Jane, 26th August, Granada, Nicaragua
We are now in Nicaragua, having arrived by bus from Tegucigalpa the capital of Honduras on Tuesday 22nd. I managed to arise from my sick bed for the occasion. (I spent Monday in bed and missed Honduras!!)
I have had two colds since travelling. I can't believe it is more stressful than THS!
The roads weren't that good on the Honduras side but in Nicaragua they were appalling. As we were weaving all over the road to avoid the potholes the on-coming traffic was doing the same. It looked really funny; like a stream of drunks.
This is another scenic place with lots of volcanos and lakes.
Managua has about a million people and quite a few shantytowns coming in from the border.
The locals we have talked to say that life for the workers and poor is becoming worse under the current regime.
In Managua there is no town centre! Prior to the earthquake (terremoto) of 1972 there was a centre down by the Lake Managua but most of the city was destroyed except for a few buildings. Since then the town has spread out, not up, and is like one big suburb with no trappings of a capital city. We were wondering where the centre was but it doesn’t exist. It’s a weird feeling. We were looking for a bank or business centre??????
We have found the people here very friendly once we can understand what they are saying.
We hear lots of stories about it being unsafe but wonder whether that is a beat up because the rich here seem to be quite wealthy and the poor in extremis, so possibly there is more petty crime. I don't know. There are fewer armed people on the streets than in Guatemala or Honduras. The guidebook keeps saying that expect an attempted robbery every time you're on the bus!
It is very hot and dry here.
We had two days in Managua and headed down to Volcano Masaya. It's active and there’s lots of smoke and a long walk in and up to the crater. Our trips always turn into adventures (unwanted most of the time) and this was no exception.
The owner of the Hospedaje told us to go on to a place called Mirador Catarina because there was a beautiful view overlooking another volcanic lake. After four hours in the sun to see the volcano we couldn't find any of the lifts to the top the guidebook had indicated, so we staggered out onto the road and jumped a bus. The conductor had no idea where we wanted to go and I'm still trying to perfect my accent so we were told to get off somewhere we didn't know. It was some hours later, a few taxi rides, and much money that we arrived to an incredible storm which rolled in over the place ! Oh yes, the view was Bonita!!
We then had to find our way back to Managua in the dark which is not really an ideal thing to do! The people on the minibus into Managua made sure we were into a taxi and on our way home. Thank god we can afford taxis!!!!! I remember in the past this was not the case and a taxi makes life much easier.
We bused down to Granada, about an hour and a half from Managua on our way south. It is beautiful place of approximately 80,000 people. It is one of the first Spanish towns here and retains a lot of charm and there are not as many tourists as other towns like this. In fact, Nicaragua has much fewer tourists than Guatemala and it’s a really nice change.
Tomorrow we are off to visit the pacific coast again and more surfing for Moira.
Another new country and again all the peculiar variations in language just because we've gone a few miles down the road! We thought we were coming along very well with our Spanish but had our confidence shaken when we arrived here and wondered what language they were speaking! I think our ears are attuning.
The change in money gets to be confusing too. Pesos, Lempiras, Cordobas etc. As we have no idea of exchange rate for Aussie dollars it becomes difficult. We do rough calculations against the US$.
Index..
For the past 3 weeks we have been on the road from Guatemala through
Honduras, Nicaragua and now Costa Rica.
We are trying to work out how we can do Brazil the size of Australia in two or three weeks. Air travel seems to be the way to go and the added Amazon trip will make it quiet expensive. We will wait and see what we do. We need to do more research.
I don't know if Central America is the best after our overnight trip across Lake Nicaragua to Los Chilles which was not so wonderful. The boat was very uncomfortable with people sleeping anywhere and everywhere with us not used to the sleeping arrangements. The night was sleepless. Added to this discomfort was trying to go through a customs that says it is open at 8:30 but then does not open until 9:30 for passports in one country.
In Costa Rica we had our baggage checked for weapons and drugs on the boat and not being told what to do with customs we wandered through the town only to find we needed to queue with people leaving as well. Not a great situation with only 3 hours sleep! So far this has only happened once.
Honduras was difficult to travel as it is hard to get information about buses so we only visited Copan which has a Mayan Ruin and the capital of Ticigualpa (I think that is how it is spelt).
At the Copan Ruins there were no tour guides so we decided to go in our-selves and picked a man who had been working on the excavation of the tunnels in the ruins. The site has detailed carvings on the monoliths which generally depict the kings or important people of that time. We are now considering our non English speaking tour guides as a continuation of Spanish lessons.
The tunnels enabale you to look at previous buildings because the Mayans tended to build over other buildings and destroy the tops of the older buildings. I suppose it was the earliest forms of recycling. One of the buildings was not destroyed but preserved and the carvings are quite spectacular.
At lunch we were joined by a couple of policemen. One of the men carried an
automatic shotgun with his finger on the trigger. He placed the gun on the table with the barrel pointing at Jane so she (or should I say we) moved.
Nicaragua is quite interesting but we are running out of time so we have limited the places we visited. The capital Managua was damaged by an earthquake in the seventies and has not had it's centre rebuilt so there are a number of commercial centres in the city. We organised a taxi tour of the city before we left as we felt we had not seen much of the city. The taxi driver took us to polluted lakes and other sights to finish with a nice cup of coffee. We then found out that the driver was a minister of religion and he wanted to know why we did not have a religion, especially when I decided not to see the nuclear-reactor-looking catholic cathedral. For once our lack of command of the Spanish language was useful.
I will finish for now as we are going to climb a volcano and hopefully see some lava flow.
One of the really amusing or confusing things in Nicaragua (and particularly in Managua) was the fact that they don´t have many street names.
To receive directions the locals pick a landmark (which may or may not still be existing post earthquake) and tell you how many blocks east/west and north/south you have to go.
It becomes even more confusing when you arrive in Costa Rica and they change the word the use to indicate a block.
Another surprise in Managua was to find out that they do not have a National Gallery and there is nowhere to go to see a history of art there. This is surprising as they have such a tradition in the written form. We were told that the authorities are ignorant and that during the Sandinista regime there was quite a lot of funding given to the arts and cultural exchanges. The rest must have ended up in the homes of the military and Somozas family!
Sorry about the lack of "chat" to Jen et al but it is a trial just to get something down for the diary. I told Moira I was going to give it up!!!!
She has things she wants down at some stage too.
George; have fun! You were sounding quite depressed after your return to work. Have you settled back into the rut again yet???? What will I do when I have to go back???????? We are only halfway thru our travels!!!!
