Quest to See the World

Holly wanted some pretty specific details of the towns i´m visiting, so here they are:

Leon is a medium sized town, not too big and not too small. it looks kind of like antigua, guatemala, san cristobal de las casas and old san juan, puerto rico, but not as restored as those towns. i think the center of town is about 7 x9 blocks and it´s not a tourist town, which is what i liked. of course there are tourists there, but mostly it´s just people working and going to school and not trying to squeeze money out of foreigners. nicaragua in general has a very young population. i think that i heard something like 50% of the population is below the age of 35, and the percentage seems to be higher in leon because there are a few universities there. if one walks a few blocks in any direction in the town, s/he will most likely run into an old church because there are a ton of them. It´s a culturally rich town with a lot of museums and political murals around. 

Nicaragua was in civil war for a very long time and a lot of the fighting occurred in and around leon and the northern areas in general. everyone and anyone will talk a lot about the revolution if you get them started. it´s definitely sandinista territory and you see FSLN (frente sandinista de liberación nacional) everywhere. If someone isn´t Sandinista, they keep quiet about it there. it´s hard to imagine all of the violence that look place in this country. The president that the sandinistas were fighting against (Somoza) was shot in this town and the place where it happened is now an FSLN office. I went to the museum of traditions and folklore which was a prison where a lot of people were tortured, it was really a strange place-really creepy.

León is flat with no river or stream or lake. it´s also a really dry place right now with super hot days and killer sun. the farther south i go, the closer to the equator i get and the hotter and more intense the sun. i was walking down the street with the sun beating down on me and it was so intense that i was thinking how miserable it must be to walk in the desert in africa for a long time with no civilization in sight with the sun just sucking the sweat out of your body. i carry a soft bandana that i use to wipe the sweat off of me. i just walk, like normal, but the sweat is inevitable. i wash my bandana every night. there are a lot of people all around the town selling stuff on the corners like clear plastic bags of slices pineapple, watermelon and mango. others have their coolers and sell purified water in plastic bags. you pay $.07 and get a bag of water that´s about the equivolent of one cup, tear a very small piece of the corner off with your teeth and suck it out of the bag as you walk down the street. it´s very convenient because the bag doesn´t produce a lot of waste when you are finished and you also don´t have to be bothered with carrying a bottle around all day.

There are a lot of people on bikes in León and there´s even a short bike trail that i rode on on Tuesday. The classes i took included excursions everyday and i was the only person participating so i got a personalized tour of the town. We rode through this neighborhood full of big, huge beautiful houses with a guard, then left that neighborhood and rode on the other side of the wall separating 2 neighborhoods to the super poor side. It was such a dramatic difference. most of the houses on the poor side of the wall were made of cement, but there were also some that were just made of old pieces of wood and zinc patched together. the rich people also throw some of their garbage over the wall to the poor side and it´s just FILLED with trash. the road on the poor side was dirt as opposed to the nice paved road on the rich side. After we left those neighborhoods we were on a pretty major road, the bypass. you know how when you´re driving on the interstate and you see those big 18 wheelers pulled over and imagine that the people are resting inside, well they do it differently here. there was a truck pulled over on the side of the road and there was a guy sleeping in a hammock that was tied to the underside of the trailer of the truck. it was really cool! i wanted to take a pic, but didn´t dare. it´s ideal though…you always have shade.

So, the next day, Wednesday, May 2nd, I heard the church bells ring like crazy at 6am and went back to sleep. I heard the air raid siren (that´s really what it sounds like in leon) at 7am and went back to sleep again until 7:30. I then got up, ate pancakes that Isabel prepared along with some fruit, and began to wash my clothes, by hand. As i was there washing, Isabel said ¨it´s funny how you guys wash clothes¨ (as in tourists) and i told her that it´s because we don´t know what we´re doing. she said, ¨give me one of your shirts,¨ and started showing me how to do it. wow, her clothes are a lot cleaner than mine because she really works those things!  So i finished washing my clothes, hung them on the line and took a shower. I headed out to the museum and then to Sister Joan´s house to pick up my bathing suit that i left drying on the line when i stayed there. after that i got lunch in the market for $.60 which consisted of a large plate of rice, beans, plantains and a tortilla. I then walked around to all of the clothing stores i could find looking for a black, cotton, flowy skirt that goes just past my knees-no luck. so, after that i headed to the recommended hair stylist to get a hair cut. Alex did a great job! you know when you get a haircut that you really like and you´re walking out of the place feeling new, well that was me, but then i looked at my clothes-the ones i wear over and over again in a 5 day rotation. I decided that i really do need to find that skirt. i looked again today, but no luck. i´m getting closer though because i found a green one, but no black.

later that afternoon i went on another school excursion-playa las peñitas (the beach) on the pacific ocean. again, i was the only one. i wasn´t sure what the deal was going to be so i just took my disposable camera because i didn´t know where i would be able to put my stuff while in the water. It was kind of weird, i felt like someone special because when i went to the Spanish school for the excursion, i was told that the director was accompanyng me-I felt like i had a body guard. It was me, the taxi driver and the director, who held my stuff when i was in the water. before i went i saw a sign advertising a surfing school for $20 an hour and decided to do it. I found the place and was on my way. unfortunately, since i didn´t take my digital camera with me, you can´t see the pics yet. it was a bad time of day to be surfing because the tide was coming in and the sea was rough. i got my lesson in the sand and then moved into the water. we made out way out and then waited for a good wave. ok, it was time and the board took off and i stood up-yay!!! it was so easy though because it was one of those old school long boards, but it was still fun. so i made my way out and did it again. the next day, and still today, my upper rib cage hurts. it actually feels bruised. it´s from lying on my stomach and trying to paddle out. my arms were a little sore too, but normal kind of sore, not bruised feeling.

Nicaragua is the cheapest country so far. Here´s a list of all of the things i bought for $9 in a supermarket:

1 grapefruit, 1 quart of milk, 1 box of jello, 2 limes, 2 bananas, travel size colgate toothpaste, a toothbrush, 3 boxes of personal size kellogg´s corn flakes, gallon of water, small watermelon, VERY LARGE pineapple (it was only $.50), generic crystal light iced tea mix (enought for a pitcher), small orange juice, small apple juice, a green pepper, an onion, garlic, pasta shells, tomato sauce, and pond´s anti-aging facial moisturizer…all for $9!!! wow!!
Another thing that i liked about the town of León is that in the very late afternoon/early evening the elote women would come out. a group of women would walk around town with large bowls on their heads selling cooked, hot, ready to eat corn on the cob. it was around $00.20. you would hear them announcing ¨elotes….rellenos¨ as they walked the streets until it was gone. they also sold rellenos, which are similar to tamales, but sweet, but i didn´t get to try one unfortunately. once they were out, you knew the day was coming to an end.

Yesterday i left leon and made my way to the town of granada further south in nica. the rides were smooth and i didn´t have to pass through the horrible terminal in managua that everyone says is a place to watch out for. i´m staying in a super nice hostel that has a pool, free internet (that´s why i´m having all of this time to update and upload pics-check them out), free coffee and tea and a free 10 minute international call per day. it´s $7 a night and i´m staying in a dorm room. i´ll have to take some pics of the place and post them. i´m not too impressed with the town itself. it´s a lot more touristy than other places i´ve been in nica, but i don´t like how it´s laid out and there´s nothing down by the water where lake nicaragua is. i don´t know why people like this place so much, leon is soooo much better. yesterday after arriving i got a double ice cream cone, walked around looking for that darn black skirt and then uploaded some pics. i walked around and checked the place out, but i´m not impressed at all. i stopped by a couple of travel agencies to see what they had to offer and get some ideas of what to do and then after reading up a bit, decided that i could do the tours on my own and for a lot less.

today i woke up at 7:30am, checked email (it´s so convenient to have it in the hostel), ate a HUGE plate of fruit, had coffee and orange juice, got my shower and headed off to the copy center. i didn´t feel like lugging my guide book around all day so i just made copies of the pages i´d need. i then took a stroll up to the old train station and found, yes Dave, an old steam engine, only one though. after that, i went back to the hostel to drop off the book and then headed to the bus terminal, still a bit uncertain of where i was going. i got on a bus headed to masaya, a town known for artisans´ work, apparently the best place in nica to buy handmade things. it was only about 35 minutes away. once i was there i went to the artisan market, but left quickly and headed to the tourist office. there i asked about how to get to volcan masaya-one of the most active volcanoes in the world. all i had to do was take a bus for about 10 minutes and get off at the entrance. it´s $4 to get in and $2.50 each way for transport to the top. it´s 5km and i read that for safety it´s better to take the transport with the ranger. i hopped on a bus headed for managua and made it to parque nacional volcan masaya. it was 3pm by this time. i paid the $4 to get in and the lady working asked me if i wanted transport. i said yes and she asked if i wanted it for going up and returning or just for the way up-i told her for both. she was like, ¨no, you don´t want it for the return,¨ and i was confused for a second because i DID want it. she then told me that i could just pay for it for the way up and i could ride down with all of the rangers at 5pm when they would be leaving for the day. this is what i mean about Nicaraguans being so kind. So many other people would´ve just taken my money and not mentioned that. I rode up in the same vehicle as the one that brought me back down and they even put me in the front seat and the others went in the back. the ranger who was driving would point stuff out along the way and we talked about typical nicaraguan food, it was a lovely ride.

the volcano was surreal. i stood at the top of the crater looking down into it, smoking and all. there´s one place in particular where you can stand and you can hear the thing roar and rumble. it was kind of scary because there´s always the possibility of an unpredictable eruption. i walked up to another crater that´s not smoking and a forest has grown in it. the second one, which is actually higher up, hasn´t erupted since 177_.  i walked around the top crater for a while, but didn´t make it all the way around because it was getting late and i was alone up there. there´s only tall grass and volcanic rock, but i still didn´t like being the only person around, so i turned around. After coming down, I stood on the side of the highway and hailed a bus headed back to Granada and made it back before dark. I saved $16 by doing it on my own, finally.

tomorrow i´m going to the town of catarina and possibly to laguna apoyo where there´s a nice lagoon for swimming. i´m also heading back to masaya to see if i can find something to stuff into dave´s backpack when he gets here- i told him to save some space for a couple of things i may buy. i uploaded pics and updated my map too, so take a look. buenas noches.

Tags: Central America 2007, Granada, León, masaya, Nicaragua

This entry was posted on Friday, May 4th, 2007 at 10:32 pm and is filed under Central America 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.