This past week in Nicaragua has been an absolute blast! I´ve hiked a volcano, spent a few nights on an island, eaten some great food, and slept in some wonderful hostels. But let me be a bit more detailed than that.
The bus arrived at the Managua station as near on time as I can imagine a Central American bus getting anywhere. As usual, I met a few other travelers who were headed the same way as myself, so we shared a taxi to the minibus station right across from the University of Central America. Having been told by several people that Managua was not a city that really had much for tourists, I was keen to head south as soon as possible. These Australians and Norwegians were like-minded. We rode the half hour or so to Granada, an old colonial town, together. One of the Aussies and I struck up a conversation. He was getting a degree in piano performance. I was interested to hear what he was working on.
We arrived after dark and began the mission of finding a place to stay. Our first choice, The Bearded Monkey, only had a mattress on the floor to offer. La Liberdad, just across the way, at least had a bunk. We opted for this crowded hostel with an open courtyard and hammocks.
Granada is certainly a tourist town. Everywhere you look there are white people with packs on their backs and flip-flops on their feet. At times I feel out of place that I don´t own such footwear, except for when Í´m taking a showers down here. Hostels seem to abound, along with people on street corners to change your money for you. And if you want a hot dog, there are just as many vendors around the city here as there might be in Central Park, NYC.
It was a lovely town, but I can´t say that it fascinated me. There were some nice old churches to walk through (I had a conversation with an older gal from Wisconsin there) and the city goes right up to Lake Nicaragua, with an absolutely filthy park one can walk through for a few Cordobas, the Nicaraguan currency. Never in my life have I seem people playing and out enjoying a Sunday afternoon among such garbage. We stopped to buy ice cream and found out why. There doesn't seem to be a single trash bin in the entire park.
I spent two nights in Granada, and come Monday afternoon was more than ready for the four hour ferry ride out into Lake Nicaragua to get to the Island of Ometepe. The island is basically two volcanoes that have come together do to the lava flow which has cooled between them. One of them is active, while the other has been asleep for quite some time.
Again arriving after dark, I got a taxi into the nearest town for the night. Altagracia was just a quick stop though, as I was more interested in getting from the northern end of the island to the southern where the Finca Magdalena Ecological Farm was. This is where I would be staying for the next two days. It was and absolutely wonderful place! The rickety, and I mean rickety, island bus drives you to within a kilometer of the place. After walking up the hill to get the rest of the way there, all of a sudden this beautiful large house shows up along with a few other buildings. Though the rooms are very basic, the setting is absolutely lovely with a huge flower garden out front, view of the lake and the active volcano covered in clouds, and a friendly staff to wait on you. Immediately behind the house is the national preserve for the inactive Maderas Volcano. This is the one that I would be hiking.
My first day there was spent mostly relaxing, getting a good start on John Steinbeck´s East of Eden and meeting a bunch of other backpackers. Some of us made a plan to hike Maderas the next morning, so we were all in bed early for the 7AM start we had set for ourselves. Well, we got started by 8. The trail quickly turned to mud and got pretty steep at a few points. It felt good to make it into the crater where the furry of our earth had given way to forests and a muddy lake. We laid in the sun feeling proud of ourselves for about an hour before heading back down. For better or worse, we took a wrong turn and ended up coming down a completely different way that we went up, but saw something new and were never lost. We even got to walk through a few stands of banana trees!
One of the guys I met is an Australian who is now living in Calgary, Canada. He is driving a Jeep from the Arctic Ocean of Alaska all the way to the southern tip of Argentina. He has been driving for seven months now and has had one hell of an experience, with much more to come. He even has painted a map on the car hood of his jeep showing where he has been. Anyway, a few of us were all going to the same place on the island the next day, so he offered us a ride. Of course we couldn´t refuse. Thank goodness I was with a few people that I liked because this next hostel, though beautiful and right on the lake, was an uptight sort of place. They had more rules than an overbearing parent, and the staff seemed less than friendly. But it was a day for relaxation and that is what I did. Laying on the dock getting some sun and a dip or two in the lake along with more of my book was a fine way to recover from hiking the mountain.
Now I´m back in Managua and waiting for tomorrow morning when I will be up by 3 in the morning to get ready to board the bus going back up to Honduras. I will meet up with Tezra and some of her friends for the night (it is her last day volunteering tomorrow, so there will be a party for the departing volunteers) and we will head out the next day for Guatemala. I´m looking forward to it.
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