There and back again or so it seems

Antigua, Guatemala

After a 17 hour bus trip, during which I had an 11 hour bout of motion sickness because the first leg of the winding road was in a lumbering, smelly, double decker bus driven by a lead-footed pinhead who obviously thought it was a taxi in rush hour, we're back in Antigua under the same gray skies we left a month ago, our time in hot hot Nicaragua a phantasmagoria of images, smells, tastes, sounds, textures, and memories of several delightful friendships made along the way, including Paloma the dog. I´m still having trouble accessing my photos. I now have about 3000 on the 8 gig card in my camera so the cafe computers get hung trying to access them. I swear, we both swear, this is the_last_time we travel without laptops. But, in case we do, I did finally get a pro flicker account and from now on will (once I upload these) upload photos regularly instead of waiting until there are so many they would choke a elephant. Bad metaphor. Sorry elephants.

Anyway... about Nicaragua...
From Chinandega we did make it to the beach. Jiquilillo (He-key-leo). We didn't stay at Rancho Esperanza but that's the place I´d recommend. Nate, the owner/manager is a great guy and from there you'll get the purest experience of the place. On his recommendation we hired a local guy, Eddy, to guide us on a boat trip through the Padre Ramos Estuary, an irreplaceable, endangered wetlands reserve in Jiquilillo. Eddy is another great guy (28) who, since SELVA pulled out because of Nicaragua´s political instability, is waging what is basically a single-handed battle to save the estuary that is, among other things, the traditional nesting ground for endangered sea turtles.

Before leaving Nicaragua, we saw ongoing demonstrations in both León and Managua, the capital city. They were a drag. Sunday afternoon, M. Lee walked to the bus terminal to get our tickets for the next day and on the way back to the hostel found himself in the midst of a mob of masked protesters firing morter guns and being generally shitheads in any way they could. The blasts went on for hours. Seems they need to intimidate the losing side which is protesting the fact that the elections were not monitored or transparent.


Ironically, the next evening just after dark as the bus wound its way north through the mountains, I glimpsed two huge white Brahmas bedded down peacefully under the trees by the foot path through a small yard leading to an open air thatched roof hut. The family was gathered around the cook fire on the porch as the cows chewed their cuds in the yard. It was one of the most tranquil scenes I´ve ever witnessed.

Tonight, after the usual round of explosives, the bells of La Merced are engaged in a sad duet. I am awash with fragmented impressions, and detached memories. Anything is possible. At the moment, I´m not even sure which world I live in.

Sunday aftermath

León, Nicaragua.
Today we are hanging out online. Suits me. There is a big FLSN parade streaming by the door as I write this and small bombs going off to whistles, shouts and the barking of dogs. The riot police are out enforce. Seeing them is small comfort. The elections did not go well last week so there is a lot of unrest throughout Nicaragua. Shit. One of our friends at La Tortuga is a Chilean fellow. He grew up with this crap and is very nervous today. It doesn't settle too well with me either. Things are raw here. Centroamerica is not a tidy place. Things are exaggerated, over blown, past ripe. Life is in the streets. Its wild beauty and grace have a corresponding shadow of chaos and despair.

Otherwise, I am melted to a sticky pile of sweat. Showers don´t help. A second later, I am again a sticky, sweaty blob. And I have become addicted to ice cream. So it goes now that the rainy season has finally ended. What was I thinking? Well, gotta go. Keep the home fires burning.

Chinandega

Chinandega, Nicaragua.... So today, back out into the current that flows past our quiet blue room at La Tortuga Booluda, back out onto the road leaving. A cab stops in the middle of the street. We throw our bags in and go. He takes us to the market where we grab a shuttle which takes us out to the highway, trash piled along the side, lined with blooming fence posts. We converge with trucks, bicycles, cars, foot traffic, hand-made carts pulled by half-dead horses... all moving together, a dark flow crossing the smelly gray river, one great hydra-headed body decorated with moons, stars, galaxies, universes moving... always in the same direction... to Chinandega, the hottest city in Nicaragua. Chinandega, where a hen and rooster are shackled together beside three women sitting at a table on the median strip in the road. Chinandega, where life is just a way of keeping the meat fresh until it's time to eat.

Notes on the fly

León, Nicaragua. So far, León is my favorite city in Centroamerica, maybe even throwing in Mexico, except for Oaxaca. The rainy season was looking like it was coming to a close but when we had decided to go to a surf camp on the coast a hurricane blew into the gulf and now threatens to ruin everything. We are going anyway. We got a very special deal through a couple of Canadians we met in Antigua. They know a Canadian guy who opened this place a couple of years ago and, because we know them, he gave us the same super deal he gave them. Sounds too good to be true and you know how that goes, but what the hell? After all, what could possibly go wrong?

Other than that, I haven't found a computer since leaving Antigua that will let me get my hands on my photos. Another opportunity to practice acceptance and patience. Wonderful. I have some notes about Granada and León but probably won´t get around to posting them until we get back from the coast as supposedly there will be no internet or phones there. Maybe later tonight.

Until then, as travelers must do, I will make things do double duty and use words from an email I sent my family.

Election night we were in Granada watching with our house mates at Casa Ernesto. At 11 pm, when CNN announced that Obama the winner, we clapped and cheered along with the rest of the world. Finally, collectively, we mustered the courage to rise above the hate and fear mongering of the radical right to reset the course for America and hopefully the world. Before the election seemed everyone we met in Nicaragua brought up the election. They all, without exception, liked him. Even a couple of kids sitting on a street corner in Granada reminded us to "vote for Barack on Tuesday". Since the election, we are like heroes around here. People have come up to us on the street and to say how happy they are that America elected Obama. A family sitting in their rocking chairs in the evening smiled from their porch, yelled "Obama" and give us the Thumbs Up. Shopkeepers and street vendors have told us how grateful they are Barack was elected president. On the other hand, seems things are kind of edgy around the White House these days, as White House correspondent Jon Decker discovered. Barney lashes out.

As for me, I am thrilled that some unsuspecting homeless shelter pup is going to be our First Pup!

Anyway, I just read this article at Salon that I think details some of the static that's existed between our different generations on these strange things called hope and change (as well as between my own ears) and thought maybe one or two of you might like to read it as well.

Apology. (Click through the ad. Button in top, right hand corner)

So that's it for now. We've gotta get ready to leave in the morning. Hasta luego.

Volcanos and gallo pinto

Fast Eddie's photo Not mine.

Granada, Nicaragua. We're back in Granada. Ometepe was a bust. I found the photo at Fast Eddie's blog. I'll post my own rainy season version of the dual volcanoes later. The thing about the rainy season is that it is a Season of Rain. Lluvia. Not a rainy day. Not a rainy week. Or month. The rainy season is six months of rain and what happens after six months of rain? Visit Ometepe is you have any questions. I think this is the last time we will travel in the tropics during the rainy season. Yes, it's cooler and yes, it's cheaper and yes, it's not overrun with tourists but for a reason. In the rainy season the tropics are a Mess.

In our defense, traveling at this time of year was not our first choice this time. We had to bump our plans back from last spring. We've done the rainy season before, during 2005, the year of Katrina which trashed New Orleans and Wilma which trashed the Yucatán. We were in the Yucatán, under Katrina's outer whips so when Wilma hit, it was the last straw. It chased us off the muddy, trash strewn Caribbean and home with vows to never return in the rainy season. But the fates conspired against us.

Ometepe was miserable. I didn't even get one decent photo of either volcano. Both were shrouded with their cloud forests. The first clue that is was not in peak form was that the ferry terminal was flooded. To disembark, we had to walk across a makeshift sandbag sea wall. I'll insert the photos later. The shuttle driver warned us that the caminos were malo, the roads were bad. Very bad. Mucho agua. Still, we had to see for ourselves. We harbored hopes of finding a tranquil hideaway in spite of it all. But he was right. The water level of Lake Cocibolca is so high from months of rain that the nice sand beaches it is so famous for are all under water, the roads are muddy ruts and the lovely trails winding through the howler monkey jungle are flooded. After a couple hours of grinding through the sludge and visiting soggy hotels we decided to go back to Moyogalpa and return to the mainland on the morning ferry. On the way back, the shuttle got stuck in the mud so, along with the help of some kids and finally the policía nacional who happened by, we helped the driver dig it out.

But it wasn't all bad. Max, the driver, made a week's pay. We managed to get settled in a nice hotel just up from the ferry terminal, moments before the afternoon torrent. And after the rain, we got pizza at a restaurant with a dirt floor, got to sleep early and grabbed the six am ferry for the two hour trip back to the mainland this morning.

After the ferry docked we got a taxi to the bus station. That driver tried to scare us into having him drive us all the way back to Granada, a thirty dollar trip. He told us there wouldn't be a bus for three hours. We ignored him. The Granada bus waiting at the terminal. We hopped on and enjoyed another lovely two hour, two dollar trip back through the trash strewn country side, past countless starving dogs and smoldering piles of household plastics. We got back to Granada in time for breakfast at Nica Buffet, not a buffet but a great hole in the wall cafe owned by Ed, a cheery old Dutch fellow (that's him in white in the left hand side of the photo, who remembers that I like coffee con leche and we both like No. 21, the Nica breakfast of plantains, gallo pinto, and the eggs scrambled. Home. Don't bother to go there from the 4th to the 20th of November. He'll be away on vacation. Possibly the Corn Islands. We may be there too. Anyway, after breakfast we went home to Ernesto's. More about Ernesto later.



Need a happy ending?
Mr. Bones has left the building.

Notes on the fly

Granada, Nicaragua

We've been in Nicaragua for about a week and are finally getting adjusted to the heat, humidity and pace. Very very poor country; second only to Haiti in the region. There is no opportunity. Fifty percent unemployment. Bright, personable, able-bodied young people everywhere with zero opportunity. It's heartbreaking.

Usually, markets are the colorful heart of the city. Unfortunately Granada's dark market is an explosion of filth and chaos. The place is jarring, death's presence is so intimate and the suffering so tangible that I feel grossly irreverent, sacrilegious, being there as an outsider, an observer. I don't see how this town will ever attain the coveted status of tourist attraction until they somehow manage to change it. Apparently the town has been trying to get people to move to a new location but nobody wants to go.

Sorry. Gotta go. Time's up here. Tomorrow we leave for Ometepe, an island in Lake Cocibolca with dual volcanoes, one living and one dead. More later.

Hasta mañana

Antigua, Guatemala. Still trying to catch up with myself, so here are a few more photos from this last month.

Tienda

Tienda from within

Maya women at La Merced

Fellow Spanish students

Living and the dead

Child in the ruins

Rainy season

Antigua vendadora

Perfunctory shot of El Arco and volcano

Furniture mover

Coming to the end

Rainy season is finally nearing the end and we were planning to leave for Nicaragua this morning but things got messed up. We were overcharged $60 for the bus tickets on King Quality so today the guy is back in Guatemala City redoing it. Tickets can not be purchased or upgraded via fax, phone or online. King Quality insist on someone showing up in person, with passport copies. So it goes.

Stairs to our apartment, Casa Luna

You might wonder why we are going to all the bother and expense to go executive class but it's a 17 hour trip, longer if you count the shuttles on both ends, and the seats are supposed to be more comfortable.

Roof top neighbors

We have really enjoyed our stay at Casa Luna. It's a small place, six rooms, and very quiet. We stayed in the roof top room which is up a narrow iron spiral staircase. It has its own small garden and great view which we shared with a couple of Boxers, one roof top over. Mario, the owner, is a great guy, speaks fluent English and is very helpful whenever anyone has a question or problem. I highly recommend the place.

Charles, assistant editor La Cuadra

M. Lee, Sunday walk

Our room, Casa Luna