Las Noticias de Nicaragua

December 26, 2007

James and I have been travelling in Nicaragua for ten days and this is the first chance I´ve had to write anything. Partly it´s been because we´ve been very much on the go, but the more crippling factor has been the general difficulty of life here. I´ll just let you all know right out of the gate that the scales have definitely fallen from my eyes: we will not be moving to Nicaragua any time soon.

As you know, it is a very poor country. We have now begun to understand how, what, a century of poverty and oppression have affected the general character of the country and its people. Although we have of course met several great, friendly Nicas, overall they seem worn out. The relationships of all the Nica Joes and Janes with tourists is uncertain and they are often vengeful against us in small but really frustrating and angering ways, for example, by blatantly charging us double or more for bus fares, groceries and so on. We´ve had a few uncomfortable arguments. It does not feel good to argue with a ticket taker on a public bus that we shouldn´t have to pay a whole dollar more than the locals, when bus fare is insanely cheap to begin with. But the thing is, that guy puts the dollar in his pocket. It doesn´t benefit anyone but himself to cheat us. So I guess, it´s not the overcharging that bothers us, it´s the malicious intent.

Anyhoo. Managua, as promised, is not very nice and we just spent one night there before scarpering off to Granada to meet Aidan and Jen. Granada is like Hollywood compared to the Fort Apache that is Managua. It was founded in 1542, and although it has been burnt to the ground several times over the past 550 years, it retains its gracious colonial architecture. We met A&J as scheduled and spent several days exploring the city and the lakes nearby. In contrast to the wide colonial streets, Granada´s market is a scene of utter chaos: lanes only 4 feet wide, everything everywhere from butchered pigs to clothes to hardware, urchins running through at top speed, laden men who simply shove you aside muttering “Al lado, gringa!¨” (“One side, gringa!”). There are beggars and pickpockets aplenty; as a result, I have zero photos of the market as I was afraid to take my camera out.

We took a day trip to Masaya, a nearby city famous for its artisanal market. That´s where we had the nasty ticket taker try to squeeze us for the extra bucks. But we stood firm and thank goodness I was able to convey to him in Spanish that we weren´t going to get taken. I´m sure all the other bus patrons thought we were crazy for making such a scene. The market at Masaya ended up being pretty touristy, so we made for the workshop of a famous guitar maker I had read about. This guy is famous throughout Nicaragua and indeed elsewhere for his custom built guitars. I was expecting some sort of pro looking atelier – what we found was a shack with a dirt floor, guitars and guitar parts were hung from smokey old beams above. There were kids everywhere – and of course more appeared as I started handing out Spiderman pencils… I ended up buying a small classical guitar. It´s very pretty, made of cedar with a mahogany fretboard. I paid $100 and every Nica we´ve met has since assured me that I overpaid by $50 – but I don´t care. There were quite a lot of kids to feed! The Nicas quite relish the opportunity to tell us gringos what idiots we are for paying X instead of Y, and then they turn around and charge us X themselves!

From Granada we steamed by rickety car ferry to the Isla de Ometepe. This is an amazing figure-eight shaped island with an active volcano (Concepcion) on one end and a dormant volcano (Maderas) on the other. The whole island is perhaps 40 kms long, it´s apparently the largest freshwater island in the Americas. Like many islands it has a distinct culture, which I am happy to say is much friendlier than the mainland´s. We spend a couple of nights at the feet of Concepcion, whose last major eruption was in 1957. It is very active and in fact the day we arrived had let out a big belch of steam and lava. It is always ringed by a hump of smooth white smoke. I was a little afraid of it. But don´t worry, we had an evacuation plan, which was to first panic and poke people in the eyes (I´m not sure why) and then strap some plastic lawnchairs together and head out to sea. Hoping, of course, the bull sharks in the middle of Lake Nicaragua don´t decide to snack on us. Oh wait – the eye poking was for if we were eaten by bull sharks. Poke them in the eye, that´s how you get them to let go.

We split up one day on Ometepe: Jen and Aidan went off to hike up the volcano (because they are nuts) while James and I, along with a really nice American guy we met, hired a cute young guide and a driver for the day. Javier, our guide, is not quite 20 and is the sort of Nica who, with luck, will help pull the country forward into a better state. He´s earnest, funny, hardworking and enterprising. He took us for a hike part way up the dormant volcano to have a look at a high waterfall called San Ramon. It was a great hike and thanks to my trekking poles, I didn´t kill my back. From there we had lunch and then swam at the Ojo de Agua – the eye of the water – a beautifully clean clear spring pool. Along the way we ran into Aidan and Jen who as it turns out had rented a motorcycle and were tooling around the island having a great time instead of being boiled in hot lava. A good day was had by all.

After Ometepe, we came here to San Juan del Sur. We arrived on Dec. 23 with no reservation, which was not so smart given that it is the number one gringo beach town in the country. We hoped to find a cabana for a week but struck out the first night (Partly because the phone lines were all down) and instead stayed at separate hostels. But as luck and the kindness of strangers would have it, the American owner of the Gato Negro café got in touch with some friends and ended up finding us a great little spot a little bit off the beach about 15 minutes outside of town.

We spend Xmas eve on the beach and yesterday had a nice long, lazy Xmas day, drinking rum and cooking improbably good meals on our two-burner outside stove.

I have more stories to tell, but I have to get a move on here: we cadged a ride with a neighbour and I have to get the groceries before meeting for the return trip. But just to pique your interest, next time I write I will tell you about the Christmas traditions of Nicaragua featuring what we lovingly refer to as the Fuck Off Gringo Marching Band.