Even though I lost my towel, ipod, glasses, half a toenail and a lot of blood I would still recommend that you visit Nicaragua.
An overnight bus transported me and M from San Salvador briefly through Honduras, again, and on to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, Central America’s largest country. We had heard that Managua was shit: we had to choose between Leon and Granada. We opted for Leon, it being the closest, but the bus didn’t go through Leon, they wanted to drop us off in the middle of nowhere and wait for another bus so we choose to stay on till Managua and would make our way to the further west Granada. Finally arriving I was instantly charmed by the place. We bought beers and food and sat on a balcony just off the main square. Granada is one of the oldest cities in Central America, possibly the oldest, permanently inhabited since the 16th century. Apparently there a lot of tourists but I didn’t see many despite our hostel being full on the first night. In the morning, M resting his toe, I went for a wander round. Immediately you can tell the city has a rich colonial history from the architecture and the colourful houses. The old grand doorways and peeling wooden blinds always add extra character and you are never too far from something you wouldn’t see at home.
It’s a short walk to the huge ‘Lake Nicaragua’ the largest in Central America which let me escape the busy streets for a while. Back in the city and a dollar to climb the bell tower of one of the churches giving me a great view of the terracotta rooftops, with the lake off in the distance. The iconic yellow-painted cathedral is located next to the handsome central square and its spires are visible from just about anywhere which helps keep your bearings. Granada was nice place to spend a few days even though they use a beep system at junctions instead of traffic lights making your ears bleed. Apart from nice food and drinks I also bought some maracas: I felt obliged when the man carved my name into them.
On the last day we went on a day trip to the Laguna de Apoyo. It’s a lake in the crater of a volcano that imploded on its self and then filled up with water. Nice. I spent the day reading in a hammock and swimming with the four other people who came along, we were the only people there. One of them was ‘Annie’ from Surrey and she was also travelling to mine and M’s next stop, an island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua called Ometepe. A couple of hours on a bus, an hour on a ferry and another Rocky film that they seem to be obsessed with here later, and we arrived on Ometepe. Islands in the middle of lakes are generally cool but an island that is just basically two volcanoes is even cooler. The biggest, Concepcion is still smoking now and again, the smaller Maderas is inactive. The road on the island which links the few towns together starts at Moyogalpa on the Concepcion side and runs around the outside: like a pair of round glasses which have broken shortly after the bridge leaving the Maderas side with just a little bit of road. It’s mainly covered in jungle. There are nice beaches dotted all round the island to. Our base for a few days was in Moyogalpa where we got off the ferry; we stayed in a hostel owned by an American called John. We hitchhiked round the island over the next couple of days going to a hippy retreat where people exist on: eating mango, weaving crappy bracelets to sell and twisting their stinking dreadlocks, we saw a nice sunset with small fish leaping to catch flies, went to some natural pools and ate at Gary’s place (one of Ruth’s friends) The Cornerhouse where I had the best bread I’ve had since leaving England and the rest of the food and smoothies were fantastic too. Annie left to head north as Nathaniel the Maltese turned up as did Rachel the writer again. One morning John from the hostel called the police because someone had thrown red paint on over his wall. He was going a bit mad, skulking round shouting at the cool Juan that worked on reception. Also, the electric had been out all morning and John was asking Juan to call someone about it. We thought was ridiculous as the power is out half the time in Nicaragua, that’s just how it is. There was a rumour going round about John (a member of staff told us) that he had had some trouble with the police himself because he has an underage boyfriend. He seemed to me someone who would be a nightmare neighbour, from the breed that would burst your football if it went over the fence into his back-garden, instead of just throwing it back while tut-tutting kids will be kids to himself. The twice weekly ferry to San Carlos was due to leave the next day. The next place I wanted to go was a remote village called El Castillo which is only accessible by boat; I discovered it having a quiet night in while M went out with Nathaniel and some locals.
We hitched/walked to where the ferry left from, (where the frame temple meets the rim) the same chap picked us up twice which has not happened to me while hitch-hiking before. While waiting for the boat I hung up my towel to dry and started chatting to a French guy and his English girlfriend who had started to pick up a French accent, so sad but these things do happen. I ended up forgetting the towel after we bought beers and had to finish them quickly to get the deposits on the bottles back due to the arrival of the ferry. John from the hostel also arrived to catch the same boat with what must have been his son, wait a minute that can’t be his son he’s bla…must be his adopted son. The ferry was slow. It had an upper more expensive deck with air-conditioned room that gringos had to go on, and a lower deck full of locals. The water was calm and I ate a plate of food before trying to sleep in the air-conditioned room. A stupid poi-swinging and no doubt mango-eating Spanish girl decided that it was too cold and opened the door. In a fit of rage I told her “No fucking way” (she didn’t understand.) It was the first night that I hadn’t been sweating because of the humidity for ages. M snoring merrily away due to his exploits with Nathaniel. The French guy told her more politely and in her language that I, he and others wanted the door closed, she apparently wanted a vote. I was now angry as she had probably let in a load of mosquitoes as well. There was no vote. I woke up hours later sweating thinking that I must be in Madrid or somewhere. I looked at the air-con unit, on, but not grafting that much and realised that she must have got the man who worked on the boat to turn it up while I slept: a compromise she probably thought. I found him, the bastard, and made him turn it down, colder than before.
The port in San Carlos where the lake meets the river was in sight as were the smaller boats that were waiting to take us up the Rio San Juan. El Castillo was about an hour and a half away. I couldn’t wait to be somewhere with no cars. We docked and changed boats. With nothing but a few odd huts on stilts and jungle either side I sat back while we sped along watching the birds, nearing Costa Rica, (the river is the border in places,) they were probably going to start to get more exotic. I was enjoying the ride and my joy was heightened further as I noticed at the front (last seat as she went for coffee, holding us up) the cold-blooded Spaniard being sick over the side: small victories.
The main attraction in El Castillo is the not-that-impressive-castle which sits high up above the village; it used to be a lookout way way back in the day before google-earth. We spent one night in a crappy place with no running water where we drank a bottle of Rum and M’s camera was lost. I think it was pinched. We then stayed at the Hotel Victoria, where Victoria herself (no longer working, her daughters now run it) had her 89th birthday. We even got a piece of cake. It was a nice few days spent drinking the cold beer and eating the nice food by the nice river; we saw turtles and cayman and went to a butterfly sanctuary surrounded by the most ants than I have ever seen all carrying bits of leaves. I also went fishing with M and we only caught one fish each bizarrely at the exact same time. Our local lad-with-a-boat we hired (probably the camera thief) was pleasant and every time we got a bite shouted “Fishing!!” which I found funny. Our last day arrived with the boat leaving early the next morning and I would miss Hotel Victoria it was a nice place. Our plan was to head back to San Carlos to catch a boat to Costa Rica until we met William. William was tagging along with his brother-in-law who was working, after having some lunch with us he invited us back to Managua. He claimed he could show us that Managua was not shit. It was Friday tomorrow and he said we should stay in Nicaragua at his place and he’ll spend the weekend showing us some cool stuff. We agreed.
The trip back to Managua was a four-hour ride in the back of a pickup. We travelled on a road for part of that time that was in the process of being built. I watched trucks, JCB’s, rollers, the lot all working furiously as we weaved in-between them, never would happen back home. We passed by all sorts from four un-helmeted people on one motorbike, well, three people and a baby, to skinny horses just idly trotting by themselves. We stopped in a town called Santo Tomas where William’s brother-in-law bought us a quesillo a local speciality snack involving cheese and onions. Already something we would have missed out on if we had declined William’s offer. We made it to William’s place and compared to the average Nicaraguan home you could say that this was a mansion or two mansions in fact as he lived in one house with his folks and in the same grounds his sister and his brother-in-law lived in the other. There were huge gardens, a gardener and lots of cars. William introduced us to his family and his pets which included a parrot. Later that night we went out in Managua with some of his friends. The morning arrived and William was disappointed when he found out we had already been to the crater lake, he said that it was his trump-card. No bother though, he had another idea. He took us to the Masaya Volcano National Park. We drove right up next to one of the craters and parked, you could smell sulphur and see smoke rising from the earth.
The museum was also interesting. Afterwards we went to a really nice town called Catarina which gave us an amazing view of the crater lake we had swam in, with Granada further in the distance, the yellow cathedral clearly visible. Saturday night: we had steak and more of William’s friends came over to his house to meet us for a few drinks. The next morning I went to get my headphones to skype and realised that I’d lost the ipod they were usually attached to, presumably left in some distant hostel somewhere. We headed off to William’s family beach house on the coast. It wasn’t the sunniest of days but the sea was warm and the sand was black or negro. It was turning into a great day. William wanted to show us some pools that have formed behind some rocks that jut out in the sea, we made our way there and the rocks seemed to rise up like a jagged spiky staircase, foam from the lapping waves trickled down and obviously had been doing for hundreds of years. I immediately climbed up and stared out to sea. M followed and we chased crabs that moved with some speed. Laughing away we smiled for a photo before a wave hit with a bit of force covering me with water and sending the towel (white, borrowed from William) and green t-shirt (one that Ruth hates) that I had on my shoulders down to the pool below. I had luckily grabbed on to the rocks. I looked at the towel and then back at the sea and realised that and even bigger wave was looming down, I ducked down and grabbed the rocks and braced myself.
I had finally stopped rolling and what felt like the last spin of my rocky washing machine adventure was over. I knew that I had hurt myself but what was the damage? I looked down to see my leg was bleeding pretty badly. Shit, I thought. My arm looked broken. Fuck, I thought. There were other parts of me bleeding too but nothing that I was worried about at that moment. The pain was in my arm and leg. I still had everything attached including teeth; in fact my head was untouched. (On later inspection I found a cut on my chin that is hidden by beard.) Back seemed fine too and despite my leg having a hole just below the knee I could walk. M who had been stuck by the wave also, he slid on his arse about half way down, made me a makeshift towel-sling to keep my arm up and said that it he didn’t think it was broken. William was in more shock than anyone could nothing apart from take instructions from M about what we should do. We headed back to the car. William spoke to a local on the way who said to find ‘Gina’; she could clean me up before we started the forty kilometre ride back to Managua. In a split second the day at the beach was over. William has great English but when he said that someone called Gina could “heal me” I envisioned some herbal witch doctor and thought that I’d rather just get straight to the hospital. I think that something got lost in translation as when we did find Gina, she had all the right stuff and wasn’t a witch doctor at all. She was very thorough and cleaned the grit and sand out of my cuts, then strapped me up, prodded my arm and said it wasn’t broken. Although she put me through the worse pain I think I’ve ever felt whilst cleaning out my leg, down to the bone M thinks, I’m grateful to her and have sent an email to William to translate and take with him next time he goes.
The ride back was bumpy and I realised I had lost my glasses and that my left big toe toenail was half hanging off, we got to the hospital and I was seen straight away. I needed stitching. I sat and waited in the hall after a nurse injected me with something. An X-ray had to be done first before they could stitch me up, so I waited looking at the tiny ants working away on the floor. Just before my turn to be ‘rayed’ the power went. I laughed at the perfect comedy timing. A little later I had my leg and arm X-rayed and had been sent to wait in a different place, I avoided the blood spatters on the walls and floor and waited patiently with fingers crossed that I hadn’t broken, cracked or chipped any of my bones. Luckily, somehow I hadn’t, and I remain in the never-broke-a-bone-in-my-body club. The man, who stitched up my leg, firstly jabbed a needle with anesthetic in which was very painful before tying up the hole with three stitches. I left with my bag of free drugs and via William thanked all the people who had dealt with me. I was in and out in about two hours and it was all done for free. Back at William’s that night we had an amazing meal and talked about the day. The next morning William gave us a lift at 5am to catch the bus to Costa Rica, we said are goodbyes. He was genuinely one of the nicest guys I have met and a new friend who is welcome at my house anytime. If he hadn’t been there god knows how long it would have taken to get to the hospital. With M’s injury from sliding down the rocks on his arse becoming apparent in the form of a bad back we looked like a right pair of hairy cripples. Next stop Costa Rica.
