rice and beans

Ok friends, family and rabid blog fans - I have extactly 58 minutes in this air contioned panamanian internet cafe to tell you about the time I spent in Nicaragua. Lets get straight to the point - its the tail end of my trip and I didnt have a lot of time to see most of what the country has to offer. The main attractions I wanted to see were either inaccessable or impractical due to lack of time and not owning my own car. I did get a taste of the country in this time and also made two friends who I traveled with for a while.

After arriving in the hot and sprawling capital city of Managua I decided, like most travellers, to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. I made my way by manner of overpriced shuttle bus to the charming colonial city of Granada which lays on the shore of Lake Nicaragua (Lago Nicaragua) Granada could be compared to Antigua in terms of its impressive colonial era buldings and charming atmosphere, but the gringo factor is definately toned down here. After arriving at my hostel of choice (the bearded monkey) I decided to shower and clean up, resembling something not unlike a bearded monkey myself. As the oppressive heat lifted in the late afternoon I ventured out to scope out the town and check out the tail-end of a Nicaraguan film festival that was being held at a venue just off the central park. The city was already buzzing with anticipation for the semana santa (easter holy week) though the pace of life here is still relatively relaxed. I caught a documentary at the film festival about the revolutionary sandistas that played an important part in the politics of Nicaragua during preceding decades, and also explaining the link with what was happening in Spain at the same time during the years of Franco. Unfortunately I wasn't able to understand very much due to my mediocre but slowly developing spanish skills, listening is always the hardest! (Especially low quality audio recordings in echoing rooms!)

After Granada I made my way to Laguna de Apoyo in the back of a pick up. I succeded in my goal to remain standing the whole way from Granada, even while pushing 100k p/h on the highway. Now I know what it feels like to have my face and eyeballs massaged by high speed winds. So thrilling. (Best things in life are always free) The Laguna was a beautiful place to relax and soak up the sun for a few days, and also where I met a dutchman called Richard and an Israeli chick Anava. Richard is a seasoned traveller who has spent the last 18 months working in Canada, and then traveling from as close to the north pole as you can practically get (in Alaska) to Panama in a 1986 suburu station wagon which he purchased for $750. I was amazed that the car hadn't fallen apart by that stage and will be amazed if he makes it to Darian´s Gap in Panama in one peice. We decided to travel together in Richard's car for a while and we ended up making it to Costa Rica together. But first we visited La Isla de Ometepe (Ometepe Island), a large island in the centre of Lago Nicaragua with two volcanoes on it.


The super-rich volcanic soil is good for agriculture so we decided to visit a working banana finca called Magdalena. Traveling lesson #58 - Guide books are extremely useful but often wrong/ inaccurate / the writer was on mushrooms or / got sexed up by the owner. The hype for this place in all three of our guides was immense but the reality was less than shining. The staff was pretty apathetic and unwelcoming, the horse riding and other activites over priced and the food bitterly dissappointing. In fact using the word bitter evokes some sort of semblance of flavour. Richard had a sort of nervous breakdown at the thought of eating anymore rice and beans. The national dish of Nica seems to be Gallo Pinto (rice and beans), not so bad when its done well but not what you want to eat everyday I suppose. We did get a few belly laughs from the El Pollo mas Pollo! (the most chickeny chicken!) sign we thought we saw in the village but which in reality didnt actually exist when we went back. (it was actually Gallo!.......guess you had to be there) Pollo means chicken, and I have greatly enjoyed counting the number of creatively named fried chicken joints in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. In the future I would like to create a photo archive of fried-chicken restaurant signs. (See how rich my life can be without completing tertiary education?)

After Ometepe, my dreams of visiting the Solentiname Islands and sailing the Rio San Juan to the Castillo (where the spaniards traded canonballs with pirates of the Carribean) were shattered and rendered impractical due to the weather conditions and the time restrictions in place.. You need to have a whole bunch of time to get to some of these out of way places, especially when the bi-weekly ferrie may or ¨may not¨ come. Next time I will probe more deeply into Nicaragua´s hidden delights. I had to be content with a quick trip to backpacker beach vortex San Juan Del Sur, down on the Pacific Coast near the border with Costa Rica. Arriving in the dark and during the beginning of Semana Santa, we had some major troubles even finding the place on the beach out of town where we wanted to stay , and then just finding anything that wasnt booked out. We were thinking of camping on a beach out of town and were gauranteed by a local that the turtle-egg poachers would not attack as long as we left no thievable items outside our tent. We ended up staying in the town sharing a hotel room.



Its no Byron Bay but the town is okay if you want to party for a few days. (more for the 16-21 binge drinking set in my opinion but everyones tastes are different) The beach is actually pretty foul by Australian standards so those looking for something a bit more enticing head up or down the coast for a few kilometres where there are some much nicer bathing options. We did however get a fantastic meal in town that night which made up for many days of lacklustre comida. I even ate a very non-vegetarian steak with onion sauce and let the juices run down my chin. (Or was that the mango daquiri/s?)

After leaving SJdS we would make our way to the not so friendly Costa Rica-Nicaragua border where we would que for hours in the blistering heat along with the thousands of other people wanting to move between the countries to go wherever they were going during the semana santa. Our mantra had become T-I-C-A (This Is Central America) Why do we have to que three times when they could just streamline the process? TICA. Why is this insane? TICA. Why does nobody know whats going on? TICA. What insect is biting me? TICA


x
Luke

TICA

5 minutes in El Salvador

section of mural with space cats

Okay, it was slightly longer than 5 minutes but it could certainly only be classed as a stop-over. When I arrived in San Salvador (the capital) I had forgotten to make reservations for the onward trip to Nicaragua, as well as hotel reservations for the night! Not finding the idea of wandering the bad-ass streets of San Salvidor in the dark looking for a room to be particularly enticing, I begged the TICA bus hotel owner if they could come up with something for me. They were really kind and offered to let me stay in the basement where the cleaning staff slept sometimes. There was another dude who was in the same situation so there we slept amoungst huge stacks of freshly washed towels and crates of soap bars. It was strange to have cleaning maids walking around my bed in the morning but it was a place to sleep for the night.

midday lull

Having to wait an extra day for my connecting bus to Nicaragua, I decided to make the most of my little extra time in San Salvador. Hitting the streets on foot, I vowed to see as much of the city as I could before nightfall when I would have to return to my hotel and cower in the darkness until the bus arrived at 3:00 am (yes, that is correct - 3 am. What an ungodly hour to rise hey?) The hotel was located downtown next to the bus depot, a razor wire type affair in a part of the city that is definately off limits after dark.

The difference between Guatemala and El Salvador can seem pretty extreme when you first cross the border. While still living in quite a poor country by world standards, El Salvadoreans definately seem to be better off than the people in Guatemala. The quality of the houses seemed to improve markedly as soon as I crossed the border. Of course in the capital I still encountered many examples of abject poverty, especially downtown where many blocks of the city are still earthquake-damaged from past decades, some completely razed to the ground. There are walls of streets vendors and everything is covered in a thick layer of black diesel soot.

inside la iglesia el rosario

The city is fairly modern compared to alot of the cities in central america, with few colonial era buildings to speak off. There was yet another ridiculous sprawling central american market place that consumed many city blocks with frenetic activity and colour. In one day you can see most of the interesting sights in both the old earthquake damaged downtown area, and the newer western suburbs. This includes a brutally modern concrete church (Iglesia El Rosario) that looks hideous from the outside but conceals within an amazing kalaidescope of stained-glass windows and modern abstract metal sculptures..I also paid a visit to the Monseñor Oscar Romero Centre at the University of Central America (known as ´la UCA´ like ¨ookah¨) ground to find out more about the massacre of this well known priest and six others which marked the start of the civil war in El Salvador during the 80´s. Aside from personal belonings of Romero and information about his lifes work championing the rights of powerless people, there was a garden with roses planted for each of priests that were massacred. My knowledge of Central American politics and history in the 20th century basically amounts to the intro sections at the beginning of each country chapter in the lonely planet, so any opportunity to learn more is always worthwhile.


meat papusas on the hot plate

After a lunch of street food (small ¨meat¨ filled pancake type items called papusas ) I went to check out the shining beacon of consumerism known as Multi-plaza. Here I could browse through three levels of characterless and generic fashion and boutique stores while fullfulling all my dreams of luxury consumption. Quite bizarre to leave Guatemala after 2 months and suddenly be back in the modern world again. It was becoming increasingly noticeable to myself that I have changed my personal viewpoint during this trip. For many years I feel like I have been subtlely resisting the increasingly materialistic nature of the modern world, but now I feel not only that nothing about that world interests me, but actual physical repulsion. The whole experience of trying to make yourself feel good by buying nicer things is in fact actually a farce. Nobody else seemed to be smiling or laughing or enjoying the experience of shopping either. There are certainly heaps of cashed up Nuevo riche in San Salvador city through , the western suburbs look like any other rich middle-class urban area in any other city of the first world.

Also worth mentioning are the insane levels of security in the city. Almost every shop, business and house has its own security guard (or four). Ever present and armed with shotguns, most were friendly when approached and some were even happy to tell some hair raising stories and show the odd scar from a bullet wound. It seems like one half of the city´s home and business owners hire the other half of the city´s population to protect them. Is there anyone left to be the robbers? There was even a squad of dudes with shotguns out the front of the local pizza hut. This is apparently due to high levels of organized crime and gang activity in El Salvador, a problem which is spreading to neighbouring countries like Nigaragua and even influencing gang activity in US due to illegal immigracion from Central America. Its not exactly a reassuring sight to the first time traveler but im sure that tourists are not specifically targeted. There is little in the way of tourism in El Salvador on the whole anyway. I walked around the city all day and saw not one white face - I was alone in the crowds of thousands of El Salvadoreños. It was quite refeshing after Guatemala actually. I can´t wait to come back to El Salvador next time im traveling in this part of the world and actually get to see the rest of the country and learn more about its history and people. I am sure that the countryside and natural landscapes of El Salvador are rich with beauty and just waiting to be explored!


colourful sanctuary in busy city