OK. It's a weak title. But it kind of came into my head and then persisted, judo-blocking any decent titles.
Well, here I am, safe and sound in Cartagena, Colombia! I never thought I'd say I'd feel safe to arrive in one of Robert Young Pelton's 5-star "World's Most Dangerous Places". But after the last 5 days, I was happy to embrace the docks of any country that would have me.
So, last Tuesday morning at 5am me and Jasper the Swede got a cab to Panama City´s cute little domestic airport. Pretty much spaced, we crowd together in a tiny 30-seat propeller plane and a week of fear begins. Flying low over the city was pretty fun actually - it was amazing to see that although downtown PC is all North-American style high-rises, it ends abruptly and is surrounded by lush green rainsforest.
In a half hour we arrived on the football-pitch-sized island of El Porvenir airport. The plane trundles over the grass like a bus to a small thatched shack where we meet a crazed and incomprehensible Italian who it turns out is our capitano, and David, his French Tintin-like skipper. They take our passports off, and we get our shoes off, roll up our trousers, and generally make like we're in the Caribbean. Apart from an airstrip, there is only white sand beach, palms, a few thatched huts, and a few yachts in the bay. The rusty one is ours.
There are seven of us in total. Notably, there is Jono, a fat arrogant bigoted Philadelphan, who is trying to take charge already. Then there is Runa, a 63yo Norwegian lady who seems pretty cool. Colin the Icelandic Dane is skinny, white, and wearing all synthetics, and is kind of comically chav-like. Also there is Maria, another Swede, who is 20 and cute like a girl from a previous century. Then there is a strange middle-aged man with staring eyes and a distracted air. Maria tells me she heard him talking to himself in their hostel, which I take to be a joke. Ah how wrong I was.
So eventually we all get ferried into the yacht which is unbelievably small, and smells of mildew. Three of us guys are sharing a V-shaped sort of almost-double bed in the prow. Jono and Colin are sharing the kitchen table which folds down into another bed. And Runa and Maria get to share the bed in the rear cabin. Our stuff goes everywhere there is a nook or cranny.
We motor off, and over the next two days get to know each other a bit, whilst visiting a few of the beautiful tropical islands of the San Blas Archipelago. David the American keeps himself to himself, mostly talking to himself whilst staring fixedly at random, although we do learn that he has spent 5 months on a yacht before, single-handing it up the East Coast of the US. I am worried, since I am sharing a bed with him, that when the Voices tell him to kill someone, I will naturally be first. David the skipper, the Frenchman, wows us with his culinary skills the first night, and does not let us down from then on in. Every meal is a 3-course extravaganza. Fabio and David communicate in shouted Spanish, but talk to us only in English (annoying for me since I speak both French and Spanish, which they both speak better, but necessary for the monolinguists among us: the Americans.) We hardly get to use the sails in these two days, but we do learn that sailing in the rain is not that fun. At least it is warm rain. We also learn that docking the boat in the river mouth means that sandflies get in, and spend the next four days jumping out from unexpected hiding holes and consuming us. One might have expected that Fabio the Professional Sailor would have realised that.
So, we eat well, we spend some time at sea thinking, wow, being in a 30-foot boat for 5 days is going to be pretty boring actually, and we realise, after swimming in the sea and walking the sandy beaches, that a 30-foot yacht doesn't have a shower, or even any notable source of fresh water. So it looks like we are going to be salt-encrusted sweaty beasts for the rest of the jouney.
This turns out to be true. As we make for the open sea on the third day, David makes up the "rota". Ah. It turns out that Fabio will spend nearly all the time of the trip sleeping or getting stoned. David will cook and sleep. We will be sailing. Naturally, we are not told how to do this. Any instructions are shouted in incomprehensibly accented English, like "All!", when practically the only thing communicated is a sense of extreme urgency. Not conducive to a relaxing trip.
However, after that, we don't see any rain, and the wind seems to be behind us. W get going, with Jasper on the tiller, and everything seems to be going well. Jono, Maria and I sit upstairs till midnight, taking turns trying to keep the ship pointed east. The ship has an unlit compass, so we do this by watching the stars, and someone shining a torch on the compass and shouting out the reading. It actually starts to be quite fun, and its certainly exciting. David the American is immediately and from then on in, extremely seasick. He sleeps on the upper deck, in the open air and sea spray, in only a pair of shorts. It turns out he thinks that wearing more clothing, for instance waterproofs, would be missing an opportunity to burn calories by sweating. Er, yes David.
At midnight, we are all getting too tired to drive, so we wake Jasper and Colin, the poor bastards, and ourselves lie downstairs in the bucking and heaving beds which stink. We have to keep the hatches shut so we don't get wet, so the smell and humidity has no escape. No-one changes as there doesn't seem any point when we can't wash.
The next morning (a few hours later), I wake up realising I must have slept, and get up to watch the dawn. Unfortunately the sun is obscured by a large and unpleasant looking stack of storm clouds. It's amazing how much more real weather is at sea. Runa has slept in the footwell all night as she couldnt bear the stink of fumes in the rear cabin: she's right, it is pretty strong. Maria, instead, just stayed up and helped drive.
During the day, we mostly talk about cultural differences, as travellers are wont to do. The sea is getting pretty choppy now, and we get rained on a fair bit too. It's hard to chart the passage of the day. The view doesn't change, except for the position of the sun and clouds, and the angle of the boat depending on winds. The food is still good though. Jasper does a long 6-hour stint on the tiller. He seems happy enough. He was in the Navy during his National Service. Fabio and David get high and pass out.
The following night, everyone is basically a little less cheerful than the night before, knowing that the crew are no help, and having had very little sleep. Also, although the rain has stopped, the sea is super choppy, and the possibility of the boat just disappearing into the briny deep is starting to worry everybody, and there are clouds all around making star-navigating challenging.
We basically follow the same pattern as the previous night. Runa stays upstairs again, but since the boat is on a 30 degree angle all night long, with everyone hanging on for dear life, no sleep is to be gotten. I go below for a couple of hours in the early hours, to be bounced around in the cabin and think dark thoughts.
The next day, we are all extremely tired and although we expect to land anytime soon, are having trouble keeping our spirits up. But the sun in shining, Jasper lends me on of his walkman headphones, and we start to share around some of the Balboas we have to finish before we dock. Life on the open wave starts to seem good again, except for David the American who as well as talking to himself was obliged to take of his pants and generally void himself from all orifices off the back of the boat all night as he suffered from diarrhoea too. So that's why its called the poop deck. Also, we did actually learn a bit about sailing, as when we "sailed close to the wind", we got the best speed, but at times would go to close and the whole sail would whip round, sending the boat plunging to the other side, and the people below tumbling out of their beds. Fabio, upset at having his 3day siesta disturbed, came up and starting shouting out instructions which no-one understood. By this point tho everyone just laughed at him. Unfortunately Runa was thrown across the deck and banged her head. I tried to step down into the cabin but the ladder was not secured properly and slipped away from me. Somehow I held on averting a nasty fall.
Once we asked about lifejackets, but we didn't understand the answer.
At around midday, we sailed into the port of Cartagena. Dizzy with lack of sleep and 5 days on a rocking boat, we then had to wait for wo hours for immigration to clear. Still, we were so happy to be on dry land, we celebrated with an absurdly overpricd lunch in the yacht club (since we couldnt go any further into the country without our passports).
I wish I could post some pictures. Later hopefully I will. Of course, the experience was an amazing challenge, on a social, physical, and emotional lever, and a lot more "first" experiences for me too. I wish I could say that we bonded and it was the most amazing group of people I ever met, but as often in real life that wasn't quite the case. David was crazy, Jono was an opinionated bigot, and Fabio was an irresponsible stoner. The others were cool, but naturally the Meanies loom larger! I would never recommend the trip to someone else, but on the other hand it was a more or less unique experience, and as you know for me a big part of this is not having fun.
And there was one important side-effect: when we finally came into Cartagena, we simply had no energy left to expend on being nervous about Colombia itself. I just slept for 13 hours straight, and today we have done hardly anything except wash, eat and use the Net. It is certainly a pretty place, reminding me a bit of Casco Vieja, Panama City's old centre, and Havana, Cuba. But it is Sunday, so empty and closed for the most part, and hard to judge. Tonight we go out to celebrate Jasper the Swede's birthday, and our arrival on dry land!
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Goodbye
Former and new owners of the Suburban. May it consume many more gallons of gas. *sheds tear.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
lost car, found god
So, i sold the car, to these nice people!
I visited them in what the guidebook says is a campsite, but which is actually a sort of church retreat place. Of course i was not the first so misinformed, so they, used to such visitors, let me stay. More than that, they offered me a room instead of camping in the car, invited me to eat with them every day, and didn't charge me a cent for anything!
During dinner the first evening I told my story about the import tax, and Heinz showed an interest in buying the car. After 3 days of hilarious 5 hour waits and paperwork shuffling, the car is now his. We agreed that he would pay $1500 for the car, and i would get whatever remained after the tax was charged. I didn't think this would be much, but i didn't feel that i could ask for more than $1500 given the condition of the car, and more to the point its gas consumption. In the end, i ended up legally relieving myself of the car, and with $500 in fresh notes in my pocket. I don't think i got such a bad deal.
However, on the last night, i discovered why everything up to that point had been free: friendly dr erika jekyll turned into evangelical erika hyde! I was subjected to a 90 minute theology lesson which was rendered in such simplistic terms that although initially i felt i was being patronised, i begun to realise about 60 minutes in that in fact it was an insidious form of hypnotism. I was also taken to a church service under the vague impression that it was some kind of "meeting". It was the first time i had been to a church service in a decade, and worse of all all the songs were in spanish and i didnt even know the tunes! Still, it was pretty interesting.
Thankfully i made it out of there with my life and my wits intact, with only a gideon bible in spanish and english on facing pages to remember my ordeal by.
In fact, this strange experience came at a rather odd moment. One might even say that it had been sent by God - to warn me away from Christianity? After finishing reading The Brothers Karamazov, and Strait Is The Gate, both of which deal with the issue of Virtue, in the implied context of Christianity, I was starting to leave behind some of my Humanistic prejudices, and to think that there was something to this whole religion thing after all.
I have always been a little wary of writing off things which have been accepted for centuries as true even when they apparently are not. I had begun reflecting that although there is a difference between a literal truth (eg, Brighton Beach is pebbly) and a metaphorical truth (eg, Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh to the Father but by him), metaphorical truths are so crucially important in holding societies together, and in fact in allowing the limited human mind to grasp greater things, that to consider them "untrue" is more or less a mistake. I had decided to study religions a little more closely, starting, perhaps, by reading the Bible. When I thought about my beliefs, I thought that perhaps they coincided with those of a Christian closer than I had liked to think.
However, then, like cold water being thrown in my face, I received a reality update. During the ninety minute lesson from Erika, and the 30 minute sermon from German Evangelical Willi, all the doubts from my adolescence which had caused me to abandon Christianity in favour of a humanist based morality ("since we are all that there is, it is doubly important to be nice to each other") resurged.
I will still study the Bible. It is certainly edifying. A book that has lasted 2000 years begs careful examination. But, since I am very certain, after 28 years of reflection, that I will not confuse metaphorical with literal truth, I will never be a Christian, or indeed a Buddhist, or a Pagan, or a Rastafarian.
Religion scares me most and seems most absurd when it is not woven into the societal context in which it exists, and seems most sensible when it is so integrated. This seems to tell me something about the meaning of metaphorical truths. I think that perhaps my problem with a purely hedonistic society such as many seem to live in is that it seems to have /no/ metaphorical truths woven into it.
A diverting episode in the countryside, in which i did more than just sell a big car to an exceedingly friendly, helpful, kind and amiable man.
** I do not intend to insult anyone with this post, and I apologise if I have done so. I am still aware that there is the possibility of a bigger truth out there that I still perhaps just don't see, that others do. But all I can do is reflect what I honestly believe right now. **
*** This post is so inflammatory and so complex that I need at least 5 times the time I actually have to dedicate to it, but unfortunately I am paying by the minute so the raw article will have to do. ***
I visited them in what the guidebook says is a campsite, but which is actually a sort of church retreat place. Of course i was not the first so misinformed, so they, used to such visitors, let me stay. More than that, they offered me a room instead of camping in the car, invited me to eat with them every day, and didn't charge me a cent for anything!
During dinner the first evening I told my story about the import tax, and Heinz showed an interest in buying the car. After 3 days of hilarious 5 hour waits and paperwork shuffling, the car is now his. We agreed that he would pay $1500 for the car, and i would get whatever remained after the tax was charged. I didn't think this would be much, but i didn't feel that i could ask for more than $1500 given the condition of the car, and more to the point its gas consumption. In the end, i ended up legally relieving myself of the car, and with $500 in fresh notes in my pocket. I don't think i got such a bad deal.
However, on the last night, i discovered why everything up to that point had been free: friendly dr erika jekyll turned into evangelical erika hyde! I was subjected to a 90 minute theology lesson which was rendered in such simplistic terms that although initially i felt i was being patronised, i begun to realise about 60 minutes in that in fact it was an insidious form of hypnotism. I was also taken to a church service under the vague impression that it was some kind of "meeting". It was the first time i had been to a church service in a decade, and worse of all all the songs were in spanish and i didnt even know the tunes! Still, it was pretty interesting.
Thankfully i made it out of there with my life and my wits intact, with only a gideon bible in spanish and english on facing pages to remember my ordeal by.
In fact, this strange experience came at a rather odd moment. One might even say that it had been sent by God - to warn me away from Christianity? After finishing reading The Brothers Karamazov, and Strait Is The Gate, both of which deal with the issue of Virtue, in the implied context of Christianity, I was starting to leave behind some of my Humanistic prejudices, and to think that there was something to this whole religion thing after all.
I have always been a little wary of writing off things which have been accepted for centuries as true even when they apparently are not. I had begun reflecting that although there is a difference between a literal truth (eg, Brighton Beach is pebbly) and a metaphorical truth (eg, Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh to the Father but by him), metaphorical truths are so crucially important in holding societies together, and in fact in allowing the limited human mind to grasp greater things, that to consider them "untrue" is more or less a mistake. I had decided to study religions a little more closely, starting, perhaps, by reading the Bible. When I thought about my beliefs, I thought that perhaps they coincided with those of a Christian closer than I had liked to think.
However, then, like cold water being thrown in my face, I received a reality update. During the ninety minute lesson from Erika, and the 30 minute sermon from German Evangelical Willi, all the doubts from my adolescence which had caused me to abandon Christianity in favour of a humanist based morality ("since we are all that there is, it is doubly important to be nice to each other") resurged.
I will still study the Bible. It is certainly edifying. A book that has lasted 2000 years begs careful examination. But, since I am very certain, after 28 years of reflection, that I will not confuse metaphorical with literal truth, I will never be a Christian, or indeed a Buddhist, or a Pagan, or a Rastafarian.
Religion scares me most and seems most absurd when it is not woven into the societal context in which it exists, and seems most sensible when it is so integrated. This seems to tell me something about the meaning of metaphorical truths. I think that perhaps my problem with a purely hedonistic society such as many seem to live in is that it seems to have /no/ metaphorical truths woven into it.
A diverting episode in the countryside, in which i did more than just sell a big car to an exceedingly friendly, helpful, kind and amiable man.
** I do not intend to insult anyone with this post, and I apologise if I have done so. I am still aware that there is the possibility of a bigger truth out there that I still perhaps just don't see, that others do. But all I can do is reflect what I honestly believe right now. **
*** This post is so inflammatory and so complex that I need at least 5 times the time I actually have to dedicate to it, but unfortunately I am paying by the minute so the raw article will have to do. ***
Sunday, April 16, 2006
return
so... as beth hinted in her comment, she's thinking of getting married. cor blimey, another year, another friend married off.
i will, of course, be returning to sunny britain for this event!
so now i have a definite end-point to my wanderings. london (or thereabouts), and october. so i'll see you all then! however, i might not necessarily stay around, i have some new thoughts on that score... but let's see first if i have any money by then.
i crossed into panama at the hilarious sixaola crossing near the Caribbean coast, where there is only recently a road. the bridge across the river which defines the border is a single-track railway bridge. they have put railway sleepers alongside each rail to allow road traffic to precariously pass over. When you get to the other side, you just leave your car on the railway line, causing chaos for people coming the other way (no, there is no signalling in place!) whilst you wait for a bloke to type out a temporary importation permit. luckily, most people don't bring vehicles over this crossing!
however, you might find that the bloke asks you what your final destination is, and you might say, "er, here!", and he might say, that'll be $1000 please. because if you are importing a vehicle then you must have to pay the import duty, naturellement!
so then, you might change your mind, and remember that after all you were planning to take it with you in your suitcase when you flew -- ah, i mean, took the non-existent car ferry -- to colombia. and you might ask the bloke, hypothetically, what would happen if the car were to, say, fall in the sea? and you would be upset to find that even in this instance, you would still have to pay the panamanian government $1000 for the pleasure.
uh-oh.
but all is not (quite) lost: i have an address of another bloke in panama city who may have a different story, or offer me some kind of loophole. a bit of a laugh though, as i'm sure you'll agree!
i will, of course, be returning to sunny britain for this event!
so now i have a definite end-point to my wanderings. london (or thereabouts), and october. so i'll see you all then! however, i might not necessarily stay around, i have some new thoughts on that score... but let's see first if i have any money by then.
i crossed into panama at the hilarious sixaola crossing near the Caribbean coast, where there is only recently a road. the bridge across the river which defines the border is a single-track railway bridge. they have put railway sleepers alongside each rail to allow road traffic to precariously pass over. When you get to the other side, you just leave your car on the railway line, causing chaos for people coming the other way (no, there is no signalling in place!) whilst you wait for a bloke to type out a temporary importation permit. luckily, most people don't bring vehicles over this crossing!
however, you might find that the bloke asks you what your final destination is, and you might say, "er, here!", and he might say, that'll be $1000 please. because if you are importing a vehicle then you must have to pay the import duty, naturellement!
so then, you might change your mind, and remember that after all you were planning to take it with you in your suitcase when you flew -- ah, i mean, took the non-existent car ferry -- to colombia. and you might ask the bloke, hypothetically, what would happen if the car were to, say, fall in the sea? and you would be upset to find that even in this instance, you would still have to pay the panamanian government $1000 for the pleasure.
uh-oh.
but all is not (quite) lost: i have an address of another bloke in panama city who may have a different story, or offer me some kind of loophole. a bit of a laugh though, as i'm sure you'll agree!
snake!
oh yeah, and i remembered today about that snake we saw! except, well, actually i was the only one that saw it, incredibly.
we were driving along this long dirt track out of the deserted santa rosa national park, where we'd already seen a bunch of birds and things, when i saw this huge yellow snake at least the width of the car (and its a big car, as i might have mentioned), curled across the road. i jumped on the brakes. and i was all, "look, there's a huge snake!" and simone was all, "er what where?" and i was all, "that huge yellow thing the size of a person right in front of us!" and simone was all, "what?" and it sort of started, leisurelyly pulled all its coils up, and slithered off into the undergrowth.
i was glad we weren't hiking! and it was quite near houses and things. what larks eh pip, what larks!
we were driving along this long dirt track out of the deserted santa rosa national park, where we'd already seen a bunch of birds and things, when i saw this huge yellow snake at least the width of the car (and its a big car, as i might have mentioned), curled across the road. i jumped on the brakes. and i was all, "look, there's a huge snake!" and simone was all, "er what where?" and i was all, "that huge yellow thing the size of a person right in front of us!" and simone was all, "what?" and it sort of started, leisurelyly pulled all its coils up, and slithered off into the undergrowth.
i was glad we weren't hiking! and it was quite near houses and things. what larks eh pip, what larks!
Friday, April 07, 2006
wildlife!
well costa rica has been a nature trip. Memorably, we saw
coatis, squirrel monkeys, quetzales, bell birds, agoutis, jays, vultures, all kinds of hummingbirds, frigate birds, trogons, iguanas, and memorably a roadside hawk tearing apart its prey, at the roadside. All in the wild! We also saw any number of different birds and butterflies which we didn't manage to identify. Simone, you might want to post some more on here, if you can remember any! Simone also saw a two-tailed sloth and caimans and some more things, because she went on a guided tour whilst I saved my money.
The cloud forest is amazing to walk through, and the birds really don't seem shy of humans at all.
It's funny because wildlife has sort of been a background feature of my trip so far, if that, so it was great to live someone else's trip for a while. And, naturally, it turned out to be super-interesting and I'm really glad I got the opportunity to see it all! And we did our fair share of people-meeting too, what with park rangers, who are always informed and interesting, and our little adventure in cuajaniquil where i inadvertantly er ran out of gas on the way out of the valley, and we spent a good hour begging gallons of gas around town. It was really embarrassing and drove the point home hard about what an offensive beast the Suburban is, that we poured in a huge bucket full of gas, and it only got us the 15 miles to the next town, and gas station. I think I'll have to promise never to drive a car again, to make up for the damage I've done to the environment in the last 7 months...
coatis, squirrel monkeys, quetzales, bell birds, agoutis, jays, vultures, all kinds of hummingbirds, frigate birds, trogons, iguanas, and memorably a roadside hawk tearing apart its prey, at the roadside. All in the wild! We also saw any number of different birds and butterflies which we didn't manage to identify. Simone, you might want to post some more on here, if you can remember any! Simone also saw a two-tailed sloth and caimans and some more things, because she went on a guided tour whilst I saved my money.
The cloud forest is amazing to walk through, and the birds really don't seem shy of humans at all.
It's funny because wildlife has sort of been a background feature of my trip so far, if that, so it was great to live someone else's trip for a while. And, naturally, it turned out to be super-interesting and I'm really glad I got the opportunity to see it all! And we did our fair share of people-meeting too, what with park rangers, who are always informed and interesting, and our little adventure in cuajaniquil where i inadvertantly er ran out of gas on the way out of the valley, and we spent a good hour begging gallons of gas around town. It was really embarrassing and drove the point home hard about what an offensive beast the Suburban is, that we poured in a huge bucket full of gas, and it only got us the 15 miles to the next town, and gas station. I think I'll have to promise never to drive a car again, to make up for the damage I've done to the environment in the last 7 months...
Monday, April 03, 2006
Green city
Managua, Nicaragua's capital, was half-destroyed in 1973 by an earthquake, and efforts at rebuilding have been minimal. Climbing the small hill in the middle of the city for the views, one has the impression of looking out over a large forest, with the odd cluster of buildings poking up here and there. Descending into the old centre, there are huge deserted expanses of shabby-looking concrete and trees, with the odd original building left standing here and there. It is a very odd place.
I stayed in the Barrio where all the budget hotels are, which unfortunately is a relatively high-crime area. Most of Managua is, however. I was repeatedly warned never to go out with my passport or more money than I absolutely needed, and a trip to the cash machine meant taking a taxi ten blocks, taking shelter in the shopping mall (a completely incongruous slice of norteamericana), then taking a taxi right home again, where the hotel owner would unlock the door for me. One night I went one block down to get some gallo pinto for dinner at a small local eatery, and saw an old man wandering the streets with a machete. "Old Miguelito," they told me back at the hotel. "Yes, he patrols the streets to keep this block safer for our guests." We heard his whistle throughout the evenings. I wondered what he would do if set upon by a gang of street kids.
Despite all that, I quite liked the few days I spent in Managua, because it at least felt authentic, and had a few museums, a theatre, two cinemas, and other trappings of a proper city. Still, when I left and finally could relax a little from the perpetual fear of crime, I did breathe a sigh of relief.
I also visited Granada and Leon, the two colonial towns and backpacker-hangouts of Nicaragua. I met lots of interesting international people, read the Brothers Karamazov in a hammock, ate great spaghetti bolognese, and sometimes braved the heat to take in the unquestionably beautiful architecture.
My favorite spot though was Isla de Ometepe, which I made the trek to even though I only had one day before I needed to be in Costa Rica. I braved the 90 minute ferry ride each way, which was the choppiest I've ever had (crazy considering it's a lake, not even the sea) and a one-hour bus ride to spend just one night at sleepy Altagracia. But the people of the island lived up to their reputation as the friendliest in Nicaragua, and I received so many genuine smiles it was worth the trip. Thanks especially to Juan who after chatting to me on the bus and finding I was going to his home town, offered to lend me his bike to explore the town. On my return, he and his friends cooked up a delicious sopa de pollo and invited me to share it with them. I also got to sample an extremely potent drink made by pouring a litre of beer and a half-bottle of rum into a small cooler full of ice, which was then passed round the table. I only wish I'd had longer to spend on the island. I will certainly return if I ever get the opportunity.
Thence to Costa Rica, and an amazing array of bird and plant life: I am excited to say that I saw not one but three resplendent quetzales, and a mating pair of three-wattled bellbirds! But that is another blog entry.
I stayed in the Barrio where all the budget hotels are, which unfortunately is a relatively high-crime area. Most of Managua is, however. I was repeatedly warned never to go out with my passport or more money than I absolutely needed, and a trip to the cash machine meant taking a taxi ten blocks, taking shelter in the shopping mall (a completely incongruous slice of norteamericana), then taking a taxi right home again, where the hotel owner would unlock the door for me. One night I went one block down to get some gallo pinto for dinner at a small local eatery, and saw an old man wandering the streets with a machete. "Old Miguelito," they told me back at the hotel. "Yes, he patrols the streets to keep this block safer for our guests." We heard his whistle throughout the evenings. I wondered what he would do if set upon by a gang of street kids.
Despite all that, I quite liked the few days I spent in Managua, because it at least felt authentic, and had a few museums, a theatre, two cinemas, and other trappings of a proper city. Still, when I left and finally could relax a little from the perpetual fear of crime, I did breathe a sigh of relief.
I also visited Granada and Leon, the two colonial towns and backpacker-hangouts of Nicaragua. I met lots of interesting international people, read the Brothers Karamazov in a hammock, ate great spaghetti bolognese, and sometimes braved the heat to take in the unquestionably beautiful architecture.
My favorite spot though was Isla de Ometepe, which I made the trek to even though I only had one day before I needed to be in Costa Rica. I braved the 90 minute ferry ride each way, which was the choppiest I've ever had (crazy considering it's a lake, not even the sea) and a one-hour bus ride to spend just one night at sleepy Altagracia. But the people of the island lived up to their reputation as the friendliest in Nicaragua, and I received so many genuine smiles it was worth the trip. Thanks especially to Juan who after chatting to me on the bus and finding I was going to his home town, offered to lend me his bike to explore the town. On my return, he and his friends cooked up a delicious sopa de pollo and invited me to share it with them. I also got to sample an extremely potent drink made by pouring a litre of beer and a half-bottle of rum into a small cooler full of ice, which was then passed round the table. I only wish I'd had longer to spend on the island. I will certainly return if I ever get the opportunity.
Thence to Costa Rica, and an amazing array of bird and plant life: I am excited to say that I saw not one but three resplendent quetzales, and a mating pair of three-wattled bellbirds! But that is another blog entry.
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