Getting into Nicaragua
The border at Nicaragua was loaded with trucks, huge semitrucks, some pulled to the side of the road, some in the middle of the road, some trying to navigate between all of them. Our bus driver just sat there for a little while, almost as if he was confused about it all, not knowing what to do because he couldn’t go any further. The thing was that this was the end of the line. Maybe he could have gone a little further, to really get us to the border, but it was only maybe 100 meters away, definitely walkable. So, without further ado, we gathered our things and went for it.
The border crossing was rather uneventful (always a good thing). I hadn’t really eaten anything all day, so I got myself some sort of bread and a Coke. The Coke comes mostly in the classic glass bottles here, which is kind of fun. The thing is, is that there is a deposit put on the bottles, which everyone is very keen on collecting. So, what’s one to do when one’s just ordered a bottle of Coke and one’s bus is about to leave (enter question mark here…this computer doesn’ t like to make question marks) Well, they’ve got this all figured out here. You get your Coke to go in a bag, like a plastic sandwich bag, with a straw stuck in it, and tied around it at the top so it doesn’t leak. So, yeah, there’s a lot of people drinking their refreshments out of plastic baggies around these parts.
So the bus driver’s urging me to hop on as the lady’s securing my plastic baggie of Coke. I hop on the back of the bus, the guy half pulling me up because I’ve got the backpack on, and I’m holding this Coke and this bread thing, trying not to smash it, and the bag gets a little hole in it, squirting out a small, steady stream of Coke, which slightly distracts me and I sort of forget that I should be trying to pull myself up into the bus, still worrying about not smashing the bread thing. I did make it up onto that bus, sat down, and we were off, driving this colorfully-fringed bus into the beautiful Nicaraguan mountains listening to “Cherish the Love”.
Changed buses in the next town in quite a rush…people yelling at me to hurry and at the bus that was pulling away to wait. I promptly fell asleep on the bus, which I’ve gotten really good at. I woke up at a stop, we pulled into some gas station and picked up some food vendors. I didn’t really think we could have been in Esteli, where I was headed, because it was supposed to take more time. As the bus pulled away, I started paying attention to signs, and did see a sign for Esteli. Shit. I asked a lady if this was Esteli (as the bus is cruising along down the highway). Yes. Oh. Was that the center (hoping maybe we would come upon it down the road). Yes. Dammit. I grabbed my stuff and started yelling at the driver to stop. Other people on the bus were helping me to get his attention. He looked up at me in his rearview mirror and was screaming stuff at me, I don’t know what. Uh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. That’s all I could say. Still ranting, he pulled over to the side in a rush and his sidekick let me out. I had to walk maybe a mile of two back to the city on the side of the dusty road, but I couldn’t help but laugh the whole way.
According to the 2004 edition of Lonely Planet Central America, Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere (Haiti #1). The first signs of this truth became apparent as I sat down for some food at a place called White House Pizza. A very dirty, smelly boy, maybe about 8 years old, was making his rounds around the place, asking for food and money from all the people. He had a few friends, two other boys and a girl. The soon were told they couldn’t come in the place and bother the customers. The kids were trying to yell at me from the window (Hey muchacha). I was kind of torn with what to do…I had some leftovers and called in the girl (she was the calmest one…the boys would just bother people and just take for themselves and not share amongst each other). The boys all followed behind her. I asked her to do me a favor. Yes, she nodded, listening carefully to every word. Please give a piece to everyone. OK, she nodded her head, and I gave her the food. The boys tried to pounce on her, squirting hot sauce all over the pizza, but she did patiently avoid them, while splitting the food between the four of them.
I didn’t really like Esteli all that much. I walked around the city, tried to go to the museum of fallen revolutionary heroes, but it wasn’t open. I felt like I was getting a lot of dirty looks from people…not sure if that was in my head of for real. Met some kids in the park asking me for money, so I went and bought them some food. Met another woman who was really nice, but I think she was really drunk…she didn’t understand anything I was saying to her, and it sounded to me like she was talking a whole bunch of jibberish. She seemed to really like my bottle of water, as I could sense from her incessant caressing of the bottle, so I gave it to her.
The next day I packed up and took a few buses down some long, bumpy roads to Leon. It was very scenic as well. As we approached Leon, you could see the volcanos across the valley; I also saw some black birds picking at some garbage in a white trash bag along the side of the road…as I got closer, I realized those black birds were vultures and that white trash bag was a dead dog. Mmm… Wisening up, to ensure I made my stop, I asked the bus attendant to let me know when we were in the town where I needed to change buses. Some nice ladies in front of me also helped me out…I thanked them by dropping my backpack on one of them while trying to pull it off the overhead rack.
Tags: Nicaragua, Tag Index
Tania
November 14th, 2005 at 2:38 pm
i’m sure those women appreciated your show of gratitude through the traditional luggage bomb to the head, a rich and storied american custom. tania: making friends worldwide.
miss you, lady.