Nicaragua

January 2014

Nicaragua Photos

Click here to enlarge the photos

From the Costa Rican immigration, we walked a kilometre to the Nicaraguan border where the border control was surrounded by a metal fence. We paid $10 each for a Tourist card, which would also be valid in Honduras, Guatemala and Belize. We were also charged $2 to enter Nicaragua. We changed our remaining Costa Rican Colon currency into Nicaraguan Cordobas and when I asked where the buses were, we were pointed across the road to a compound. A colourful bus was waiting there. It was headed for Managua but was passing by Grenada en route. So despite the taxi tout earlier in the day, we were getting to our destination with relative ease even if it would take six bus trips.

The worn out bus was off within 15 minutes around 4.30pm and we headed for the first major town of Rivas 45 minutes away. It didn’t take long to see the Lago de Nicaragua and the Isla de Ometepe with its majestic twin volcanic cones of Volcan Conception (1610m) and Volcan Maderas (1394m). I had been tempted to catch a ferry across to the island, but since we wouldn’t have time to climb the volcanoes on this trip, it seemed pointless to go there. One to return to.

Driving along the lakeside, the roads were full of horses and carts, buses and locals on bicycles. It seemed much more animated than Costa Rica and poorer. It reminded me of Paraguay as opposed to Argentina. On the bus the conductor sold cold drinks from an ice cooler by the driver. The journey seemed to pass quickly – less than 90 minutes from Rivas. One of the conductors spoke English. He came up and said we were being dropped around 10km from Granada which was off the main road. There was a girl on the bus who would look after us. “She has her own business and comes to the border to sell things. She’s a good girl and she will take care of you.” We got off the bus with the girl and her friend and waited by the side of the road. Neither spoke English. Rickshaws were buzzing around and stopped of offer rides. With 4 people and two backpacks that wasn’t going to work. One offered to take us for 10 Colon each which was the same as the bus fare but we stuck with the girls. By 6.30pm it was dark.

A bus finally appeared after 30 minutes and we climbed aboard. We paid for the girls as a thank you. They tried to ask where we were staying. I read out a guesthouse name and address and they smiled. The bus would take us quite near. Somewhere in town they got out. We stayed on until it terminated in the market area. Outside it was very dark. The market had shut and there were no obvious road names. Someone on the bus had said there was a hostel nearby and we thought that if we found that, we could get our bearings. We found it, but it didn’t really help. So we found a main road and started looking for other places. The streets seemed very busy.

I found a road name at last and thought it would lead us to our guesthouse. We had only just started walking up the road when we passed a family outside their house. The mother tried to tell us that the area ahead was unsafe. Where were we going? I got out our map and told her the name and street. She discussed it with her teenage son and then told him to take us there. We followed him along the main road to the Parque Central and the Cathedral which both looked lovely lit up with lights. Now I knew where we were. He continued down a road which was our road and pointed further on. He refused a tip from me. Even then we took a while to find it because the sign was small and on the wall above the door. It said ‘Casa Sacuanjoche’.

We were welcomed by the friendly female owner. She turned out to be a Professor at the University but running this place with her family at the same time. We were in luck. She had one room left upstairs with a bathroom next door. The guesthouse was open planned. It was originally an art galley. A huge hammock was strung in the lounge area.

The Rough Guide said “Wedge –shaped, Nicaragua may be the largest nation in Central America, but despite recent growth, it remains one of the least visited. It has an extraordinary landscape of volcanoes, lakes, mountains and vast plains of rain forest.” The Lonely Person’s Guide was more accurate when it said it was “Now the safest country in Central America and a surprisingly easy place to travel around. Despite the landscape being extra well-endowed with natural beauty, it is the Nicaraguans who remain their country’s chief asset.” We had to agree with this. We felt as if the people had been looking out for us ever since we entered the country. A country gives you a good feeling when this happens.

After settling in, we went exploring. There was a lot going on. An impromptu ‘break dancing’ gathering was going on at the end of our street (where kids spun on their heads to music). Four men dressed as cowboys rode past on large horses, their hooves slipping on the cobbles. There was a horse festival on for a few weeks and they were part of it. We had little local currency and eventually found an ATM with a security guard across the street. It only took VISA and we had left that card at the guesthouse. So back we went, but it was a good way of orientating ourselves at night. Away from the dark market area, Granada had a nice relaxed air about it in the evening.

Flush with money, we entered a large pizzeria. The friendly waiter explained that the best beer was “Victoria” which tasted lovely after the long day’s travel. We ordered two large special pizzas. These were huge and delicious. Trevor only managed half of it and we had to take it home in a box. When we went to pay, there was an attachment to the bill suggesting that we tip the waiter 10% and it had been added to the bill. We already had, not knowing the system. The pizzeria shut at 10pm!

The CIA Website says “The Pacific coast of Nicaragua was settled as a Spanish colony from Panama in the early 16th century. Independence from Spain was declared in 1821 and the country became an independent republic in 1838. Britain occupied the Caribbean Coast in the first half of the 19th century, but gradually ceded control of the region in subsequent decades. Violent opposition to governmental manipulation and corruption spread to all classes by 1978 and resulted in a short-lived civil war that brought the Marxist Sandinista guerrillas to power in 1979. Nicaraguan aid to leftist rebels in El Salvador caused the US to sponsor anti-Sandinista contra guerrillas through much of the 1980s. After losing free and fair elections in 1990, 1996, and 2001, former Sandinista President Daniel Ortega Saavedra was elected president in 2006 and re-elected in 2011. The 2008 municipal elections, 2010 regional elections, November 2011 presidential elections, and 2012 municipal elections were marred by widespread irregularities. Nicaragua's infrastructure and economy - hard hit by the earlier civil war and by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 - are slowly being rebuilt, but democratic institutions have been weakened under the Ortega administration.

Despite being one of the poorest countries in Latin America (42% below the poverty line), Nicaragua has improved its access to potable water and sanitation and has ameliorated its life expectancy, infant and child mortality, and immunization rates. However, income distribution is very uneven, and the poor, agriculturalists, and indigenous people continue to have less access to healthcare services. Nicaragua's total fertility rate has fallen from around 6 children per woman in 1980 to just above replacement level today, but the high birth rate among adolescents perpetuates a cycle of poverty and low educational attainment.

With a population of 5.9 million (Roman Catholic 59%, Protestant 23%), Nicaraguans emigrate primarily to Costa Rica and to a lesser extent the United States. Nicaraguan men have been migrating seasonally to Costa Rica to harvest bananas and coffee since the early 20th century. Political turmoil, civil war, and natural disasters from the 1970s through the 1990s dramatically increased the flow of refugees and permanent migrants seeking jobs, higher wages, and better social and healthcare benefits. Since 2000, Nicaraguan emigration to Costa Rica has slowed and stabilized. Today roughly 300,000 Nicaraguans are permanent residents of Costa Rica - about 75% of the foreign population - and thousands more migrate seasonally for work, many illegally.

Nicaragua, the poorest country in Central America and the second poorest in the Western Hemisphere, has widespread underemployment and poverty. Textiles and agriculture combined account for nearly 50% of Nicaragua's exports. Nicaragua depends heavily on foreign development assistance, however, donors have curtailed this funding in response to November 2008 and subsequent electoral fraud.

Agricultural products include: coffee, bananas, sugarcane, rice, corn, tobacco, sesame, soya, beans; beef, veal, pork, poultry, dairy products; shrimp, lobsters and cotton. Industries include: food processing, chemicals, machinery and metal products, knit and woven apparel, petroleum refining and distribution, beverages, footwear, wood, electric wire harness manufacturing, mining.”

Set at the foot of Volcan Mombacho and on the north-western shore of Lago de Nicaragua, 50km southeast of Managua, Granada (pop 107,000) was once the jewel of Central America. Founded in 1524 it is the oldest Spanish-built city in the isthmus. It became very rich because it was a transit point for gold and other minerals mined by the Spanish empire. Much of it has been restored and as the Lonely Person’s Guide said “The goose that laid Nicaraguan tourism’s golden egg is beguiling Granada, whose restored colonial glories render it a high point of many traveller’s time in Central America.” We spent the morning of beautiful sunshine pottering around the streets and exploring the central area starting from the fine Plaza Parque Central with its mango and malinche trees, and line of horses and carriages ready to ferry tourists away for a tour. Many of the city’s most captivating historic houses line the square such as the palatial Bishop’s Residence, a red house with white trim on the corner. There were a series of residences that had been turned into upmarket hotels. These had carved colonial portals, wonderful lobbies, alcoves and interiors that you could explore. The square was dominated by the rebuilt 20th Century cathedral. The town was developed on a grid pattern with elegant churches set at various places.

The Iglesia de la Merced (Church of Our Lady of Mercy), built around 1539 had a baroque façade and elaborate interior. We climbed up to the bell tower via a narrow twisting stairwell for a fabulous view of the city looking across the old red tiled roofs. The adobe buildings were generally two story affairs painted with pastoral colours especially oranges and yellows which were sun dappled today. We spotted hammocks being made in one building by both males and females who had two posts and were winding the fabric around. The Central Market area was bustling with traffic, people and street lined stalls. It seemed out of place with the quiet genteel environment where we had spent most of our time.

Granada was certainly the most appealing city we saw during our trip to Central America. It was the kind of place you could relax without much hassle (we did buy whistling pottery parrots from a young girl in the Central Park) and just explore the streets and buildings. Very Recommended.

We had found a private bus company where the buses left every 15 minutes to Managua via Masaya. Masaya was our next destination. We picked up our backpacks from our guest house (along with the remainder of Trev’s pizza from last night), bought a couple of beers en route and climbed aboard the next bus. We were dropped on the main road to Managua and someone pointed down a road. We followed this to the bus station/market area, and then down a long straight road into the heart of Masaya where we located our accommodation. The woman on the hostel reception seemed surprised to see us enter and could speak no English. This hostel was mainly used by Nicaraguans. But we got a room on the first floor and set off to see a volcano.

Masaya (pop 93,000) is a working class city. It was pretty scruffy after Granada but had some interesting painted murals on street walls. 29km south of Managua, the city sits at the edge of the Masaya crater lake, beyond which rises Volcan Masaya. This was our destination this afternoon. We walked back to the scruffy bus terminal area and asked for Managua. A colourfully painted bus was just leaving and we jumped aboard.

The Parque Nacional Volcan Masaya lay a few miles towards Managua. We were dropped at the entrance where we paid admission and then walked a mile up a lane past old lava fields on either side (one from an 18th century eruption). The heat from the sun was sweltering. By the time, we reached the Information centre we were sweating like paedophiles in a playground. But from here, we could get cheap transport up to the crater a few kilometres on. A park ranger drove us up in a pickup truck. He explained the landscape as he went but in Spanish, we understood nothing.

We got out at a vast steaming caldron called the Santiago Crater which is still quite active, last erupting in 2001. Described by the Spaniards as the ‘Gates of Hell’, the craters that comprise the Volcan Masaya National Park are the most easily accessible active volcanoes in the country. The park consists of a pair of volcanoes, Masaya and Nindiri, which together comprise five craters. We walked up a steep but short track to the summit of Volcan Masaya (632m) the easternmost volcano which gave us a wonderful view of the surrounding countryside including the Laguna de Masaya and town of Masaya beyond. It was very windy on top but the views were excellent. Recommended.

We had been told to be back at the car park in about an hour. A ranger turned up 20 minutes late, but that was ok, because the winds were blowing the steam around the Santiago Crater which meant we could see different parts at different times. Apparently if you do the night tour, you can see the red molten lava at the bottom. Our ranger dropped us back at the ticket desk which was nice and we flagged a bus down back to Masaya.

Near our hotel we found the central Mercado de Artesanias. It was surrounded by an ornate carved basalt wall punctured with numerous carved portals and turrets. This market is famous across the country as being Nicaragua’s epicentre of artisan crafts with a variety of stalls selling cotton hammocks, colourful basketry, woven mats, wood carvings, marimbas, paintings, ceramics, jewellery and leatherwork. Late in the afternoon, many stall owners were packing up or had given up on attracting custom, so we had a relaxed trawl with no intention of buying anything. One strange sight were paintings of people sitting on toilets. I’d never seen souvenirs like those before. We saw two girls sipping from huge smoothies and asked what they were. They looked good so we ordered a couple and watched people setting up for the evening show. Other tourists came up to the two girls and asked them about the smoothies and they ordered as well.

Retiring to the room for a beer and a snack, we returned to the market around 7.30pm and paid a small admission fee to witness the Jueves de Verbena that takes place every Thursday night. While there are larger official festivals during the year, the town came up with the idea of having a weekly festival of traditional music and dancing to get the tourists in. A woman started the proceedings with some long winded speech in Spanish that no-one reacted to. About a dozen male and female dancers then came on in colourful costumes and did a dance to recorded music. Off they went to be replaced by a dozen younger dancers in different colourful costumes and a different dance. Then three young girls came on, probably aged 5-8 and did another dance. I didn’t mind the two sets of main dancers. But these three were just on for the ‘cute’ factor. The dances went on for up to 10 minutes. They were good and looked good on our camera videos. Then the first two sets were on for another stint before a break. This was all repeated in a second half with a couple of male and female ‘clowns’ coming down into the audience to dance with some hapless victim. For the last dance, the dancers came down to grab people. I managed to let them know I wasn’t interested! While not the biggest dancing fan in the world, it made for a pleasing distraction. I have no idea whether the music or dancing was traditional Nicaraguan fare but it was colourful and animated.

After the dancers had retired, a live band set up. They were pretty awful but some of the crowd got up and danced. One guy only had one arm which he held up in the air like a trophy and was dancing with a small girl. I said to Trevor ‘People are probably going to be asking if it is ok for that little girl to be dancing with a strange man and someone is bound to say ‘Don’t worry he’s armless!” Trev never fell off his seat with laughter. When the band started Elvis Presley’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’ we looked at each other. Trev said “I didn’t know Elvis was Nicaraguan.” “He must have been” I replied, “They said they were doing traditional Nicaraguan music”. Mercifully, the band quit after half a dozen numbers to be replaced with another band. They were worse and before they had completed their second song, we along with Elvis had left the building. It was around 10.30pm. We had a fruitless search for an open bar or even an open shop and called it a night.

At 5am the following morning we were awakened by explosions outside. It sounded like gunfire. When I took a look from the balcony, it turned out to be fireworks – specifically rockets being fired into the air. We assumed it was the Chinese New Year being celebrated, not that we ever saw any Chinese in Masaya. We packed and walked back to the bus station and found a bus going to Managua. The previous day, we had spotted the entrance to ‘Coyotepe’ just before the Volcan Masaya National Park. A winding path led up to the 1893 fortress which stands on a hill north of town overlooking the Managua-Granada highway. Carrying backpacks, we certainly sweated. Now administered by Nicaragua’s Boy Scouts, we expected to see young kids in uniform but there were only a couple of adult security guards who spoke no English but were savvy enough to know that when we offered US dollars for the admission, the exchange rate meant an extra cordoba coin. We were left to our own devices and wander around.

It was here that Benjamin Zeledon, the 1912 hero of resistance to US intervention made his last stand. During the Somoza dictatorship, it was used as a prison for political prisoners. An iron gate was unlocked and we entered the dark subterranean cells where the prisoners were holed up and tortured. A couple of the rooms had a few bats hanging off the ceiling. They fluttered around when we appeared and then went back to their usual upside world.

Thirty minutes later, we flagged down a bus to Managua. With a current population of around 930,000, an earthquake had destroyed its old centre in 1972 leaving it as a series of sprawling suburbs. There was nothing here that we wanted to see. Our only problem was that there were a series of bus stations. We had arrived at one in the east called the Mercado Huembes near Carretara a Masaya but needed to get to one in the west which was the Mercado Israel Lewites. If there were any buses, we wouldn’t know how to use the system. When we got off our bus and walked to the street, a local asked us if we needed any help. He said a taxi was the easiest and safest way and negotiated a price for us. “It’s a good price. Take it.” So we did.

For the price of 80 Cordobas (£1.78) the taxi ride was further than we anticipated and lasted 25 minutes. Nothing stood out during the ride except the incessant traffic lights and drivers running them even when they had turned red. Our taxi driver was fortunately a lot more patient.

A bus left for Leon almost immediately and we were off. It only lay 90km northwest of Managua so we arrived within an hour. The bus station was large and manic with endless offers of bicycle tux- tuxs and normal taxis. We started walking down a long street by the side of the bus station which had market stalls on either side. Eventually I stopped to ask for directions. We were told to turn left after four blocks. At the junction, we discovered a supermarket which sold cold beer. It was another roasting day. Our first choice of hostel was full but on the same road we found the Alberque hostel. Early afternoon, it was deserted apart from the male receptionist. We dumped our stuff, took a look at his impressive home-made jewellery for sale and wandered off to explore Leon.

With a population of around 145,000, Leon, founded in 1524, was Nicaragua’s capital until 1857 and apex of Nicaragua’s artistic, religious and revolutionary history. Conservative Granada was locked in bitter rivalry with liberal Leon for many decades which is why Managua became the capital as a compromise between the two cities. The guidebooks had said that the colonial architecture rivalled Grenada’s but it wasn’t even close. Low lying Leon came across as a gritty place of busy grid patterned streets where the buildings had been covered in volcanic dust and were more black than white. It lacked the colour of Grenada.

The supposed highlight was the 18th century Cathedral, begun in 1747 and built over a hundred years, which is the largest in Central America. The Lonely Person’s Guide called it “noble” while the Rough Guide wittered that it was a “gorgeous battered cream coloured structure whose volcano blackened turrets tower over Leon.” To be honest, I wasn’t that impressed. It was large and it was cream coloured but there was no decoration on the exterior and the interior was a vast undecorated space. It was designed to get as many people in as possible.

The Cathedral lay on one side of the Parque Central and on the western side was one of the city’s Sandinista strongholds, the Museo de la Revolution de Leon. Someone beckoned us in and when we said “We can’t read Spanish”, he said “No problem” and went and got someone who spoke English. This turned out to be a friendly ex-Sandinista (FSLN Combat) veteran. The building was run down and dusty. It was originally the major’s office before the revolution. There were mostly photos of the Sandinista revolution. It didn’t mean much to us but we were able to ask a few questions. Its one of those periods that I remember happening in the 1980s but I didn’t pay any attention to it. We were finally led up the stairs to the roof for a great view over the park and the Cathedral. It passed 20 minutes. There were lots of impressive murals in Leon on the walls. We strolled around with not much to see and ended up walking back to the supermarket for more beer.

Late afternoon into the early evening, we sat at a nearby park like a couple of winos, and planned the rest of our route for this trip. A trio of hamburger stalls seemed to be producing large burgers so we opted for those. There was a church on this square and we noticed a band setting up outside. The lead guitarist was wailing away doing a sound check. I thought it might be a free Friday night concert, but it turned out to be a religious concert. A slightly drunk guy came up and said ‘I’m a guide. I’ve had a pretty bad week. Have you got any chump change you can give me?” No. “I can get you drugs, women, whatever you need.” We need you to piss off. So he did. Eventually so did we. Holing up in the hostel, we enjoyed the remainder of our 40p a can beer and read up on El Salvador and Honduras.

On Saturday February 1st, we left the hostel early and walked back to the bus station. The market had started. It was a cool overcast day. We found a bus heading for Chinandega and before it left, I looked for breakfast and found a strange concoction of a chicken wrap with banana crisps and shredded cabbage, washed down by an ice cold strawberry juice in a plastic bag. The rack above our heads was big enough to store our backpacks which made a change. En route we saw the strange sight of a coffin in the back of a pickup truck. It was a funeral and the mourners were walking behind the truck.

The 90 minute bus ride took us through Chichigalpa, before eventually arriving in Chinandega. Here we changed buses to head for Guasaule on the ‘frontera’ (border) 60km away. At the border, we walked out of Nicaragua, paying a $2 departure tax but did not get an exit stamp. Next to the immigration office, a youth did a survey with us on his laptop, asking where we had been, how much we had spent and on what (this seemed embarrassingly low) and how we had liked it.

We liked it a lot. I’d really recommend Nicaragua. While Costa Rica was a nice, relaxed and organised place, it had the western prices that accompanies a decent tourist infrastructure. Nicaragua was less advanced along the tourist route, so it was a lot cheaper and the people were so friendly and pleased to have tourists at last after all their problems. I’m sure it will soon become popular and develop, but I’d go sooner than later before it turns into another Costa Rica or Guatemala.

We walked a kilometre over a bridge which spanned a large river and into Honduras. At their immigration, we filled in a form, were stamped in and paid a $3 entry tax. Our ‘Tourist Visa’ was valid here. We also changed our remaining Nicaraguan currency into Honduras Lempiras. Although we were on our way to El Salvador, we had to cross part of Honduras that sits on the Pacific Coast. From the border, we walked up a hill to a bus which took us to Choluteca. The surrounding countryside was dry with low lying vegetation. With around 160,000 people, this is the largest town in southern Honduras. A connecting bus took us on to El Amatillo on the El Salvador border two and half hours away. After being stamped out by Honduras immigration, we walked out of the country over a bridge crossing over another large river and entered another new place. El Salvador would be my 130th Country.