Nicaragua

Nicaragua:

Even though Nicaragua should have started off as highlight for me, it actually ended up being the opposite. In the early hours before leaving Costa Rica I picked up a bug which was determined to expel any liquid from my body through any orifice possible.  From La Fortuna we shared a shuttle with a few Germans and made our way north towards Nicaragua – a much better option than taking 3 public buses! Along the way our driver stopped for 15 minutes at a restaurant next to a small river which had trees filled with armies of iguanas sunbathing in the morning sun. Passport control was at a quick stop at a small house and from there we boarded a boat which was part taxi and part wildlife spotting. The river was called Rio Frio (Cold River) and everyone, except me, thoroughly enjoyed the picturesque trip up the river spotting wildlife including howler monkeys, caimans and birds while I stood dry retching over the side of the boat. I felt like death but it was still a nice experience travelling up the river through forest while seeing all the wildlife.

San Carlos: Once through passport control we were going to take a taxi to reach our hotel but because it was such a small town a young lad helped me carry my luggage as I was pretty weak by then. For the rest of the day Gillian explored the town while I remained horizontal. By the next morning, even though it felt like Mike Tyson punched me in the kidneys, the nausea stopped and I could brave wander a few meters from a toilet. San Carlos is a small town situated where Rio Frio, Rio San Jaun and Lago de Nicaragua meet. There wasn’t much happening there apart from being one of the main shipping towns but at least it had one decent restaurant. At the top end of town was a small museum which was the only place there worth visiting and unsurprisingly I was again the only South African to sign the visitors book. Travelling through Central and South America I have hardly met any South Africans and in many places I’ve been the first that many people have met! 

Our hotel was very basic and Nicaragua being a poor country showed its true colors when there was a power cut and we were told that there was only running water early mornings and in the evenings. During daytime we had to flush the toilet with water that stood in large plastic containers inside the shower! We booked a boat from San Carlos to El Castillo on our second day. One thing that made me smile was watching the vendors at the dock. These guys would have put Gadgetman to shame with the amount of electronics, sunglasses, watches, etc, strapped to their bodies!  I bought a pair of “real” Ray Bans off one of them for about 3 dollars.

El Castillo: The long narrow boat we boarded was filled to the brim with people and some had to stand. What made matters worse were the vendors forcing their way on selling anything from bread, agua con leche and chicken with plantain chips. I do actually love these entrepreneurial vendors as it is so interesting seeing all the ingenious ideas that they have come up with. Our boat was the “slow” one stopping all along the way at the most random of places. Many times we had to wonder just where the hell these people wander off to! El Castillo was a brilliant little village packed with lots of charm. The people there were very religious and even though poor, seemed to be happy. There was a happy vibe in the little town which made it a really nice place to visit.

Our rustic wooden hostel was built on stilts over the water and had a deck with swinging chairs overlooking the rapids in the river. It has to be one of my favorite accommodations so far.  There was a “fiesta” while we were staying, which meant many baseball teams came from all around to compete followed by a party in town after. One of the bars played ear drum bursting music which rattled our wooden cabin till the early hours of the morning even though the party was “called off” due to an old lady passing away on the same day. We of course had to see the baseball teams playing and while there noted all the muddy horses tied up all around the field belonging to the various locals coming from afar.

By the time I had fully recovered from my stomach bug, Gillian came down with something else so I booked a fishing/canoeing trip with one of the locals.  He took me down the main river to a little side stream where we dug for bait worms. It was nice paddling over the calm water in a dug-out canoe while listening to the birds chattering in the forest. However, the fishing was not great and the elusive prehistoric looking gaspar fish avoided my bait. I only managed to catch 6 small tilapia while sitting under a large tree filled with noisy howler monkeys who kept dropping fruit into the water next to us. I sat there wondering when one was going to fall on my head! What did manage to fall on my head, after the skies turned dark, was buckets and buckets of rain. I was fooled by the clear skies of earlier and was thoroughly soaked to the skin on my journey back to town. My guide had to bail water out of the boat as there was so much of it ironically coming from above!

Apart from watching baseball, visiting the historic fort, lazing on the wooden deck of our hotel and my canoeing trip there was not much else to do although we made an effort to try the infamous river prawns. I’ve seen large prawns in my life but nothing prepared me for the size of those bad boys. They were humungous and looked more like crayfish - although the long thin arms confirmed them to be prawns. Garlic butter complimented them well and a cold beer rounded off a memorable culinary experience. The warm smiles from the friendly locals saying “hola” as we walked past, together with a nice vibe made our time in El Castillo very memorable.

Ometepe Island: We left El Castillo on the 7am slow boat stopping off at yet again many random places. On that occasion one of the locals even had a box of tweeting chicks in it! From San Carlos we booked the 2pm boat to Ometepe which was another 10 hours making it a very long day as we only reached the island at 12:30am. We boarded a rusty rattling minibus with a smiling old man with his large glasses in the back with us, one lad driving and another riding shotgun, guarding the baggage tied to a rack on the roof. The bad road to Altagracia only slightly prepared us for what was still to come during our stay. No amount of banging on the doors or hooting of the horn could wake the staff up at the recommended Hotel Central so we had to look for accommodation elsewhere. Luckily we found a place in Hotel Castillo where we based ourselves for the next 3 nights.

Ometepe is an island created by two cloud covered volcanoes. In order to get around I rented a chopper-style motorbike off one of the locals which came complete with paperwork and a dented petrol tank. We took off that afternoon for Moyogalpa which is also the largest town on the island. Along the way a policeman stopped us and asked for my license which I had left back at the hotel. The owner’s paperwork was kept while I returned to obtain mine, after which we all lived happily ever after. Even though the stretch of road between the two towns was tarmac it was still an experience driving along dodging pigs, cows, mules, dogs, chickens, goats, horses, kids, rocks and unmarked speed bumps. There wasn’t much to see in Moyogulpa although we ate some of the best food we had had in ages in an English/Canadian couple’s coffee shop. Gillian had a roasted vegetable and grilled cheese salad while I had a steak and caramelized onion sandwich on granary bread, accompanied by a fresh starfruit and grapefruit juice. It was such a nice change after having to eat gallo pinto pretty much every day!

The next day we headed off to climb partway up the Maderas volcano to the waterfall and to see the petroglyphs. We were warned about the bad roads in the south of the island but I really wasn’t prepared for what lay ahead. The dirt roads opened up a very big can of worms for me as I had to navigate not only pigs, cows, mules, dogs, chickens, goats, horses, kids, rocks and unmarked speed bumps but much more. The “roads” were abominable to say the least with large loose rocks, potholes, drainage culverts and loose gravel. To add to this I had to handle a low chopper-style road bike with smooth tires, Gillian on the back and only a front brake that worked. The engine ran at high revs which made crawling along even trickier and I must have aged by at least 5 years after we bumped and skidded our way along the bad roads.

It was very hot as we hiked the 3km up to the waterfall and we were slightly disappointed when we finally got there. The waterfall was very small but at least the hike through the forest made up for it. We also managed to spot one of the few elusive green parrots flying about far away as well as a brightly colored snake. One bird which was very common though was the blue magpie. They looked a bit like small peacocks with crowns on their heads and they make funny pew-pew sounds which would have fitted any Star Wars zap gun. On the drive back we stopped to see 8 petroglyphs and again we weren’t overly impressed which made our very nerve wrecking trip that day debatable. For the rest of our stay in Altagracia we caught up with our blogs while relaxing in hammocks, playing cards and drinking cold beers. We felt like we did our good deed by supporting a local woman who barbequed meat outdoors and served it with plantain chips, gallo pinto and a cabbage salad.

Granada: The minibus taxi dropped us off again at the port from where we took the 12pm boat to Granada. It was a bit windy and the water choppy so we weren’t sure what to expect especially after a Chinese girl told us many people threw up on the way in because of the big waves! One doesn’t always associate lakes with huge sea-like waves but Lagoa de Nicaragua is a very large freshwater lake and accounts for a large proportion of Nicaragua! We arrived in Granada all blurry eyed around 4:30am and took a taxi to the Oasis Hostel where we booked in. The hostel was pretty good with kitchen, wifi, free PCs with internet and it even had a small swimming pool. We changed to a dorm after a nap as the private room was a bit expensive.

Granada itself was a funny city with a few colorful colonial Spanish buildings and the streets were busy with some very poor people. Walking towards the market the streets were lined with vendors selling pirate DVD’s, watches, sunglasses, fruit and juices. The food market was very interesting with the maze of little walkways. There was even more on offer in the market and I could see anything from large bags filled with rice, beans and corn to chunks of unrefrigerated meat. One thing I noted is that Nicaragua seems to have a love affair with plastic bags. Pretty much anything gets put in a plastic bag and women selling cold drinks in a plastic bag with straw was very common to see on the streets. I bought one only to discover it was beetroot juice!

A thought that might have crossed some people’s minds especially after visiting Costa Rica might be “where are all the caimans, giant toads and turtles?” I discovered the answer to that question while visiting the souvenir shops in the main square of Granada. Well, they are caught, killed, cut open with innards taken out, sewn up and dried and displayed in all various positions and sold for next to nothing. The turtles had it easiest as they just stared into nothingness while the caimans were posing holding small drums or small wooden bowls – always with a permanent death grimace on their faces. The toads were posed in sexual positions and I could only question the sanity of whoever massacred these poor animals.

Lago de Apoyo: We stayed for 3 days in a hostel called Paradiso which is located on the edge of Lago de Apoyo. Paradiso was linked with the Oasis hostel in Granada and offered cheap transfers between the two. I had a nice view of the lake while lying in a sun lounger sipping a cold beer. The water was nice and warm for swimming in and had different layers of colors: brown in the shallows, green slightly deeper and finally it changed to a deep blue. Mountains surrounded the lake and I can see why the Lonely Planet suggested it as one of the must see things in Nicaragua.

Apart from chilling out you could go swimming, kayaking, hiking, bird watching or simply eat and drink. We went kayaking one day and Gillian managed to tip, not once but twice, probably the most stable kayak I’ve ever paddled. Other than that I found it funny that even though I’ve never seen the point of bird watching I ended up actively looking for the beautiful mot mots with the large camera and zoom lens. These pretty birds are various colors of blue and green and have long tails which are bare until the tip of flared black feathers. They swing these tails from side to side like a pendulum to either attract females or let predators know that they have been spotted. Another tiny animal that amused me was the small geckos that kept us company pretty much everywhere we went. They made very funny chicken-like clucking sounds, especially during the evenings, and sure have had many people guessing as to what it could be.

From Lago de Apoyo we took a taxi to Managua where we stayed near the Tica Bus station in budget accommodation for the night and left for Honduras the next morning at 5am. I have slightly mixed feelings about the country but in general we found the people in Nicaragua very friendly, especially in the smaller places. El Castillo was my favorite place as even though it was small it had a lot of charm. Granada didn’t impress me that much as it was just another city stuffed with way too many people.  Getting harassed by vendors had me saying “no gracias” like a parrot or stuck record but I guess that is all part of the experience. In general it was a nice country and also a hell of a lot cheaper than Costa Rica which was a good thing for our budget. 

Complete photo album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=336093&id=749927742&l=8d2bae27ad