun. We then went wandering around a nature reserve and coffee plantation for most of the day, Selva Negra (The Black Forest). The rain kept us out of the jungle for the most part, but when it subsided, waves of howler monkeys lived up to their namesake, back and forth though different parts of the mountains.

After our leisurely lunch (the worst filet mignon I’ve ever had; not worth the $10 I paid for it), we returned to Matagalpa… and I realized that since it was almost dusk, we wouldn’t have much else that we could do in Matagalpa (and it wasn’t that pretty of a place anyway)…. but we could probably get back south for a relaxing couple days.

So, would you take another 2.5 hour busride in hopes of getting a taxi between bus stations in time for the last 45 min bus ride to your next destination, risking stranding in a big city you don’t really want to be in? You know I would! It helped that our Matagalpa – Managua express bus had a movie (first time we had a movie!) and the driver was hell bent on getting to Managua quickly. Negotiating the taxi was pretty easy, and then the mini bus ride, usually packed in with more people than seats, was delighful, for it was more of a half-bus with individual seats.

Then we checked into our hotel, with the amazing delightful host family, and had a very long conversation about the political situation and the recent history with the father (Spanish speaking only), the son (broken English), another guest (decent, but broken, Spanish), and us (keen interest in politics and a pretty decent understanding of the history). So, we ha a great time of the father explaining something about the situation, and either the son translating or the other woman translating enough to get an idea. A lot of times, she would say, “Something about …. a pinata?” To which I had the response like, “Yes! The pinata pact! That was when the liberals and the sandinistas …..” Muy bien, no?

Yes, so this is our final stop. We rested very easily today, and will probably take the day trip to apoyo, the crater lake, tomorrow. With some fine nica rum, this might be the sort of day Cousin Melissa might enjoy.

Kevin

Seriously though, I´m on the pacific side, and yesterday alternated between pouring rain and overcast pauses, with today alternating between downpours and sun. Aside from the overcast hours destroying the vistas, it hasn´t been too bad. I am trying to find out how Jinotega and the mountains have handled it as it was going to be our next destination, but this information isn´t very easy to discover. The northeast Carribean coast was quite bad, I gather, and the newspaper reads ´Disastre!´ (I bought one but haven´t finished going through it yet).

I am presently in Leon, in the northwest corner, an old colonial city and home to the largest university. In more antique times, this was the home to the liberals, and Granada (prev. visited), the Conservatives. There was some wicked political deal that has debilitated the Liberal party, and the Conservatives died out when a previous dictator held them at bay with bribes.

So, we´re considering various possibilties for the future: the coast with a wicked undertow, crocadiles, pelicans, and monkeys; a much calmer volcano-crater lake (apoyo), and other vocano hikes.

We were at the volcano island of Ometepe before here, although we cut that stay short. It was very beautiful, but the water of the immense lake a bit murký- we considered a hike up one of the two volcanoes, but the skies were overcast and threatening from the hurricane, the trail promised to be muddy and difficult, and the clouds shed doubts on a good view.

Well, that´s the pause for the moment.

K

Nicaragua.

¿Porque?

Although he has been known to fancy revolutions, political instability, and an all around good time, the main motivation was (a) cheap plane fare, and (b) he has never been there.

So, I am in Grenada right now, enjoying the time with Amy, and ready to head down to the volcano islands in the middle of Lake Nicaragua, one of the largest lakes in the world. I don´t have much time right now….. maybe…. maybe…. quiza…. I will write more later.

For the record, however, there are no revoluationaries that I´ve met, nor guerillas, and the people I´ve spoken to about politics are split between thinking -

1. Politics is tedious, and it is best to stay out of it.

2. It is a very exciting time because 70% of the population is under 30, aren´t dulled down by the problems of the past, and are looking to make a good society.

Anyway, that´s what I´ve got for right now. Until una otra dias.

Kevin