(Or Zen and the Art of Waiting)
I thought I should describe our Nicaragua
trip in detail, mostly because it is one of our last but important piece of our Central American puzzle. There are no glitzy
posters like that of Costa Rica or has colorful villages like that of Gautemala, Mexico or Panama or coral reefs like Belize or Mayan
ruins that in Honduras. Locals wonder why you are there. Some even inquired if
we were missionaries. Summary: Nicaragua
is a wonderful place to explore (big surprise, has there a place we haven’t
liked so long we are going somewhere?) The volcanoes and lake vistas are
dramatic, colonial places pretty, the cloud forests are pristine, the price is
right, the carrots are sweet, but what stands out is the personality of the
people who have endured a long civil wars and interventions (click on this
or the title to view the photos). All packers I have met seem to agree. It takes
a long time to order food since everything is freshly prepared and the cook
will even ask you how you want it -- even in big cities. That was our universal
experience. Not everything is perfect however. It is the poorest in Central
America and doesn’t hide that fact well. The Contra war in
the 80s had a devastating economic and human toll and Hurricane Mitch added to
the injury. Besides Granada the
infrastructure of the country is quite poor. Buses may exist, but you may get
the connection tomorrow. The roads are work in progress and traffic on both
sides contend for the little critical piece of undamaged
road. Little children will sometimes wander into the restaurant and ask you to buy
them food or point food they want to eat from your plate. It is possibly one of
the remaining places where Lonely Planet hasn’t covered the region. And
the only good guidebook available is more of a political commentary written in
80's ("Not another guidebook to Nicaragua").
The most critical portion of our trip besides experiencing the country was also
to keep our kids sterilized especially 5 month old Anav who is in the phase of
putting everything in his mouth and smiling at strangers who want to pick him
and hug him. Nevertheless both the kids had a safe journey. If you order juice,
you must insist on no ice (visit the kitchen if possible). If there is some
salad on the plate, discard it or inquire when it was cut. In general the
Nicaraguans are also very health conscious. They will volunteer to cover food
for you from flies. Reena became an expert at breastfeeding
on the road and with our little pouch it was quite convenient. All in all, the
kids were never the problem. It was mostly in our ability to handle the logistics
with flexibility and no matter where we were, we never
felt stranded.
We stayed in Granada
for the longest time and made it our first base. It was the best considering we
had to juggle kids and packing and everything. It does compare to Antigua
with its earthquake destroyed churches and its backpacker atmosphere. Our hospadaje was roomy and had a nice courtyard for kids to
play in. Granada has good selection
of restaurants and night life. One notices is that it
is hot all over the plains, even in December and wonder what it would be in the
summer seasons. The central plaza is active till late in the night. It sits on
the edge of Lago Nicaragua
(Coqibolca) the largest freshwater lake (and the only
place where fresh water sharks are found) in Central America.
We spent the first few days exploring the city, the museums, churches and
cathedrals. There were processions both marriage and other festivities. Managua
is a 45min express van ride. Visited the central plaza (Plaza de la Revolucion, as we found every central plaza in Nicaragua
was called that) its natural history museum and landed up walking into one of
their big malls in search of food. Westernized style malls has been pretty much
been adopted in Managua in the
1990s (Payless shoe stores to Nordstrom). Subsequent days: We also hiked up one
of the nearest volcanoes,.Mombacha
and the view of the lake and surroundings was gorgeous. Visited one more active
volcano at Masaya and swam in a crater lake (Laguna
de Apoyo). Places such as these are a treat for the
kids. Bottled water is not easily available, but Coca-Cola is. On Friday there
was a nice dance festival in the main plaza in Granada
with dance and festivities mostly for local consumption. In the evenings we would
board an open air dance bus with blaring music (the local dating scene) or
ride a horse carriage ride where Amal handled the
horse reigns on the beachfront. The first day we were recommended a
pancake breakfast from Nica Buffet, a German owner
and it turned out to be so delicious we visited it for all the 8 days we were
in Granada. Granada
is also known for its fight the citizens put up against William Walker, a Texan
who appropriated the country with a bunch of mercenaries and proclaimed himself
the president in 1856 (as was quickly recognized by the US).
He burnt down Granada and later
tried to takeover a few more countries wherein he ran into conflict with the
British and was executed in Honduras.
Dec 26th we went to Isla de Ometepe.
There was no direct service to Rivias the nearest
port so we ended taking a bus to Nadiame and hope
that we would get a connection on the main highway. After an hour of waiting we
decided to take flag down the next taxi. The driver was completely drunk from
the party the night before. He hugged his steering wheel, swerving wildly in
both directions and missed going off the road. I kept asking him to concentrate
on the road. 15 minutes later, at a police checkpoint we got off and asked the
police to arrest him. The police unfortunately did nothing. Instead asked me to
pay the driver, which I refused and asked their badge numbers and they in turn
asked for our passports. Eventually we ended up paying and luckily boarded the
bus to Rivias to San Jorge for the ferry. Isla de Omentepe is an island
with two beautiful volcanoes. The beach at San Jorge was filled with locals
taking the day off. The ferries mostly taking trucks filled with plaintain bananas, we found a boat and one coming back
before dark. The town was shut. But we found a taxi who took us to our hotel in
Granada for $20.
We spent one day in Leon and Leon Viejo.
One of the earliest new world civilization, Leon Viejo
(a world heritiage site) was destroyed by earthquakes
from a nearby Momotombo volcano which towers over it.
The new city about 30km away was a
hotbed of Sandanista territory during the Contra
times and the murals don’t hide that. There are beautiful churches and it
has the biggest cathedral in Latin America and an
interesting museum of the revolution, chronicalling
the Sandina and the Contra times and its violent
past. From the 22 years that US marines occupied Nicaragua (in the wake of the
removal of an earlier dictator Santos Zelaya,
occupation was under the Monroe doctrine) to the rise of General Sandino, the overthrow of Somoza and the subsequent Contra
movement financed by the US, the reality of which was driven home by the
shooting of an US citizen by the Contras and the Iran-Contra scandal. Chiapas
and San Cristobal, Mexico
is possibly the other place where the Latin revolutionary spirit seems so alive
in its regular culture. In 2004, the FSLN (a remorphed
Sandanista party) won seats in ALL but 2 of the
municipal elections (and in Granada by a few dozen votes), the US sending
signals against FSLN for the national elections as was the visit by Powell and Rumsfield to the country mid last year. Leon Viejo is interesting.
It took us a couple of buses to get from Leon.
The site can be covered with a (mandatory guide, Spanish only) in about 45
minutes. It is located on the outskirts of the small town of Mamotambo, a 20 minute bus ride
from La Paz Centro, which is accessible by frequent buses from Leon
or Managua. There had been fewer
than ten visitors in the past three days according to the guest register. It is
a very hot and humid location but it is well maintained. Especially interesting
are the cathedral, a massive stone structure, given the overall size of the
settlement and the governor's house, the layout of which is still the norm in
nearby Leon.
Plaster casts of the founders, one of whom killed the under, lie together under
the cathedral vault. Monuments to the Spanish rulers and Indians who rose in
revolt against them attest to the brutal, bloody history of the settlement. There
an old fort and the climb to the top offered a stunning view of the nearby
volcanoes and the lake.
We took a day break and shifted our base to Managua
a wonderful little Hospedaje with all sorts of birds and
parrots and even a monkey on the loose a treat for Amal
and Anav. From Managua, we took a
trip to one of the beautiful parks of the region, Miraflor
near Esteli. You realize quite quickly from the
graffiti, this is Sandanista country. The area is
known for its coffee and also progressive agriculture. After Somoza was removed,
the Sandanista reform policies gave land to the
peasants. Now almost every farmer owns his land and the region touts sustainable
agriculture method in all of Latin America. The half
hour bus ride to the entrance of Miraflor took us
almost 2 hrs. It is a cloud rain forest and possibly the only comparison is
what Monteverde in Costa
Rica would have been 50 years ago. We met no
one in our hike. It was a little chilly and rainy and we could hear a stream
and we kept climbing in that direction. We met a compesino
at one clearing near his hut. Where would we find any place to stay? There was
sufficient place in hut, he said What about food? We have food in our kitchen
he said. It reminded me of winter/monsoon treks in the Sahyadris
at IIT. It was never too hard to find shelter and food if you knocked on
someone’s house. We were trying to get to La Rampa
we told him and he pointed to exactly the opposite direction we came from. So
we headed back. An hour later we met a few kids and they said La Rampa was in the opposite direction we came from. Fustrated, we headed back to the place where the returning
bus would stop. The bus was an hour late (during the time we had second
thoughts of taking up the campesinos offer). We
managed to get the
last bus back to Managua.
The final four days we spent in Corn
Islands an hour and half flight
away from Managua. There are no
roads from the west to the east. Flight is the only option. (possibly
a bus ride and a ride down the river Rio Escondido was an option but we would
have taken 3 days off our plan) We burnt off our illegal xmas fireworks we had accumulated over the days but
the security still objected to Amal’s dangerous
slingshot. The ride was smooth. Every passenger and every baggage was carefully
weighed before we got in. Perhaps that was the reason why our lugguage came in separately three hours and three flights
later. The lights were off at the airport and it was raining heavily. We went
to the north shore and while Reena and kids took
shelter in a local shop. I serendipitously happened to ask a local if there
were any place to stay. She took me to a bungalow right on the ocean and asked
me if $15 was ok for me. The rain continued for the next day or so. We
discovered some nice food hangouts and good beaches. The snorkeling on the
island was not good because the visibility was quite poor. The flight back to Managua
hopped at Bluefields a small port town and a 8hr flight back to San Jose
via Miami.
* Although gallo pinto (literally “painted
rooster”) is the standard fare, there are The Nacatamale,
a combination of cornmeal, pork, rice, potato, onion, tomato and green pepper
packed in a banana leaf and boiled or steamed, is considered Nicaragua’s
national folk food. On the pacific almost every salsa or curry is mixed with
bananas or plaintains. At a local bus market I
bargained for what I thought was 50cordobas (0.30cents) for one banana and it
turned out that I was bargaining for a whole bunch.