Granada

Theodore arrived, we don´t have any pictures of us together yet, but it´s been nice having someone else around. Someone who tells me it´s ok to eat at ¨expensive¨(like, 8 dollars vs. 5) restaurants, and someone to talk to and play cards with. I´ve been doing a good enough job keeping him healthy, it seems. We were in Granada for Sunday and Monday. It is another city full of churches and colonial architechture, but it´s different than Leon in the sense that things were pricier (seemed to be a slightly older, wealthier type of tourist and ex-pat residents) and there were more beggars everywhere. Theodore picked up some important safety tips (ducking into stores when being followed) and ¨no, gracias¨(no thanks) very quickly. Granada is also cool because it is on the big Lake Nicaragua-aka-Cocibolca. 10th largest in the world, 2nd largest in Latin America (is Titicaca the first? I can´t remember). It has something called Las Isletas, a group of 365 generally very small islands, which have cool wildlife, some are inhabited by communities Nicaraguans, some are privately owned by wealthy foreigners. I took a nice 2.5 hour tour around some of them. Very fun.



A Nicaraguan who lives in the islands. Mostly these people are fishermen or women as a trade, but they are quite poor. An interesting contrast between their small houses and the mansions on neighboring islands. This man was kind enough to show us his catch (the bottom of the canoe was full of live-but-soon-to-be-dead fish). Now, these people are not an indigenous tribe, they speak Spanish, and supposedly have been on the islands for about 200 years (so like, way after the Spanish came). But my tour guide kept saying they were ¨natives.¨ It´s like calling me a native in the United States...Seemed a bit diminuitive or racist to me.

This is a picture of me watching out for pirate ships from the fort on the lookout island (which I hear is not so preposterous to do these days).
Monkey on monkey island. They´re not native, but someone put 4 monkeys there just ´cause. And they were awesome.
When our boat got stuck in the grassy plants. The plants re-aggregate fast, since boats travel through here at least 2 times a day, and yet we had to wait for a more powerful boat to push a path through. Nature wins!
Cool church. Looks a lot like the León cathedral, no?

Masaya, days 3 and 4

Masaya has been a less interesting than I´d expected. I guess since the guidebooks came out touting it as the place where hammocks are made and can be bought, it has become the place where tourists go to get ripped off for souvenirs. I´ve had a sort of identity crisis, because in Nicaragua I am a tourist, but I try to be a different kind, one who gets to know the people and care about them. So I thought it would be easy to go visit artisans´workshops to see the handicrafts being made, but I couldn´t really find them my first day. So I went to the very touristy old market, as it´s called, and bought a nice hammock (family size, for that husband and kids I have...it´s the only size that seems worth the money though) and a hanging hammock-weave chair. I´ll post pix of those then I have them hung up in site. Sidenote: I miss my site, knowing people, cooking for myself (this town has very little for a vegetarian to eat, but the fruit´s just fine), Mona, etc. But to ease my pain of being a tourist, I struck up a conversation with the guy who sold to me (I´ve been trying to do this as much as possible, in taxis, etc., as much to prove to them that I´m not the ordinary limited-vocabulary tourist, and also because I feel like becoming a human to people makes them less likely to try to rip me off or worse). He was a nice guy, I ended up paying 50 bucks for both items, which I is a price I´m not embarrassed about. My strategy is always go for the guys who could be my great uncle or something. That age range. And must be pudgy, preferably with glasses, wearing a polo shirt or something with sleeves.

For the second day, I decided to go where I always enjoy, because I´d felt pretty crummy about Masaya in general (except for a decent burrito for dinner). What do I always enjoy? Farmers´markets, and nature. So I´d read in the Lonely Planet that there´s a second market at the bus terminal (which I needed to locate anyways), and since nothing was open for breakfast yet, I headed over there. And breathed a sigh of relief, and then almost vomited over my 50 cent bag of watermelon chunks because I was near the butchers section which invariably smells more than it should, in any meat market in Latin America. But that market is significantly more real. They have the tourist stuff there, but just being among people going about business as usual made me feel better. I´ll be re-stocking my snack fruit supply tomorrow morning before going to pick Theodore up at the airport. Then I went to nature. An entirely DIFFERENT kind of nature than the usual rain forests and rivers, however.

That´s sulfury smelling smoke, not dust, behind me.

Behold, the Parque Nacional Volcán Masaya...or, Masaya Volcano National Park. It´s the country´s only active volcano, not that it´s shooting out lava, but it´s definitely smoking. It´s cool to see, and the visitors center has an exhausting exhibit about what volcanoes are. I took some pictures at the top, it´s now the second volcanic crater I´ve seen up close (first being Haleakala on Maui, which was better, actually). I met a Spanish guy when he was trying to take a self portrait, and offered to take his picture FOR him, and then he took mine for me. So you must thank Roberto for that picture. Then we walked all the way down the crater together. I wanted to go alone, but the park rangers stalk you and sort of matched us up and kept calling us ¨la pareja¨ (the couple) as they were radioing our whereabouts. But he was nice enough, and I was surprised we understood each others´Spanish. Though he corrected my vocab a few times, which is funny because it´s like a British person correcting my American vocabulary. Neither is wrong. Anyways, I suppose I was glad to use my vocal cords for something other than a monetary transaction.Some priest put up a Cross there because the thought was that the Devil lives down there. But since there´s a cross, it´s ok, it´s now a Catholic volcano and the Devil won´t want to come up (i.e. erupt). Though it did in 2001, a little bit.

Good precautions.

Leon day 2

Sweet Leon Murals:

The writing on the right translates to: Nicaragua will be free while she has sons that love her.

What I did on my second day in Leon:

I had 2 fruit juices.

I bought fruit in the market.

I ate tofu.

I walked and got lost and realized my Lonely Planet map is actually all wrong and it´s not just I have a sudden inability to orient myself.

I swam in the pool.

I tried (one bottle of) the Nicaraguan beer Toña. It was ok, nothing to make me want to drink more.

I also got to talk to 2 mothers who lost their sons in the conflicts and revolution a few decades ago. Here in Leon there is a memorial set up with pictures of many fallen heroes (several women actually!), but the coolest part is that at the memorial, there´s always mothers or other people who were there when it all happened. So I sat and asked to hear their stories. I don´t know the history very well and a lot flew over my head because they just sort of talked in a flow of consciousness, but what I did pick up was very interesting. Most striking to me was how these women sort of heard their sons had died, but wanted to go get their bodies but were often prevented. But still, they felt they needed to identify the bodies so they figured out ways to do it. THey also just talked about that time in general, when Leon was bombed and everyone was still in town and they just hid where they could. And one was telling me how she was escaping somewhere and had to trick a guard, but then he gave her food for the kids she had lied to say she had to go take care of. One kept saying how it´s true about the motto: ¨Patria libre o muerte¨ free country or death. These young people (one of the sons was 13) realized they would probably die but kept trying and joining the cause until they completed it. One made it clear that her 2 sons joined voluntarily, and she knew she couldn´t stop them. Admirable (the sons and the mother), if you ask me. Then we started talking about modern politics and how even today they feel that there is tension between the Sandinistas (the party that overthrew the dictatorship) and other political parties. I was grateful to get that opportunity, and also grateful that I´ve never lived through that sort of trauma. Amazing how many people in the world could tell such stories.

Headed to Masaya, the heartland of folklore and handicrafts.

SIKE! I can post pictures!

Fruit! Lots and cheap!

Sandino, General of Free Men

Bell on the Cathedral...just caught my eye

One of many such mango stands. All day, they peel and cut mangoes to be sold in baggies. Nicaraguans seem to value fruit much more than Panamanians, but that´s just one person´s impression. And yes, I asked permission before taking this picture.

This doesn´t really show how big it is...but it´s massive.

Leon (half) day 1

Couldn´t get these computers to recognize my camera, so you´ll have to hold off for pictures a little while longer.

After checking into my sweet hostel (REAL beds, for starters), I decided to see what I could see in Leon. I had mostly one place in mind for the afternoon, La Fundacion Ortiz, which is a large collection of art, much of it from Latin America. I had neither properly studied my map nor pointed myself in the four directions of the compass, so I started off going the opposite way, and kept trying to correct myself and doing a poor job. Luckily, the central part of Leon isn´t big, dangerous, or scary. Just confusing until you realize it´s very simple: all the streets are numbered and directioned (like Washington, DC) and the East-Wests are Calles and the North-Souths are Avenidas. Or is it the other way around. However, getting lost was a good way for me to run into like a million churches. I found the cathedral, according to my guidebook the biggest in Latin America, took over 100 years to build, and not at all hard to find, though I wasn´t looking for it. Unfortunately now it´s pretty dirty on the outside and needs renovation, but it´s still extremely impressive. Today I plan to go inside it, but yesterday my thoughts were on seeing other things. There´s a large central square in front of the cathedral, cool to see guys kicking a ball around, vendors with food and random brightly colored plastic toys and knick-kncacks, and people strolling. Since this town houses a university (or a few, not sure), it´s very young and there´s a lot of teenagers with books and art supplies (I think there´s an art university or something like that). In Santiago there isn´t a central square, so being here I felt that I was really in a Latin American city again. So much going on! Another thing I like about Leon: minimal harrassment. People are generally smiley, friendly, but not imposing, just going about their own business. Must be they´re used to lots of foreign tourists, and have learned how they like to be treated (i.e. left alone!). I bought a large green guava for 7 Cordobas (less than 50 cents), and it was tasty, but I prefer ripe ones, so I guess I´ll buy more and ripen them up. In Panama they also eat them just green, I don´t know why. I´d overdosed on mangoes the day before I left Panama, so I avoided fruit mostly yesterday. But today´s going to be a different story. So many types of mangoes and avocadoes to choose from! Also a brown fruit that looks like a bit like a spherical potato, I must find out what that is and how you eat it.

Finally found the art museum, but by that point I was indeed tired and my legs hurt and so I sort of rushed through the large collection. I was the only one there, maybe because it was later in the afternoon, and the security guys sort of distracted me by turning on lights in front of me and then shutting them off after me. Felt like I was being followed...because I was! Lots of cool stuff, but honestly I don´t know what to look at in art. I prefered the more modern Latin stuff over the European oils (mostly religious art which I definitely need someone to explain to me since it´s so full of symbols). Had a nice big salad for dinner. Nothing I couldn´t make myself, but nice to not have to. That´s what vacation is about right?

Slept very well on a very good mattress, though I´m still getting used to dorm-style hostels. Being a light sleeper is tough when people come in and rustle through their stuff and whisper and flick on and on their flashlights, but I don´t mind it overall (at least here there´s courtesy rules and quiet hours after 11pm). Of course, woke up at 5:30 am with no hope of sleeping again, but thinking about the time change, it´s as if I slept in until 6:30 in Panama, so that´s a good thing. Ahhh all of vacation is a good thing.

landed!

safely in Nicaragua. First impressions: definitely less expensive than Panama, but equally as hot (just endured direct sun in a very hot van for an hour). Also, horse-drawn carts and men carrying giant bundles of I dunno what that covered their heads. They must be able to see through the bundles...

Managua seemed too run-down to be worth exploring, so I headed straight to Leon to enjoy the artsy funky capital of the revolution.

Just wanted to say I was safe and plan to be posting often during my travels. We´ll see if i can get photos up.