Granada, Managua & León

We took a collective deep breath after the huge disappointment of losing Mike's photos and headed out to see some more of Nicaragua. Most of the long distance buses here are old U.S. schoolbuses, usually packed with passengers as well as vendors hawking drinks, snacks, and snake oil. They are very cheap and run more or less on time. We hit Granada in the afternoon and were scooped in by the friendly French-Canadian vegans at El Bendito, a tranquilo little hostel and bakery. Juana is immensely kind and did not make us feel like fiends for filling her refrigerator with butter and milk. Their bread was delicious and we stayed in Granada a few days.








Both the World Series and Día de los Muertos came upon us in Granada. We found the Nuevo Centro, a congenial bar, to watch games 4 and 5. At the cemetary we found many families renovating their loved ones' graves, fierce competition among the flower sellers, and a few big bands blowing jazz numbers graveside.









In the Doña Elba cigarreria we got to know dueño Silvio Reyes, his macaw, and his stories about customer Schwarzenegger, the taller figure nearly visible in that photo above the counter.




At last we dragged ourselves away from the great bread (whole wheat! not white and fluffy!) and pizza at El Bendito and took a bus to Managua. The word Managua has a ludicrous magic for me, bruited about as it was in my formative years. We heard on all fronts that among the myriad "dangerous" places to go in Latin America, Managua lived up to the reputation. Apparently even the police won't go near, of all places, Parque de la Paz. The hostel we chose was ringed by razor wire and impossible to penetrate without the say-so of the formidable Doña Angela. It was also 2 blocks from the spotless and tasty Cafetin Mirna. Our cabdriver from the bus stop had proven himself to be both honest and nice and we asked him to take us on a tour of the city's historic highlights.

The old city center of Managua, built on a faultline, was destroyed in an earthquake in 1972 and never rebuilt. On the old Plaza de la Republica, now the Plaza de la Revolucion, the old cathedral is still standing. Giant billboards of President Ortega that commemorate the 30th anniversary of the overthrow of the Somoza regime are everywhere in the city, as are representations of Agusto Sandino. A park in front of the baseball stadium has a statue of Sandino on a burro that replaced one of Somoza on horseback torn down in the revolution. The hindquarters of the Somoza horse are cheekily preserved in a little pen across the street in a park devoted to giant captioned photos from the revolution. We checked these out on our tour as well as the new cathedral that looks a lot like an egg carton and prehistoric footprints preserved in volcanic mud and discovered by workers in the 19th century.













Our evening in Managua fell on game 6 of the World Series and we planned to watch it in a little Irish pub in the neighborhood. The Shannon was closed so we adjourned to a "buffet" to watch the game. In the course of the Phillies' thrashing we fell into conversation with Michael who turned out to be the Irish expat owner of the Shannon, or maybe not. We passed the evening with him and his friend Rafael, an appellate court judge.

Michael told us several incredible stories. One involved a program to bring together the wives of republicans and loyalists jailed during the Troubles, and their eventual bonding discussing the indignities of conjugal visits. Others involved his time in Honduras and El Salvador in the '80s. Most of these had to do with charity work but he also mentioned assistance to the rebels involving things an Irish Republican might know something about. Finally, just before telling us that his name was not really Michael and disappearing, he swore that thirty percent of the weapons that the U.S. was secretly sending to the Contras, funded through secret arms sales to Iran, were being sold to the FMLN rebels fighting the U.S. supported government in El Salvador. We were left to wonder what was real amid the ruins of Managua.

Our final stop in mid-Nicaragua was León, birthplace of national treasure, poet Rubén Darío. There are lions everywhere in the city including one weeping at Darío's tomb. León feels like a real place, more than Granada which is unabashedly tourist oriented. We loved exploring its neighborhoods and took one day at a nearby beach, Las Peñitas.



































In León we stayed one night in a flophouse and then Mike insisted that we move somewhere more comfortable where I could get rid of a wretched sore throat and incipient cold. La Casona Colonial is a lovely place, run by Rosario who raised her children in Guatemala. Her son opened the hotel in the family's old home in León and then was killed in an accident. Rosario moved back to run the business. It struck me as horribly sad, that she had kept her kids out of harm's way during the war only to have her beloved son killed randomly back in Nicaragua. There was a beautiful photo of her sister on the wall, a young woman with a remarkably strong face who went on to become a nun. Rosario's strength, though not her sadness, is echoed in her sister's face.



Here is a beautiful poem that Mike wrote about Rosario.

Hotel en León

Estoy aquí en este comedor,
casi silencioso excepto para
los estallidos ocasionales de
los fuegos artificiales afuera.

Me sento debajo de la mirada
amable y fija y enmarcada
de un hombre guapo y muerto,
el hijo de nuestra mesonera.

"Era su lugar," Rosario dijo
sonriendose con lágrimas
y yo pensé que en Nicaragua
haga pocas cosas nuevas.

Cosas nuevas que puede ayudarte
olvidar todo que es perdido.

La Isla de Ometepe en Lago de Nicaragua

As you might notice, I have no pictures in this post. It is a tragedy because Ometepe is a unique, dramatically beautiful place, an island made of two tall volcanoes in the middle of a lake that stretches from the Costa Rican border to Granada and beyond. It is also a tragedy because instead of ending this story with a description of the kindness and openness of the vast majority of Nicaraguans, it will end with a description of a less savory one.

Of course, using a word like tragedy to describe losing a camera in a country -- I think the second poorest in the Western Hemisphere -- that is still suffering from the aftermath of a brutal civil war, and where begging kids, old women, and skeletal dogs sometimes simultaneously contend for your sympathy is a disgusting exaggeration. It makes me feel even worse that in a place with so much loss I can't stop thinking about eight hundred missing photos.

The journey from Los Chiles in Costa Rica to San Carlos in Nicaragua was our first border crossing by river boat. The banks held an explosion of jungly foliage doubled by reflection in the slow water, and we saw birds, monkeys, and turtles roosting at their respective levels in the greenery. San Carlos is a fairly important town being at the base of Lake Nicaragua where the San Juan River leaves it for the Caribbean, 120 miles away, but it would be a lot more important, or perhaps wiped off the face of the earth, if the U.S. had followed through with the plan to build the isthmian canal there.

We spent the night in San Carlos, and despite stone-faced hostility from the proprietors of the flophouse hotels, we met a lot of friendly people in town including a man who owned a little breakfast joint and hosted a political television show, and a tippling doctor who wept describing the difficulties he faces. He invited us to visit his hospital, which we did the following day, finding him so swamped with patients that he could only spend a few minutes with us.

In the afternoon we boarded a ferry for a twelve hour ride north over Lake Nicaragua. We were treated to another stunning sunset with clouds of all sizes and descriptions giving the sky a look of infinite depth. Near two in the morning, after a nap on the benches, we arrived at Altagracia where we found a hostel that, though run by nice people, appeared to be celebrating Drunken Gringo Nightmare Night. A half dozen Americans and Europeans with a half dozen bottles of Flor de Caña rum (can't fault the rum, it's delicious), every one of them exclaiming at full volume over how drunk they were. "I am sooo drunk!" "Are you drunk?" "I'm so ****ing drunk" "Muy borracha." "MY GOD, I'M DRUNK!"

My God, it was boring, and impossible to sleep through. Furthermore, as a self-respecting gringo who has discovered a fondness for Flor de Caña, it was embarrassing. I think every freshman in college should be forced to take a course entitled "Interesting things to talk about when you're drinking." What do you say, Dad? UCONN might be a good place to start.

The following morning, after getting a little sleep between gringo passout time and neighbors' squawking rooster, barking dog, and radio time, we headed by recycled U.S. school bus to the south side of the island. There we checked into the intensely tranquil El Porvenir surrounded by ancient petroglyphs. We were the only guests and we spent the afternoon reading (Me: The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough about the building of the Panama Canal, which I highly recommend) and enjoying the absence of loud drunks.

The next day we walked for a couple hours along the dirt road, greeted by smiling locals on bicycles and motorbikes, to a hostel where we camped. The hostel, Hacienda Mérida, I had mixed feelings about. It had all the hominess of a Starbucks. At nights it seemed to swarm with security guards, their powerful flashlights periodically filling our tent with harsh light. And it was very much separated from the friendly community around it. But it did have one huge selling point: for fifteen dollars you could use their kayaks as much as you wanted during your stay. We took full advantage.

For one full day we paddled into the river and swamp that bisects the isthmus between the volcanoes. We were joined by our Belgian friend, Hendrick, who we first met in Colombia. The river had an incredible assortment of birds and other wild life. Hilary even spotted a cayman. We sat still in our kayaks watching his wicked eye and snout until they slowly sank below the inky water. The sun was setting across the lake causing the volcano to glow by the time we returned to camp. That night we went to another hostel, El Caballito de Mar (the little horse of the sea), a much more genial place, for a fun party where we had our first taste of Flor de Caña.

The next day we climbed part way up Volcán Maderas to some tall waterfalls, then stayed in a simple, inexpensive little hospedaje run by the delightful family of Doña Dora. We ate steak while a still nursing calf snoozed on the grass beside us and talked for a couple hours with a Cuban man named Armando who was building small scale hydroelectric projects on the island. Armando had spent 8 years separated from his wife and kids before Castro's government finally allowed them to join him in Nicaragua. In the morning we walked around the rest of the south side of the island, through banana plantations and past frontier style houses that only started receiving electricity a year ago. Most of the people were friendly and talkative, if a little surprised to see us, so far from the touristy side of the island.

That night and for the next two we stayed in a comfortable room at the Finca Magdalena, a giant ramshackle building that must have been a kind of barn when the place was solely a coffee plantation. We spent one of the days climbing to the top of Volcán Maderas through the slippery jungle mud and watching the congos (howler monkeys) romp through the canopy.

Finally, after a few bus rides and a ferry to the mainland we ended up in San Jorge. There disaster struck. We were met at the dock by a sleepy eyed cabbie who drove us to the neighboring town of Rivas while trying to sell us on an expensive cab ride to Granada, lying to us repeatedly about the lack of buses and generally not taking no for an answer. When we finally got out, shaking our heads as he continued the hard sell, my camera must have slipped out of my pocket. I realized it was gone as he pulled away and chased him down the street yelling and flapping my Panama hat.

A man named Pedro said he knew the cabbie and put us in his car. We tracked him down, but the cabbie claimed not to have the camera, even after an offer of $100, much more than he could hope to get for it. At the time I wasn't so sure, but now I know he was lying, the way he lied about everything else. But why? I guess it was pride. I can picture him seeing the back of my head shaking as we walked toward the bus station after calling his bluff, hearing me screaming as he pulled away, and finding my little camera in the back seat. And I can almost understand the wounded joy he might have felt seeing me with despairing eyes practically begging him to help me. To just be able to reject it, money and all, with one more lie was probably too delicious for him to pass up.

My parents and Eddy, my teacher from Montevideo, generously offered to send me a new camera but shipping anything to Nicaragua is either a crapshoot or extremely expensive. I still have the camera that I broke back in Argentina and that was partially fixed by Fernando in El Chalten, so I will continue to take pictures until it gives out. But all the pictures going back to the Mono Feliz, save for the mini versions we uploaded to the blog, are gone.

Now, thinking of Armando separated from his family for so long, or the family we talked to who just got electricity, or the starving dogs and ragged children, it seems almost obscene to mourn a few hundred pictures. Still I do.

Costa Rica

Our border crossing from Panama was easy -- the official asked for our tourist cards, I said we didn't have any, he stamped our passports. The cards seem to be something you get or don't depending on your arrival, and that's a problem or isn't depending on your border official. From Paso Canoas we got ourselves on a bus to Golfito, a little town on the Pacific Coast and checked into El Tucan, our flophouse for the night. From Golfito we took a lancha to Puerto Jimenez, an hour and a half across the gulf.



Jamie, a battered Canadian septuagenarian met us at the dock. He would not have looked out of place sitting on the sidewalk at 6th and Market but his unpressured approach and plethora of apparently solid information won us over. We followed him to the squeaky clean Corner, past trees full of red macaws, and bunked down.

Puerto Jimenez is on the Peninsula Osa, home of Parque Nacional Corcovado and much jungle. It turned out that access to many parts of the park is limited right now, due to the rainy season and to current restoration work. Instead of the trek we had planned in Corcovado we decided to check out Bolita, an outpost in the rainforest on the border of the park. We had the isolated cabin, kitchen and hammocks to ourselves and spent a day hiking to several waterfalls with toucans and other beautiful birds overhead. We saw a couple of types of frogs, one of them tiny and red with green legs. And we slept under mosquito netting with four small black bats roosting on the beam above us.



















From Puerto Jimenez we caught the bus for El Palmar and from there to Dominical, a tranquilo little beach town. We checked into Camping Antorchas where Jorge and Deily run a lovely place just off the beach. It is the end of sea turtle egg-laying season and many local organizations are involved in collecting eggs to hatch in protected areas. We met a woman with 3 slightly malformed baby turtles in a plastic bowl, eating shrimp and fattening up for their release.
We spent a day on the beach and then a day hiking in the rain at the eco-retreat Hacienda Baru. In the park the only big animals we saw were pizotes, white nosed coatis. It is wonderful to see these animals walking up tree trunks and nestling down in the crowns of palm trees. We met one on the road and named him Sandwiches.






We were hoping to see sloths in our rainforest time in Costa Rica and moved on to Quepos to check our Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio a bit further north. We stayed in the Mar y Luna hotel in Quepos and took the short bus ride to M.A. where we were treated to at least 5 sloth sightings. They are lovely and strange to watch climing in the trees, moving verrrrry slowly. We also saw a couple of venemous snakes, the eyelash viper and the fer-de-lance, and squirrel and capuchin monkeys. We have still only heard the howler monkeys.







Costa Rica is rather expensive for Central America and we decided to move quickly up to Nicaragua. We met a nice couple from New York on the bus to San Jose who got us excited about Honduras and Mexico, and from San Jose caught the bus for Los Chiles and a river boat to the Nicaraguan border.