The Grand Nicaraguan Finale

Since so much has happened over the past three weeks here, this blog is going to be a real doosie. I'm also going to break it into a few different parts, so it's not one giant post, more like chapters. So sit back, take off your shoes, stay awhile, get some coffee maybe, and read at your pleasure...


The Plan:
Managua

 I just got back from what I'll consider the most epic adventure in Nicaragua (and probably of my life) so far. It all started about three weeks ago. We were all getting anxious lingering around Managua, waiting  to take our final exams. There were still a few more places we wanted to see here. First, Bobbi, Zoe and I agreed to go to the Isla de Ometepe as soon as our finals were over. Isla de Ometepe is an island made out of two massive (and still active) volcanoes that sits in the middle of the great Lago de Nicaragua. A week later, Zoe's brother, Eli, was to come down to visit from Oregon and we then planned to visit the Caribbean side of Nicaragua as we have heard many fantastic things about it. Zoe and I were talking during finals week and she asked, "What if you went straight from Ometepe to the Caribbean and met Sheena (who was already going to be there) before my brother and I show up at the Corn Islands?" I sort of joked about it at the time, but when I got home later that day, I looked at my map of Nicaragua. Connecting the Lago de Nicaragua and the Caribbean Sea is the mythical Rio San Juan, the river that we had already visited as a part of our official group outings. It looked like I could go from the lake all the way to the sea. But could it really be done? I was overcome with a raw sense of adventure. I was going to try it.

I grabbed my Lonely Planet guide book to see how it could be done. Indeed, there was a ferry that could take me from Isla de Ometepe all the way across the lake, where it meets the mouth of the Rio San Juan in the town of San Carlos. From there, I could take a boat ride through the entirety of the river and end up where it meets the Caribbean Sea in the town of San Juan de Nicaragua. However, according to the guidebook, which was from 2009, there was still no ferry system that could take me north up the coast to the Caribbean port town of Bluefields, where my friend Sheena would be waiting. It did provide this however, "Weather permitting, you can hop on commercial fishing boats for the 4 hour trip to Bluefields." It also led on to say that there was talk of a ferry system, but it was anyones' guess when it will be actually built. Sounds easy enough, right? A long trip, but it seemed possible. At this point, I was beyond excited to try it. This would be the grand adventure to cap off my whole experience here. I packed up my backpack with nearly all of my clothes as well as some extra bugspray, sunscreen, running shoes, hammock, and Rockies' hat. My original 5-6 day trip to Ometepe was changed to a two and a half week adventure through several parts of the country, so I wanted to be as prepared as possible. On Thursday the 15th of November, Bobbi, Zoe, and I boarded a rickety old school bus and were off to the town of Rivas to catch the ferry to Ometepe.

Pt. 1: The Island in the Lake

Isla de Ometepe

Isla de Ometepe. Volcán Concepción on the left. Maderas on the right

Looking at the Isla de Ometepe towering over the Lago de Nicaragua for the first time is surreal. Not one, but two humungous volcanoes rising out of the water, their peaks usually covered by clouds. I read somewhere that it is on the short list for the seven natural wonders of the world. According to Aztec legend, while some believed they had found the promise land in what is now Mexico City, others continued south until they arrives on the shores of the Lago de Nicaragua (or Cocibolca they called it) and saw Ometepe for the first time. It would be kind of hard not to think you had found the promise land at that point. Even after staying on the island, it was always interesting to think that people actually live there; born and raised on a volcanic island in the middle of a lake. Anyways, we took the ferry from San Jorge and wound up in the town of Moyogalpa on the island an hour later and found a hostal. Moyogalpa is rad. It's small, peaceful, and always visible looming over everything is the 1600m (1 mile) high Volcán Concepcion, still very much alive. I took way too many pictures. The two things we do at every place we wind up in here is a. find a cool place to swim and b. rent bikes. The next day we enjoyed our day on the black volcanic sanded beaches on the lake and later that afternoon, we attempted making spaghetti out using an old stove and a metal mixing bowl as a pot. It turned out pretty good although that stove ended up blowing up the a few days later when Sheena tried to use the oven to make brownies. The only casualty: all of the leg hair of poor Andy, the Scottish backpacker who was stranded on the island cause his credit card got stolen. The oven exploded just as he walked by.

      Zoe and I returned to the beach to check out the sunset that many had told us was awesome over the lake. After the sun went down, it got dark really quickly and once we reached the road, there wasn't a taxi or bus in sight, so we decided to start walking towards town hoping someone would pass by that could take us. This is when things started to feel like an episode of the Twilight Zone. It got really dark all of the sudden and the only lights were from the occasional passing motorcycle, but there were no houses around. We continued in the dark seeing nothing for a few minutes when out of nowhere, across the street appeared this tiki bar. It was weird cause it was well lit, but there was absolutely nothing around it. We figured we could check it out to see if anyone knew how we could get back to Moyogalpa. The bar was empty, save for some quirky reggae and latin jazz music. "Buenas!" I yelled to see if anyone was there. From the behind the bar appears Francesco, a scruffy, late twenties looking Italian man. He spoke Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Italian, and had just recently started this bar. We asked him if there were any buses that still pass by, he said that there were two left for the day and one would pass by in about 30 minutes. With some time to kill, we ordered some drinks and Fancesco gave us some free popcorn. Just ten minutes later, the bus passes. We hurriedly payed for our drinks while Francesco ran out to the street to try and delay the bus. The bus would have none of that as it stopped for about five seconds than sped away as we ran after it. "There's still one last bus, right?" I asked. "Sure, in about an hour." Francesco replied. Well, back to the bar for another round!

   We drank and talked and I shared my plans of making it to the Caribbean from Ometepe with Francesco. He said that he had done it before a few years back and that he wouldn't recommend it as there was no ferry from the Rio San Juan to Bluefields. I was already aware that there was no official boat, and since it had been a few years since he had done it, I was still confident I could do it. About an hour later, Zoe and I paid again for our drinks and waited outside across the street for the bus. Out of the darkness, the bus approached. I waived to signal for it to stop, but the bus did not stop, nor even slow down. We franticly waived and hollered, but it quickly shot by and disappeared down the road. "It didn't even see us!" Zoe said. I eyed the glowing tiki bar across the street. "Zoe, I don't think we can ever leave this place. I think we're dead and this is hell." I replied. It all seemed really surreal. It felt as if we weren't allowed to leave. Stuck in a tiki bar in the middle of nowhere that served pizza with nice music run by a peculiar Itialian immigrant on a volcanic island in Nicaragua, and no chance of escape. Well, back to the bar!

Fancesco's bar.

We went back into the bar to find a few people had come in for some pizza and drinks. We told Francesco what happened and I waited for him to reply "Of course you can't leave! You're in hell!" This was also after once we sat back down again, the music had started to repeat, then skip for about a minute. It wall all too weird. But he said no such things. Instead, he offered to give us a ride back to Moyogalpa as soon as he finished serving his tables. He fed us popcorn and we ordered a few more rounds then he took us back to our hostal in his jeep a bit after. We had escaped hell.


The next day we rented some bikes and went a full 3 for 3 on getting a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. At this point I was well practiced and found a bus about a mile down the road. Also, Zoe and I had wanted to climb one of the volcanoes, and I thought, well if were gonna climb them, let's do the bigger one: Volcán Concepcion. Concepcion is the second highest volcano in Nicaragua, but since the tallest, San Cristobol, erupted a few months ago, we were technically hiking the biggest volcano you could in the country. I'll take it. We met a guide, Walter (despite the name, Walter is a Nica born and raised in Moyogalpa), and I told him we wanted to go to the top. He said that would depend on our physical condition and if the volcano doesn't act up while were on it, but that you can do it. At 5am the next morning, we were off.

     The hike started off in the dense jungle and we eyed some cool trees and listened for howler monkeys. Once at the actual incline of the volcano, it got real steep. We would grab onto vines and trees to pull us up. After a few hours, we arrived at the halfway point of the ascent where the trees give way to grass and rocks. The top of the volcano was right over us. The guide asked us if we wanted to go all the way. We were all up for it. I mean, it was right there. How could it take two more hours to get there? My ignorance was rather quickly wiped away as we clung to the slick volcanic rocks at a 45 degree incline, struggling to find the right footing. The last kilometer, I was on all fours, crawling up the slope like a spider monkey. The sulfury, fire-crackery smell of steam filled the air and the wind was constantly trying to blow us off the mountain. Concepción made Cerro Negro, the little volcano I climbed a few months ago, seem like lovely stroll on the beach. The best part of it all was our guide Walter, who made the hike look just like that. He walked casually, hands in his pockets, talking on his walkie-talkie occasionally, not even breathing hard. My Colorado advantage has nothing out here. It was only near the top, I saw Walter use his hands to point out where the steam was coming out of the ground. A few minuted later, he ran ahead. "It's right here! The top!" he yelled. The top was pure sand. I sprinted up there on all fours to meet him there. I stood up, hi-fived Walter, took a picture, then fell onto my back and just laid there completely exhausted. The view was incredible. Visible were the volcanoes across the border in Costa Rica, as well as the Pacific Ocean. Down below was the caldera with various pillars of steam coming out. The top was extremely windy. I got some mouthfuls of sand for a few minutes when I heard "Alright! Back down!" All that effort getting up there, I almost forgot we had to go down the damn thing. The slick rock at such an incline was not so freaky going up, but down is a whole other animal. After slipping and sliding down the rocks, we eventually made it to the tree line and my legs were completely rubbery. This made it extremely easy to roll and ankle, which I did... three times...all on the same ankle. It still hurts a bit. After what felt like an eternity, we arrived back at the trailhead and the van. I hobbled over and got in. We had done it. I barely survived. That might have been the most physically exhausting thing I've ever done in my life. Still, it was cool to look up at Concepción for the rest of our time on the island and think "Ya, I was up there." I was sore for days.


Pt 2. The Journey to the Coast
Isla de Ometepe----Lago de Nicaragua----Rio San Juan

Town of San Carlos at sunrise.

I was sitting under a thatched roof hut decorated with Christmas lights at the ferry station outside of the town of Altagracia on the Isla de Ometepe. I had been on the island for five days and I loved it. I think it may be my favorite place I went to this whole time out here. Now I was on my own with the intent of making it all the way to Bluefields on the Caribbean side by lake, river, and sea. Someone had a small radio on scratching out the finest latino Christmas music. Other than the music and lights, it was kind of hard for me to believe that it was getting close to Christmas when it's 90 and humid out. I wonder if Santa ever climbed Volcán Concepción. We pulled off the island in the ferry at about 7pm. Since it was going to be a nine or more hour trip to the town San Carlos, I searched for a good place to sleep. I had brought my hammock along with me and saw this as the perfect moment to use it. I set it up on the side of the boat and laid there for awhile. It was incredible. It was pretty windy out on the lake and the boat was rocking every direction, spraying me on occasion. Also, the moon was out illuminating Ometepe's dual volcanic peaks over the water and all sorts of stars were out. I put on the only music appropriate for such an occasion: Paul Oakenfold's Perfecto Presents Another World (CD 2). Then it came to actually attempting some sleep. I slept for maybe an hour and then woke up FREEZING. The winds had drastically dropped in temperature without the sun and I was only in shorts and a t-shirt, so I put on my rain jacket and some jeans. I had no blankets and my socks were too dirty from the hike, so I got out my towel and wrapped it around my legs. (Side note: I don't know if you've read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but in that book, Michael Douglas states that remembering a towel is one of the most important things one can do when traveling. It can serve many purposes other than drying yourself. Always bring your towel).

I slept off and on for a few hours, drastically underprepared for how cold it got during the trip, and arrived in San Carlos at sunrise. When I got off the boat, I found out that there was no boat to San Juan de Nicaragua, the town on the other end of the river, until the next day. So I was going to spend a night somewhere along the Rio San Juan. I took the next river boat to the town of Los Sábalos, a small town that sits on one of the many rivers that branch off of the San Juan. A few months ago when I was in the river with our group, I told myself that if I ever came down here again, I would try to rent a traditional canoe and ride it around. As soon as I found a hostal when I got to Los Sábalos, I asked the family running it if they knew where I could rent a canoe. They talked for a second then asked me, "Do you want a guide or just the canoe?" I told them just a canoe and the son of the family took me down to the river bank. "You can borrow ours." He told me. This shocked me that they didn't ask for any amount of payment. I saw the canoe and it was exactly what I wanted: a traditional, hand carved canoe made out of a single tree trunk. The paddle too, hand made. I was stoked, but also nervous. These aren't the nice big canoes with flat bottoms, these things were unstable as hell, and they leak so you have to shove water out every so often.

"Do you know how to use one of these things?" The son asked me.

"Sí..." I said half-certainly. It had been awhile since I've canoed, and I don't think ever alone, nor in a river. There was a pause.

"Do you know how to swim at least?" "Of course", I replied. And that was it. No fee. No waivers. He just told me were to pull it ashore when I was done using it. Awesome. I paddled away. I was pretty unstable at first and kept spinning in circles cause, but I got the hand of it quick. I went up the Rio Sábalos which was very calm with barely even a current. It was amazing. Paddling up this tropical river in a hand made canoe, the way they've done it here since before the Spanish arrived. On either side of me, huge trees and vines rose and leaned out over the river. Howler monkeys hollered in the woods and families in their wooden stilted houses stared at the gringo with the stupid grin on his face as he sloppily paddled by. It was all going great when "CROCODILE!" Oh wait, that's just a log. "BUBBLES FROM A CROCODILE!" Oh that's just a fish. There were no crocodiles luckily and I paddled up the river until my arms got too sore then turned back. My day in Los Sábalos was a huge success and I congratulated myself to a Toña at a bar overlooking the town and river as someone somewhere was setting off fireworks, something strangely uncommon here.

The next morning at around 6, I checked out of my hostal and went to wait down at the dock for the fast river boat to San Juan de Nicaragua. The teenage looking soldier with the large AK-47 strapped to his back there told me that the boat should pass by sometime in the morning. A few hours later, a green boat with two Ché and a "Dios Bendiga a Mi Camino" (God bless my path) sticker on the front bumped into the dock. This might have been the funnest part of my journey to the Caribbean. Unlike the regular river boats I was used to taking, the fast boat is, well, fast as hell. We absolutely burned down the Rio San Juan in the complete opposite manner as the nice canoe I had ridden the day before. Walls of jungle lined the shores making for some great GoPro footy. We bounced over waves and made sweeping banking turnes, avoiding logs in the river as a result of the deforestation on the Costa Rica side from the road they're building. We would stop every hour or so at various military posts along the river where more very young soldiers with large automatic rifles would search my backpack and check my passport. Since it was packed with my stinky sweaty clothes, I got a kick out of every time they'd open my bag and get that "God damnit" look on their face. Most just eyed it and closed it back up.

Pt 3: El Danto
San Juan De Nicaragua

Cruising down the Rio San Juan

I was walking up the shoreline towards the dock with  in the swampy river town of San Juan de Nicaragua at 6am when I started to hear a boat approaching. It was playing reggae music that got louder and louder as it approached. The boat was a sailboat with a motor and was decked out in rasta colors. It bumped up against the dock. I stared in awe. Then, a dreaded, creole-speaking, rasta fisherman jumped of the boat and landed next to me.

"A'right, my friend! I 'ear dat you go to Bluefields. We go to Bluefields, too! Git on de boat and we will go right now, no problem!"

Oh hell ya! Completely stoked, I lept off the dock onto the boat and we pulled away. We sailed up Nicaragua's Caribbean coast blasting roots reggae and fishing. I could not believe how I ended up in this situation. This was how I was going to complete my voyage to Bluefields!? I never felt happier. Then all of the sudden, everything started to get dark and fade away......

 Then I woke up. I was staring at the ceiling of my room in a tiny hostal in San Juan de Nicaragua. I had been stuck here since I had arrived two days prior. This was the hardest leg of the trip as according to my book published a few years back, there was no ferry from San Juan to Bluefields. After arriving in San Juan in the late afternoon, I immediately asked around to see if they had a boat now. Indeed there was, and it left the next morning. I was gonna make it! I had just lucked out too because apparently it only left one day a week.

 I went back to my room just as some rain had started. I felt victorious. The next morning, I found the house of the guy who operates the boat to Bluefields. He had some bad news. He told me that he was not going to go to Bluefields that day because the navy wasn't allowing small transport boats into the Caribbean. It turns out that what was the most intense rain storm I had experienced in my life the night before, which sounded like someone was aiming a fire-hose at my roof, caused my room to leak water (on the second floor), and the power to shut off, made for some pretty high seas offshore. He also told me he wasn't going to leave anyway cause his boat holds about 30 people and I was the only one who wanted to go. However, he did provide me with some good news. There were a couple of small cargo boats that haul gasoline between San Juan and Bluefields and that I might be able to hitch a ride on one. He pointed me the way to the other dock about 15 minutes down the shore. "Ask for the boat called El Danto." he told me. I walked past backyards, abandoned hotels, and staring faces all the way to the other end of town to the docks. When I found the other docks, I saw the Danto, a medium sized, green boat with oil drums sitting on its flat top. It had just arrived from Bluefields that morning. I asked the captain if his boat goes to Bluefields and he told me it does. Then whether or not it was leaving today and he told me no. It had to go up the Rio San Juan to dredge out an area. "But we might go tomorrow. We'll be back later today if you want to ask then." With some time to kill, I walked around town to see if there was anyone else going to Bluefields. It turns out that because of the high seas offshore, no fisherman was going out there with their tiny motorboats. El Danto would be my only chance. I went back to the docks later that day and it was still not back. One guy told me that it wasn't going to come back until the next day in the afternoon. When I told him the capitan told me that it would come back today, he told me I might be right. This is when things started to get frustrating. The problem was that no one really knew anything about when the boat would come back. I asked almost everyone in town and they all gave me differing answers. When one would say it already left for Bluefields, I told them no that it was somewhere in the river dredging. They then would agree with me and tell me I was right. Someone else would tell me it wouldn't return until Sunday, I told them it was coming back that afternoon, then they'd suddenly agree with me again.

  I thought I was only going to have to stay in San Juan de Nicaragua for a night, but after the Danto didn't return that day, I had to stay another. Most had told me it would come the next day. Since the time in which it would arrive differed among everybody, I woke up at 5:30 the next morning to see if it had come back. I walked back and forth from my hostal to the docks roughly every hour to wait at the docks for this one boat. I wondered what the locals thought as they stared at me pass by their back porch every half hour with all of my stuff. "The legend of the Gringo. From dusk til dawn, he'd walk down to the docks and back, hopelessly waiting for a boat that would never come back." I was stared at way more often cause San Juan de Nicaragua doesn't get many tourists. I couldn't wait for this boat forever, though. Since there were no ATM's in San Juan, my cash was starting to run low. To save money, I would buy $1 loafs of bread to tide me over enough to only have to pay for two meals a day. Moreover, Sheena had already arrived in Bluefields the day before from Managua and waiting for me to get there. I didn't want to keep her waiting much longer. When 5pm rolled around, El Danto hadn't shown like they said it would. Most then changed their answers to 5pm tomorrow, but I knew they didn't know for sure. Pessimism started to creep in. I was so close, there had to be a way to get there. I stayed another night hoping El Danto would come back the next day. Again at 5:30 in the morning, I left my room with all of my stuff and headed down for the docks to wait for it. Around four that afternoon, after another round or two of asking the locals when the Danto would return, and old man who worked at the docks came up to me. He asked me if I was trying to get to Bluefields. I told him yes.

"You know, the Danto could take you there." he says.

"I KNOW! I've been waiting for it for two days now. It's out in the river dredging and it should be back today!"

He laughes, "Ya it should be back tonight, and when it comes back, it usually leaves the next morning around three of four."

I was gonna make it!

 "I know the boss who oversees the dredging project. I'll call him up for you so we can find out when it's coming back."

I nervously watch him dial his phone and call the boss. After a bit of small talk, the old man asks him about the Danto. More bad news. The guy on the phone said that the Danto hadn't finished dredging and that it had to come back to gather more supplies, but that wouldn't be until Sunday (it was a Friday at the time). The old man hung up. "Sorry, man. It looks like it won't be back until Sunday and that once it finishes its job, it will go to Bluefields but that may not be until Tuesday or something. You'd better go back San Carlos and try another way." My naive sense of adventure gave away to full blown pessimism. I was defeated. All of my progress: The epic ferry ride from Ometepe, the canoe on the river, the fast boat to San Juan, the waiting for two days for this goddamn boat, all for nothing. I had to turn around and go back all the way up the river to San Carlos and then try to get to Bluefields by bus, which would be horrible. For those familiar with the Colorado area, to put my trip in perspective, I had just driven from say Green River, Utah and made it all the way to Boulder in hopes to get to Denver. But, since there was no possible way to get from Boulder to Denver, I had to drive all the way back to Grand Junction to take a different road to Denver. It was like that, only I had no car and had to use public transportation. To salten the wound, there wasn't a fast boat for the usual six hour trip up the river until Sunday, so I had to take the slow boat the next morning at five for a lovely 11 hour boat ride. Here's the BEST part. At five-ish the next morning, I sleepily got on the boat to San Carlos and we pulled off the dock. As we puttered down the shore towards the other dock I had been waiting at for nearly three days, guess what boat was there unloading its cargo.... EL DANTO!!! It wasn't supposed to get back for another few days. Had it finished its duty overnight and come back early? Was it preparing to go to Bluefields!? I was beyond angry. Even the boss of the project had no idea when his OWN boat would come back! I would never find out either way, but I swear to God if I saw that stupid boat pull into Bluefields the next day, someone was getting choked. We passed by the Danto and I just stared at it until it was out of sight.

If there was one thing I learned from my failed attempt at going from Ometepe to Bluefields was that it was indeed possible, just not for me. I vow to return there and try it again some day. Next time, I'm bringing my own boat.


Pt. 4: To the Coast in 31 hours
Rio San Juan-----San Carlos----Juigalpa----El Rama----Bluefields----Pearl Lagoon

After my failed attempts at reaching Bluefields from San Juan de Nicaragua, I found myself going back to where I started. Screw the tiki bar on Ometepe, this was going to be hell. The boat from San Juan left an hour before the sunrise. I arrived in San Carlos as the sun was setting. Although, it was easy to pass time. The scenery in that part of the country is incredible and you can spot all kinds of turtles, birds, monkeys and Pandora-sized trees as you go along. I checked my book to see how I could make it to Bluefields from San Carlos. It looked like I would have to take a 5-7 hour bus ride from San Carlos to a town called Juigalpa. Then, from there I would have to wait until around 6am for the buses to start running again and take a different bus to a town named El Rama. After Rama, there are no roads that reach it to the coast and Bluefields, so it looked like another boat down a different river that would get me there. After I told Sheena the horrible news that I had to turn back, she decided to go a bit north up the coast to a place called Pearl Lagoon, so I would have to take another boat to there once I arrived in Bluefields. It looked like a long and terrible way to go, but it was my only option and I just wanted to get there as fast as possible. I had wasted too much time.

Christmas lights in the reggae bar at Pearl Lagoon.

Luckily, I had met a nice guy on the boat, Uriel, who lived in Juigalpa, where I was to go to next. He said that he and his friend have a guy coming to pick them up in San Carlos and was heading to Juigalpa and he offered to give me a ride. I gladly accepted the offer. A few hours after arriving in San Carlos, Uriel's friend showed up in a nice pickup truck and we took off north to Juigalpa. Now the guidebook says it's a 5-7 hour bus ride to Juigalpa; we got there in 2. We absolutely hauled ass, swerving around slow cars, horses, and drunks laying in the street. I had made such good time that I was able to catch the overnight bus to Rama that left from Managua as it passed through town. Around 11:30 that night, I got on the bus and thanked Uriel, who waited with me on the side of the road so I didn't get mugged.

The bus from Juigalpa to El Rama was four hours of pure evil. We barreled down the highway in an old Blue-Bird bus with "comfy" seats that reclined, although you have no extra space when you're sitting next to someone. Being awake for so long, I attempted some sleep by resting my head on the window. However, this highway had tons of bumps and potholes, so I was constantly getting my head bashed against the window and the seas in front of me. The drive goes over some mountains, and I swear on the way down we hit about 85 in that bus in the dead of night, swerving and bumping the whole way. We eventually arrived in El Rama at 3am and nine hours and two choppy boat rides later, we tied the boat up at the dock in Pearl Lagoon around 12pm on Sunday. After 31 hours of straight traveling without any sleep I finally made it. I had never been happier to see Sheena. That night, we had a delicious dinner of Run Down, a seafood soup cooked with coconut water, and listened to reggae in a thatched roof bar wrapped with Christmas lights. Since I had watched the sun rise, set, rise, then set again without sleeping, you can be sure that I slept like a rock that night, even though the sharp springs from my mattress poking out were trying to scratch my legs. Hey, it only cost $6 per night!

Pt. 5: Land Ho!
Bluefields----Corn Islands

After a night in Pearl Lagoon, Sheena and I headed back to Bluefields to see when we could catch the boat out to the Corn Islands, where Zoe and her brother, Eli, would be arriving by plane in a few days. We found out when we got there that the boat for the Corn Islands until Wednesday, so we went around trying to see if there was anyone else that could take us. We stayed there for two nights which wasn't as awful as waiting in San Juan de Nicaragua cause I was with Sheena and Bluefields was a bit more populated. Unfortunately, Sheena realized that she did not have enough time to make it to Corn Islands and back due to other plans she made back in the town she works in, so she had to return to Managua on Wednesday. I was on my own again to take the ferry out there. The journey from Bluefields to Great Corn Island, after all the boats, trucks, and buses I had taken over the past few days, was hands down the most legendary and crazy trip in my life. The weather had been crappy over the sea all week, so this made for some massive swells. Our ferry, although fairly big, got every piece of them. The bow would tip way, way up, then drop all the way down and smash into the surface where walls of water would rise up and crash all over the boat. Those of us outside stood on the front and clung on to the handrail for dear life. It looked like an episode of Deadliest Catch, or maybe the beginning of Shutter Island. Some people would puke off the side of the boat. Others were more hardcore, like this group of Nica fishermen I hung out with who brought their own bottle of Cañita, the worst of the worst (but seductively cheap) rum and were taking turns drinking out of it in between cigarette drags. "This weather's great! This is nothing!" they told me, hardly even holding on as the boat pitched and rolled every direction, splashing water everywhere.

Beach on Little Corn Island.

  This goes on for five hours until we got to Great Corn Island, the bigger of the two Corn Islands, and finally got on dry (although still pouring rain) land. I found a place to stay and Zoe and her brother arrived soon after. We spent four days on the Corn Islands, two on the big one and two one the smaller one. I liked Little Corn Island a lot. It's so small, there are no cars or roads even on the island. The only way around are concrete and mud paths that take you through the jungle to the various beaches. While on the islands, our activities included beaching, swimming, walking barefoot through the jungle, snorkeling, trying to understand and speak English Creole, and more beaching. Both islands were really awesome and I would totally go back and explore around some more. We left the Corn Islands that Sunday. This time it was by plane. Right before I left to go to Isla de Ometepe, I purchased a one way ticket from Corn Island to Managua. After all the traveling by land and sea, I felt like it was an early Christmas present to myself. An hour flight later, we arrived in Managua. It was a three week trip to get to the Corn Islands, only an hour to fly back. Looking back, it was completely worth it. We landed at the airport in Managua and I got a similar feeling that I would get landing at my hometown airport of DIA. I was home. I hadn't seen my host family for weeks, so I was excited to tell them all about my adventure. I then realized that only two days later, I was going home home, back to the States, and I'd have to tell people about the last five months of being out here, not just the last two weeks. Man, time flew by.

Here's a map of Nicaragua showing everywhere I went during the three week trip. I started in Managua and went down all the way to the bottom right most point. That's San Juan de Nicaragua, where I got stuck. As you can see I was extremely close to my objective in Bluefields. The lines in the middle are my route back tracking to finally get there. The island in the lake is Ometepe obviously and the point in the Caribbean are the Corn Islands.

Nica Spanish

Welcome to your crash course lesson in the fine art of El Nicañol. Nicañol is what you get when you take the traditional language español, throw it in a blender, forget to put the top on, then pick up the jumbled mess and try to put it back together again. That is what Nicaragua has done to their traditional language, and they're damn proud of it. Sure, every country has their own slang and ways of saying things, but Nicaragua takes it to a whole other level. I wish when I landed in Managua in July, the flight attendant would have gotten on the intercom and said, "Welcome to Nicaragua, please take any prior knowledge you may have had in Spanish and kindly throw it in the trash can, cause we don't talk like that. Thank you." It will make no sense and be confusing, but after awhile here you realize that's how most things are, so why not the language too? Here are some examples of what is so different about the way they talk here.

Epic purple sunset the other day.

"¿Muy bíen, y vos?"

This was probably the first thing you'd notice if you already knew some Spanish and came here. The word "you" is "tú" in Spanish. Nobody here says that. Here, we get to use vos instead of tú, but still use  usted when we want to be more formal. That does not mean, however, that Nicas use vosotros when referring something plural like they do in Spain, rather they still use ustedes to say "you guys". Simple enough, say vos instead of tú. I read somewhere actually that for men, it's better to learn to say vos quickly because saying tú is a sign of femininity. Weird, huh?

"¡Vos sos loco!"

Now that we've got vos down, if anyone learned to say "eres" to say "you are...", for example, don't say that either. Here, it's all about the sos. Like "vos sos loco", you are crazy, would be "tú eres loco" in any other Spanish speaking country. I was talking to who I thought was a Nica when she asked me "¿Y tú, dedonde eres?" where are you from? I immediately responded with, "No. ¿¡Dedonde sos vos!?" Where are YOU from? Turns out she was Tica, a Costa Rican. That really threw me off cause Ticos hate Nicas, and vice versa, so meeting one in Managua was strange. If you hear someone here not using vos or sos, chances are they are not Nicas.

S's are optional

This and the next one might be my favorite. Saying your S's are really your call. Plurality? What's that? For example, if I wanted to say "we have three cars", I would typically say "nosotros tenemos tres carros". Here, the s at the end is optional and would sound more like "nosotro tenemo tre carro". The less you have to say things the better, right? If the s is followed by a consonant, however, the 's' sound changes. You swallow it a bit more and it makes more of an 'h' sound. Like the phrase "¿Cómo estas?" to say "how are you" sounds more like "¿cómo ehta?" Or the word "whisky", as my host brother, Gersan would say often (lo siento, hermano) is pronounced "whihhhhhky" I asked someone here why they don't pronounce their S's and he told me cause that sounds too lispy like a stereotypical gay man would. "I don't want to sound like a Tico!", he told me.

Stem changers

For those who have taken some Spanish, we've all come to know the art of stem changing verbs. Like many of the "er" and "ir" verbs change how pronounce them depending on who you are addressing. Like tener changes to tienes, tiene, tienen when you refer to whomever. In Nicaragua, it's the same, except for the you "tú" (sorry "vos") form. Take everything you learned, and leave it in the States. Here, words like tienes, puedes, encuentras, vienes, are pronounced tenés, podés, encontrás, venís. It's weird to hear at first cause I was confused as to whom they were referring to. But it actually is easier to pronounce on the fly if you're not fluent than trying to remember what the stem change sounds like. Just pronounce it like you would in first year Spanish before knowing of the existence of "stem changers" and throw an accent over the last vowel and you're all set!

There is a billboard here advertising their national rum Flor de Caña with the quote "Lo que tenés aquí, no lo encontrás por el otro lado." What you have here, you won't find on the other side, is what it literally translates to, but I think it's more like "What you have here, you won't find anywhere else." Man is that the truth.

Huge iguana getting some sun.

Commands

Again for the Spanish takers (and on a side note, if you seriously were that kid in high school that took French or something like that instead of Spanish, what's wrong with you? Have you looked at the demographical statistics of the US over the past, oh I don't know, century? Definitely not seeing a rise in French or German speakers, and there are more English speakers in China than in the US, so that's not gonna be a problem. Come on!) anyways, the irregular commands are different. Remember the irregulars ven, di, sal, haz, ten, ve, pon, se? Never heard them in Nicaragua. Instead, it's venís for "come here", decíme "tell me", salís "leave!", hacélo, do it, etc. Another thing thats strange is the way they pronounce all of their commands. For example to say "stand up", you would normally say levántate, accenting over that first 'a'. Here, it's levantÁte. SentÁte instead of siéntate for "sit down."

Slang/Cussing

Learning how to cuss in Spanish has been one of the most fun and rewarding parts of integrating with the culture here (sorry, mom). When you can finally put a phrase together in another language to make fun of someone or call someone out in a manner that everyone gets and laughs, it's amazing. To say Nicas are vulgar is a drastic understatement. EVERYONE cusses. And I mean everyone. Old, young, mom at her kids, kids at their parents, at your dog, or complete strangers, they all do it. I would say a positive would be that it takes a lot of meaning out of the words if everyone uses it, so cussing really isn't as awful here. But it's still hilarious.

Gersan and I regularly refer to each other as maricón or cochón, which is like gay. Or when someone keeps yelling at you when you are busy with something and you get to say, "¿¡Qué la verga!?" which is the equivalent of "What the f*ck!?" You would also say that if someone cuts you off on the road, if you want to fight them, or if you about to slaughter noobs in Empire Earth and the internet suddenly shuts off. The best part about cussing here is that people just make things up to say and it's suddenly an official part of the language. For example, Gersan and his friends regularly call each other hijueputa which is like motherf-er. But if someone or something REALLY is bothering you, you can start making up things to put in between the words hijo and puta and it suddenly become stronger. Flat tire while already late for work? "¡Hijo de la setenta mil padres de la gran puta!" It literally means "son of the 70 thousand parents of the greatest b*tch" but it's more like "MOTHERF***ER!!!" Put whatever you want. It could be "hijo-of-the-fifty-suns-that-rotate-around-the-galactic-center-that-cause-solar-winds-every-40-or-50-years-and-disrupt-my-radio-when-I-take-showers-and-make-me-have-to-check-twitter-for-the-score-of-the-game-of-the-gran puta" and people will look at you like "whoa, he's pissed." So long as it begins with hijo and ends with gran puta, it's good to go.

The slang, or jerga as they say, takes a lot of time to get used to. I'll leave you with a list of what I've heard and try to throw into my vocabulary to sound proficient in Nicañol, Nica+español.

Qué paso?- (NOT qué pasa)- means 'what's up'

maje- dude, guy, girl

ideay?- what the hell? what happened? what are you doing? (say it fast enough and all you literally need to say are the letters 'e' and 'i')

tuani- cool

deacachimba- really awesome

'tonce?'- what's up, so, and

bicha- beer

guaro- rum/alcohol

chavalo(a)- boy or girl

chiwin- kid

dale pues- ok, alright, good bye, later, that's fine, you could literally say it for anything

chucha- thing

encachimbado(a)- really pissed off

bacanal- party

tocado/picado- tipsy

borracho- drunk

mamado- wasted

hasta tan bicho- (might be spelled wrong, that's how it sounds though), really really drunk

bolo- drunk

ruta- bus

ahuevado- sad

bago- wondering around, crazy, punk

rotunda- round-about

fritanga- food stand

no jodas- don't screw with me/ it's fine/ relax

There you have it. Say a bunch of those things to someone and you'll be treated like a local in no time!

The Election From Abroad

FSLN political ad. These are everywhere.

I'll sit in my room and read articles and check Facebook to see what's going on in the States and sometimes I'll have the tv on CNN watching news when after coming home from work my host dad, Manuel, will come in and ask me, "¿Cómo va la jugada?" How's the game going? Or the "play" rather. The "play", referring to the election in the United States, really looks like one when you are outside the country looking in.

Frankly, this couldn't be a better time to not be in the country, when the tv's are filled with negative ads that bend truths, and everyone becomes hyper-political all of the sudden. The second part hasn't entirely been avoided cause people pour their souls out of Facebook about how Obama is a commie or how much Romney hates poor people, or the one's who talk about how much they don't care about politics, so much so that they'll tell everyone that they don't care. For me, as an American observing the election from outside the country, it's been really liberating. I watched most of both conventions without distraction, the debates online, got to read articles I want to about issues, and then the best part is I get to explain to the Nicas just what exactly is going on.

What I've really taken from watching the election from the outside is that people in America FREAK OUT over the littlest things. You think Obama is a socialist? Cause of what, wanting to tax the rich more? Here in Nicaragua, his political ideologies are equivalent to that of Ronald Reagan. Arch, right-wing conservative. Although, many will tell me that we Americans are slowly making progress with Obama. Here, things like healthcare and education are a constitutional right to the people, like our free speech and right to bear arms. Funny concept, huh? In fact, it is required that 6% of the federal budget goes to the public universities including mine, La UNAN. The cost of tuition? $15..... per semester. And getting into the public universities is still a rigorous process to get accepted, much like ours, with placement exams and specific criteria to meet. They mean it when they say "public university". The campus is decorated with political murals and many of them you'll see the number "6%" written on them. Now that's socialism, and they're pretty proud of that wacky system, although they call it "El sandinismo" like "Sandino-ism" after their icon Augusto Sandino.

Nicaragua's political culture is palpable. You see and feel it everywhere. Literally every street light is painted red and black, the colors of the Sandinista revolution. Some is graffiti left over from the 80's, some is new. Red and black flags painted on street corners, walls, and cars. I remember one time, we were hiking up this mountain in what I thought was the middle of nowhere and lo and behold, there's a large boulder painted red and black. The paintings were done to not just to inspire people to join the cause, but also to signal to others which parts of a city had been successfully liberated by the rebels. It's like the "V" in the movie V for Vendetta, but real. Billboards of a cheery President Daniel Ortega smile down at you at every round about. I remember when my host family picked me up for the first time from our program orientation. We talked small-talk for about five minutes, then all of the sudden,

"Christian, we were 18 when the revolution happened. Hey, did you know Samoza (the military dictatorship) was killing people? He killed kids, Christian!"

Stunned, all I could really say was "Oh, wow..." On a weekly basis, we'll be at the dinner table and they'll tell me their story.

My host mom, Mercedes, participated in the clandestine movement in Managua during the revolution, when Somoza's National Guard soldiers were going house to house searching for and killing people harboring Sandinista rebels. Her house was one of these safe houses, and her job was to create make-shift first aid and supply kits for the rebels as they participated in guerrilla warfare in the city. She also said she would go around and collect tires, pile them up then light them on fire. The smoke was used to communicate with the other groups hiding throughout the city. They also created road blocks and damaged the streets so that tanks could not pass through.

 Manuel, my host dad, was a captain in the Sandinista army. When the Contra War started in '83, he was sent to the border of Honduras, where they fought the Contras and waited for what he said they thought was "an inevitable US invasion" at the time. Their stories really put things into perspective for me. I couldn't imagine hiding out in some house in Denver from my own military as they went house to house killing people. I then can't imagine standing in the mall in Washington DC, celebrating overthrowing the American government. It must have been some time.

I also got to vote  in the US election while I was here. The process wasn't all too hard thanks to the internet and our program office having a scanner. I filled out a few forms online, printed, signed, scanned, then emailed the ballot and I was good to go. I thought I was gonna have to go to the embassy on election day and figure it out from there, but thanks to existing in the 21st century, the process went smoothly.

We have it pretty good in the States. It was funny for me to see Romney talk about one in six Americans being in poverty while I am living in the second most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere.

 Poverty, huh? You don't see houses in the States made out of scraps of metal while people burn trash to heat their stove for cooking. Neighborhoods don't get flooded with everyones discarded trash every time it rains. Parents don't have to send their kids to school to get just one free meal that day. Don't get me wrong, we have people who are struggling to get by in the US, but it could be a lot, lot worse. America is fine. And we'll be alright regardless of whoever is president. Watching our election from such a politically charged country has sincerely been a treat.

Weekend Adventure in León

One of many churches in León, Nicaragua

After what seemed like an extremely short week of class, mainly due to class cancelations and other projects by my Nica classmates, it was time for another adventure. This time, we went to the city of León. León is about two hours by bus north of Managua and actually used to be the original capital city of Nicaragua. After constant civil war to run the country between León and their arch-rival Granada in the 19th century, Managua was set as the capital as an attempt to resolve the dispute. Today, the rivalry still exists between the two cities, as my host-mother, Mercedes, constantly refers to Granadinos as "las fresas" which literally means strawberry, but the term is used for people who are rich and stuck up. Here's some of the highlights of the trip to León:

A/C on the microbus

Nicaragua is hot. The month of October is supposedly in the heart of the "winter" here, which just means it rains more. There really has been no difference in climate since I got here in July. It's 90 and humid everyday (not quite Florida humid, but it's up there) and ever third day or so it will rain, sometimes for five minutes, others for hours. Nevertheless, it's hot as hell, and having air conditioning is a luxury. My house has no a/c, but you'd be amazed at what shade and a fan can do. None of my classes have a/c, so I will frequent our study abroad office which sometimes gets too cold for Morena, our lovely Nica assistant program director. I will often see her wearing a scarf and a long sleeve shirt at her desk. The buses here, however, NEVER have air conditioning. So when Zoe and I boarded the minibus to León to feel the icy chill of air conditioning blasting from the overhead vents, we knew this was something to cherish. It was raining for most of the trip and not all that necessary for maximum air conditioning, but I left the vent on me, feeling cold on public transportation for the first time.

Holy León

León is a very colonial looking city. It looks much like Granada, with brightly colored painted buildings with old terra-cotta roofing, narrow streets, plazas and murals. What's different however,  is as you go about the city, you'll notice the un-Godly (pun intended) amount of churches and cathedrals they have. Every direction you look, at the end of the street is another well-kept, or not, church of "insert saint" here. The Basilica de la Asunción is the largest cathedral in Central America, and we got to check it out while they were going a Mass. I definitely was getting some looks as I walked around to watch and take pictures. A chele "white guy" in shorts and flip-flops, wearing a Colorado Rockies t-shirt in this beautiful cathedral, taking pictures during mass. You kinda get used to getting stared at here, so it's hard to tell if you are doing something wrong, or they are looking at you cause you're foreign. The churches were all really cool and made it easy to navigate the city cause we could orient ourselves with whichever church we were by.

Trusting locals: a double edged sword

On Saturday, Zoe, Sheena, and I were supposed to climb this volcano nearby at 8am but ended up changing to the 2pm climb cause Sheena couldn't make it from her town she was living in time, so we had some time to kill. The guy who was going to be our guide that afternoon, Anly, suggested that Zoe and I rent bikes and ride to the beach to have something to do before the hike. The beach town, Poneloya, was kind of far from León, but Anly insisted that it was downhill on the way there and that we can take the bus back. We decided to to it and rented bikes for the day for $5. And after now having two bike rental experiences, it is important to keep in mind that you get what you pay for. Initially, the ride was great. It was a slight downhill on a nice paved road as he had said and we rode right through the barrios of the city and into the countryside, passing farmers with machetes and racing a Nica kid also on a bike, but about halfway through the ride, the road started to get a little more hilly. We'd petal up a small hill, only to find at the bottom another hill to climb, only bigger, then another, and another, and another, and another. It started to get really, really hot. I also remembered that I had completely forgot to buy sunscreen since I was so excited for an awesome bike ride to the beach. I am currently writing this blog with maroon arms and face.

 After another long and exhausting hill climb, we finally saw the ocean in the distance, but still had some way to go. Seeing that there were no more hills to climb and being at the top of a huge one, I petaled as hard as I could to make up for lost time. No sooner was I hauling ass down this hill than I rode over a small pile of rocks (pebbles rather) on the side of the road, instantly tearing through my back tire. You get what you pay for. I had to slammed on the screeching brakes as I was quickly loosing traction, got off, and walked on my bike down this hill in the middle of nowhere. Zoe at this point was way ahead of me to see what happened, so I was on my own. The heat was absurd. There's a saying about León here that's like "If hell froze over, Satan would move to León" or something like that. I was drenched head to toe in sweat and my skin on my arms was already pink. This wasn't my first rodeo, however, as a very similar bike-tire-popping-in-the-middle-of-nowhere incident happened while we were in Granada. After about 15 minutes of walking, a guy on a bike with this girlfriend sitting sideways on the frame (a very common sight here actually) passed by and I asked him where I could get my bike fixed. I was in luck. About ten minutes down the road was this guy's bike shop, where for a dollar he patched up my tire and I was back on the road. Zoe had stopped a bit down the road and I caught up and we continued to Poneloya. The beach was only OK. We took the bus back. That bike ride was long. It turns out Poneloya is 20km (12.4 miles) from town. Next time a local suggests something to do, ask a few others to see if it's legit. Or just wear a hat and some sunscreen.

Volcano surfing, anyone?

At the bottom of Volcán Cerro Negro. 

Zoe and I arrived back at the hostel with just enough time to reapply some deodorant and head out to climb Volcán Cerro Negro. Our guide, Anly, who had suggested what he claimed was a very tranquilo "relaxing" bike ride laughed when I told him that it was quite the opposite. We met up with Sheena and got driven out to the volcano. Cerro Negro means black hill, and that's exactly what it was. We drove down a volcanic black road and arrived at the base. I was equipped with a backpack that had everyones padding and suits, and a "sand board", which was a block of wood in the shape of a snowboard with nylon straps for bindings. We headed up the trail for the 45 minute ascent to the top. The terrain was surreal. We were on this black landmass with no plant or animal life surrounded by a sea of green hills and trees. It felt like another world. We walked between these large black boulders and the trail was marked by painted arrows as if to say "this general area is the trail". It also felt like I was in the Lord of the Rings, scaling the rugged Mount Doom of Mordor to throw the One Ring into the volcano to rid the world of darkness. Keep an eye out for Smeagle, he's always ssssneaking. Anly agreed on with me. The complete contrast of the black volcano in green, tropical Nicaragua would get anyone's inner Frodo going (maybe Sam, or Merry, or Pippen. Frodo's kind of a sissy).

As we were nearing the top, it started to smell like exploded firecrackers, that sulfury, gunpowder smell. At the top of the ridge, we could look down into the volcano, which had no lava unfortunately, but had red sand and was steaming a lot. We hiked around to the other side of the ridge where only the volcanic sand was. The view was great. It had started to rain, so we put on out kneepads, elbow pads, gloves and then our protective "suit" which was like a jean ones'ey and it was time to surf down the steep (like really steep) 400m hillside. Anly told me to lean back as much as I could and how to stop. I told him I knew how to snowboard, but this turned out to be way different. Volcanic sand is like thick, heavy powder. To keep from burying my board in the sand, I was leaning to far back on the tail that I was basically sitting on my right foot. Since the bindings were barely holding on to only my toes, carving was out of the question. So it was back to snowboarding at age 8 again: get some speed and then fall on my toe edge. I got some good speed a few times, but trying to stop meant falling completely on my stomach, getting a face full of black volcanic sand. Still, surfing down an active volcano? How often do you get to say that? We all made it down in one piece and headed back into town.

"I think we're in a gay bar..."

After a 12 mile bike ride to the beach, scaling a volcano and then surfing down it all in one day, it was time for some drinks. Zoe and I decided to see what was going on in the city, so we ate at a mexican restaurant (which is NOT like Nicaraguan food, I hadn't had a spicy burrito in months!), and found this bar afterwards right by the hostel. The place was called Guadalajara, or something like that, and there were a bunch of people in it, so we decided to grab a table. We ordered a media "half liter bottle" of Flor de Caña rum and talked and what not. The bar looked cool, there were cool lights everywhere and a mini courtyard in the middle, and they had your typical "latest electro-hits" blasting from a PA speaker. I was watching a group of friends across the bar at a table dancing to the music and taking shots. One of the guys was really getting into the music and dancing up a storm, but I thought nothing of it, a lot of guys here dance like that. I went over to the bathroom and the guy outside the men's room  looked at me and told me there was a line and gave me a smirk. Still thought nothing of it. I was finishing up peeing when the door just opened right up. I quickly zipped the fly and the guy who opened the door laughed and he, his "friend" and another guy all walked in as I was still putting my belt on and walking out the door. "Adiosssssss" one said to me in a rather flirtatious manner, and they didn't even bother to close the door before peeing, nor did they care that they were all in the one person bathroom together...

I stood outside the bathroom with my new state of awareness. We were in a gay bar. How had I not noticed? I looked around. It was so obvious. It was ALL dudes minus Zoe and two other girls who were friends with the guy who was a little too good at dancing. The lights were a little too pretty, and multi colored. I walked past two guys grinding the night away, and was getting looks from everyone. I sat down at the table laughing. "Zoe....I think we're in a gay bar." She looks around. All dudes. The v-necks were just a little deeper, the jeans a little tighter than you'd normally see. I pointed out the two dudes that were dancing but now were making out. We both lost it. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing wrong with gay people, I just never go out thinking about gay bars whatsoever or that I'd randomly walk into one, especially in Nicaragua of all places. We finished our drinks and left, this time I was getting the attention from the guys, not Zoe or other girls here. So that's what it's like, huh? Bike riding adventures, the beach, volcano surfing, then a gay bar to top it all off. Easily going into the list of most interesting days ever.

Three months in

Pineapple banana smoothie in a bag. Delicious.

Wait, it's October!? I cannot believe that I have already been in Managua for three months. The days have been blending together. I am more than halfway done with my semester and realize that I have not yet written about how my classes are going. Well, I'll tell you. I am enrolled in four classes here at UNAN-Managua. One class is taught by Hector, our program director, and only the five of us take that class. It is titled "Poverty, Revolution, and Neoliberalism in Nicaragua" and has probably been the most interesting class here. The other three classes are taken with Nica students and professors. I have the same professor for two of them (Latin American Social Movements, and 20th Century Nicaraguan History), and he is very cool. He'll frequently ask me for my perspective on things and to clarify historical facts about the US, which I like but it means that I have to always be paying attention and make sure I've got my facts down (by the way, when they tell you that you should freshen up on the policies and history of the US when traveling somewhere, make sure you do that. Especially in Latin America, where we've played a huge role in their history. Because you will be quizzed and debated with, and you don't want people to think Americans are ignorant. Don't ruin it for all of us!).

 My other class is a seminar on Central American history, and I despise it. There are about seven of us and it is mainly discussion based. The professor speaks very quietly and mumbles a lot, which makes him very difficult to understand. He is also constantly tearing down the US, which isn't what really bothers me, I don't mind hearing it from a different perspective, but sometimes he just sounds straight up ignorant. Unlike the other professor who will ask me for my opinion from a more neutral perspective, this guy will make me defend the actions of the United States that were clearly wrong. It gets really old. He told me that when I get back to the States to ask my local representative about when the US will stop messing in Latin American affairs. "You got it sir..." He also shows no sympathy to the fact that I am not fluent in Spanish, so if there's something from the reading that I may have not seen, he thinks it's because I don't read and don't do any of the work and will constantly call me out. The students are very nice however and will always help me out if I missed something during class.

What has been fascinating about being here for three months is noticing the huge difference in traveling somewhere and actually living there. When you travel to a different country, you stay in your sort of "bubble" so to speak. Your perspective stays the same. You really never adjust to the local society, customs, even language. You form a sort of barrier between you and the local culture. Everything is foreign and exotic. You are always on the outside looking in. But after a few months of living in a different country, those barriers start to come down. Things become familiar and not all that strange. You know how to get around the city and travel to other ones. It starts to feel more like home. I don't want to say that there aren't things that still surprise me and seem odd or funny (like a family of four on a dirt bike always gives me a good chuckle for example), but there are many things that I have adjusted to since July. Although I am probably missing a ton of things that would have been odd to me at first, here's some that I can name:

• Cold showers
• No A/C, the heat in general
• Stray dogs
• Riding the bus (always a good time)
• Streets with no names ("It's two blocks to the lake (north), one block up!" (up is east))
• Car alarms at all times of day
• Rebecca, the parrot, that lives across the street. "¡Buenas!" "¡Hola amor!" For the first few weeks I thought it was some kid yelling at people as they passed by.
• Riding in pick up trucks
• Loud music
• People with machetes
• Ants and lizards in the house
• Every street light painted red and black (FSLN colors)
• Revolution and political graffiti. Seeing Sandino's picture everywhere
• Drinking out of bags
• Bargaining with cab drivers

What I have not gotten used to here are the clouds. I know that sounds weird, but it's true. These things are MASSIVE and they make the coolest shapes and not to mention ridiculous sunsets, which occur every day if it's not raining. This was one I caught the other day...

I've also found out that all you really need in the world is an internet connection. Anyways, there's still a bunch of places I still want to see and things I want to do (like sand boarding down Volcan Cerro Negro!), so I hope the next few months are equally as cool as the first three.

Rio San Juan

El Castillo with the Spanish fort above.

Last week, the group and I spent four days in the mythical Rio San Juan. Rio San Juan is the river that forms part of the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica and connects the Caribbean Sea to the Lago de Nicaragua, and it is massive. On Thursday, we piled into a taxi and went to the airport, where we then rode in a tiny, 10 or so passenger, plane to the town of San Carlos. After the 45 minute plane ride, we touched down on the small dirt runway in San Carlos, and then had to go to the boat station to take the 3 hour boat ride down to the river town of El Castillo, where we would be staying. The boat ride was incredibly long, but never boring as we got to take a look at some of the more incredible scenery this country has to offer. We'd pass by houses on the river that were elevated off the ground to get away from the seemingly unavoidable mud. There were people fishing with both nets and poles in the river and families including grandma and the baby riding in their canoe, waving as we passed. The boats here operated more like the city bus, dropping people off and picking them up in what was seemingly the middle of nowhere. It's like, "Hey this is my stop." "Where? The taller tree next to the stork and that coconut tree?" "Ya. That's the one." That's how it works here. 

We finally arrived in El Castillo and went to our hotel which had an amazing view of the whole town (which was tiny, like it had one street tiny) and the river. Castillo means castle in English if you didn't know. The town is called that after the 17th century Spanish fort built up on the hill overlooking the river. The fort was built to protect the cities on the lake from the actual Pirates of the Caribbean during their hay-day after the city of Granada was sacked something like five times over a span of three years. For me it was really fascinating looking out from the walls of the fort thinking that Henry Morgan (yes the rum guy) rowed up this river with his mates in canoes to go blunder some towns. On Friday, we went to check out a cacao farm. As usual, the adventure to get there was equally as cool as the destination. After hiking through the cows and the mud, we ended up on the shore of the river. On the other side of the river was a house that had a canoe type boat. Our guide whistled and out of the house and into the boat came a mom and her son, who paddled out to our side to ferry us across the river. There were eight of us in the group, and they claimed that we could all fit without sinking the boat and turning us into crocodile and shark (yes the only fresh water sharks in the world live here) food, but this was debatable. We all piled into the canoe anyways which put us about three inches above water level, and remained as still as we could as to not rock in either direction during the crossing. Somehow we made it to the other side, where the dad of the family offered us some coconuts, prodded them out of their tree, and hacked them apart with his machete. Delicious.

Our lovely "ferry".

The river crossing process had to be done two more times, one by sketchy canoe, and the other (my favorite) was a contraption that the cacao farm guy had built that was a zipline swing where you would sit on this board and fly across the river to the other side. We had arrived to the cacao farm, where we got to cut open some cacao pods and eat the seeds. The guy who worked at the farm showed us around and pointed out some of the wildlife living there like bats, iguanas, and even a sloth. After the farm, we went to a place where they use the cacao seeds to make actual chocolate. The women who worked there showed us the process of how to make it and we got to help. We then tried the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted and also made our own chocolate candy to take with us. After a long day of hiking and chocolate indulgence, we returned to El Castillo to prepare for another fun day on Saturday. On Saturday, we made the drip down the Rio San Juan to a nature reserve called Indio-Maiz. The entrance of the reserve was also a military outpost since we were in the part of the border where Costa Rica is on one side of the river and Nica on the other (and they don't like each other very much). After some passport information from the very young looking soldiers strapped with AK-47's on their backs, we were off again, shin-deep in mud in the jungle. We got to check out some gigantic trees, tiny poison frogs, and some curious monkeys passing by above us. We even saw jaguar paw prints, which our guide told us were no more than a day old! After a long, muddy hike that had changed my definition of both hot and humid, we ended up by a smaller river surrounded by massive trees and the sounds of howler monkeys, where we got to swim for a little.

We returned to El Castillo and got to relax for the rest of the day. The town is very peaceful and has no cars. The only road is more like an oversized sidewalk where everyone hangs out in their rocking chairs and windows and talks to neighbors. We were on our own for dinner, so the five of us and Morena went to a restaurant and had some Flor (Nicaraguan rum) and played a drinking game called King's Cup. I don't want to boast, but I'm pretty sure we were the very first people to ever play King's Cup in this sleepy fishing town. This of course was made much more difficult as it all was done in Spanish. We awoke the next morning at 4:30 to catch the 5am boat ride back to San Carlos and the airport. The morning boat ride on the river was amazing. We picked up many morning commuters, farmers with mud boots and machetes, and saw hundreds of birds hovering above the river going to town on some bugs. The trip was definitely very cool and very tiring. I will be returning to the Rio San Juan in the future. 

Tremors in Managua/Granada Weekend

I am teaching a semi-behaved second grade class the numbers in English on Wednesday with as much enthusiasm as possible to keep their attention when outside the class I see all of the first graders, of whom I had just taught in the previous class, standing in the courtyard laughing and screaming. The teacher, dressed in her semi-nun attire, pokes her head into the class and looks at me,

 "No lo sentias?" (You didn't feel that?) 

"Feel what?" I asked.

"Los temblores (the tremors)!  That's why my kids are outside cause they're scared."

Confused, I looked at my class and asked them, "Did you guys feel that?" They all laughed and said yes. For roughly 15 seconds, there were slow tremors that were felt all over Central America due to a 7.9 magnitude earthquake that took place in northern Costa Rica, of which no one was killed to my knowledge. I asked the teacher if she wanted my students to stand outside as well and she said, "No, it's fine, you can keep going." I laughed, "Oook!" and continued my lesson. This was the second time that tremors have been felt in Managua since I have been here, and the second time that I have not felt them. This was probably due to my oblivious nature as I was trying to focus on teaching these kids some English. Apparently, this one was pretty strong. One girl in our group, Jennifer, said she almost fell over in the shower when it happened. The tremors were all the buzz here last Wednesday. School and some work was canceled and a tsunami warning was in affect for the Pacific coast (now lifted). This phenomenon is not at all rare here, however. Nicaragua is one of the most geologically active regions in the world, situated on the edges of the Caribbean and Cocos tectonic plates, which explains the 40 some-odd volcanoes and constant seismic activity. Managua especially gets a lot of activity because of a vast intertwining network of even smaller plates constantly moving around underneath the surface. But hey, gotta live life on the edge, right? (insert drum sound).

After a few days of listening to semi-pesimistic news anchors warning us about the end of the world as we know it, and a week of class, Bobi, Zoe, and I decided to head on down to the colonial city of Granada for the weekend. We hopped on the bus in an increasingly familiar fashion and took the hour journey south. Granada is awesome. The two places that everyone hits up when they travel here are San Juan Del Sur and Granada, and it's obvious to see why when you get there. The town is very pretty with old, colonial style buildings painted in the brightest of colors. Every building and house is painted differently. The streets and sidewalks are narrow and the central plaza features La Cathedral de Granada, a huge yellow and white cathedral that towers over the city. The guidebook I read claims that you will want to take as many pictures as you can when you walk around here, and it was spot on in that regard. I might have taken over a hundred pictures. The combination of freshly painted and up kept  buildings with older rustic ones would make any photographer go nuts. We arrived Friday night and found a hostel someone had recommended to us called Las Oasis. It costed $10 per person per night (a little on the expensive side) but did come with a pool, some hammocks to hang out in, and free coffee, so that it was well worth it. 

On Saturday, we decided to walk into the marketplace to find a place for some cheap food. Markets always have areas with tables and food that people will cook for you called comodores. Granada's marketplace was pretty nuts, but not as intimidating as those found in Managua, so we found a comedor fairly quickly and had a delicious and cheap breakfast consisting of rice, beans, pork, and  sweet plantain. We then walked down to the main street where there were places to rent bikes for the day. For $6, you can rent a bike for the entire day. We rode along the shores of the giant Lago de Nicaragua, home to the only fresh water sharks in the world (although a sighting is now rare), we ended up at this peninsula named Asesse, which is surrounded by hundreds of tiny isletas (islands). The paved road turned into dirt at the beginning of the peninsula, and this turned into a little adventure. The bike I had rented was alright to take some bumps even though it had no shocks, however Zoe had a road bike, and her back tire was already losing air. About 20 or so minutes into the ride, it had gone completely flat. Since my bike was good to go, I sped ahead to see if anyone around had a bike pump. I ended up asking a few people in their homes along the side of the road and they said there was a place close by where they'll fix it. We quickly found these guys working on some motorcycles and they said that they could patch it up the tire. After fixing Zoe's bike, we rode around the jungle some more and headed back to town. 

Later that day, I headed off on my own to find this cigar 'factory' that I had read about where you can watch people hand roll cigars and even make your own. Once I found it, however, they were open but the employees only make cigars a few days a week and today wasn't one of them. Whatever, I bought a pack of small cigars and lit one up as I continued walking around the city, taking photos, and listening to someone music from someone's PA speakers. I found this other old cathedral nearby and noticed that there were a few people standing on top of the bell tower some 80 feet up, so I decided to see if I could join. I ventured up the steep and narrow spiral staircase all the way to the top and found myself looking at yet another incredible view of Granada and the surrounding area. After a few minutes of pictures and soaking it all in, a priest in a white and red robe walked up there and said to stand aside cause he had to play the bells. Awesome! I took out my camera and filmed it (should have the video up soon). It was really neat seeing him swing these huge ropes clanging the bells over and over again. The amount of sound those things make is absurd (sorry eardrums), but it was something to see! Granada weekend=great success.

I have now been in Nicaragua for two months and am still having an experience of a lifetime. How this place seems virtually unknown as a travel destination to many Americans is a question I find myself asking with every new volcano I see looming over a new town, every empty beach we find, every colonial city I walk through, every tourist I hear speaking English in every accent except and American one, and every time I ask "Wait, for one dollar?" Yes. One dollar for: this entire meal, that beer, the bus ride to another amazing city, an infinite supply of various fruits, and so much more. Nicaragua is stupid pretty, and stupid cheap. I hate to say it, but the guidebook nailed it. "World class views, from a $3 boat/bus ride," was an incredibly accurate description of this country. Many won't even consider Nicaragua when thinking of a travel destination, but sometimes, when you're standing on top of a cathedral bell tower with an entire view of a beautiful colonial city and not one, not two, but three different volcanoes in different directions, you're kind of ok with that.