Sights and Sounds of Nicaragua

With the exception of one or two days, I awake every morning to the sound of roosters crowing.

It appears that every gringo over the age of 50 in Nicaragua is either looking at property to buy, buying property, or building/renovating a house on their new property. Presumably they´ll live out their days barking orders at the cheap Nica help,getting skin cancer, and sucking down cubre libres like its their job.

It´s likely that Daniel Ortega of the FSLN (Sandanista) party will be elected president of Nicaragua in November. This could cause problems for the aforementioned gringos considering the tumultuous history between the U.S. and the Sandanistas. Although I personally find Ortega to be a scoundrel, I don´t suppose he´s more of a scoundrel than all the rest of ´em...including our very own S.O.B., GW.

Much to the chagrin of my peso-pinching fellow backpackers, even though I KNOW 40 cordobas is too much to pay for a 10 minute ride across town, I just don´t have the tenacity to haggle over the 5-10 cordobas I might save, the equivalent of about 50 cents U.S.

On the bus from Matagalpa to Managua I saw a tiny old woman sleep with her head on her grandaughter´s shoulder. The girl had her arm wrapped around her abuelita´s neck, holding her forehead tight against her chest.

On another bus, a preacher, after giving a 10 minute sermon, absent-mindedly handed me his bible to hold while he counted out change for the cobrador.

There is an unusally large number of men named Marvin here.

At the ruins of the 21st Garrison of the National Guard in Leon, I saw the spot where prisoners of the Somoza regime where hung upside-down by their feet while their heads were submerged in pools of water as a form of torture. It made me think about Abu Gharib.

Unlike the homeless men we step over on the street in the U.S., the homeless sleeping in the street here tend to be boys.

It´s not unusual to see a man riding his entire family around on a bicycle here. He sits on the seat and pedals, his wife sits side-saddle on the frame holding an infant, and a young child rides the pegs on the back wheel.

One of the most beautiful trees in Nicaragua is called La Malinche. It has branches that spread out low and far, long brown seed pods hang from it, and its flowers are red-orange. They stand out like a blaze among the sea of green trees in the forest. If you want to have a better understanding about the role of gender in Latin culture, google Malinche. You´ll be surprised by what you learn about this important archetype.

One of my most favorite experiences in Nicaragua was a blackout in Somoto. I passed the evening writing letters by candlelight.

In Nicaragua when you pass people on the street either coming or going you say "adios." But in the touristy areas, people greet me with "Hola."

At the Finca Esperanza Verde in Matagalpa, there were these huge brown beetles, about the size of a walnut, who would dive bomb the lights in the evening. They would crash land on their backs, where you would find them littered all over the ground in the morning. Unable to right themselves, they die.

El Pichón

"Mi vida esta en tus manos Señor." This is one of the many phrases you might see painted across the windshield or front of one of the public transportation buses in Nicaragua. Understand by Señor, one doesn´t mean the bus driver, the driver has actually shirked that responsiblity and has passed the buck onto the Señor with a capital S, the big guy in the sky. Most of the buses are recycled Bluebird school buses from the U.S. and Canada. The same ones many of us bounced around in on our way to and from school as kids, you know the ones, "Your child´s safety is our business." Those signs are still there, but I guess our safety is God´s business here. And while I have not usually identified myself as a person of great faith, I seem to find great comfort in this. Welcome to the wild ride across Nicaragua.

My first ride in Nica--other than in a taxi--was a mini-express bus from Managua to León. These are minivans, similar to the Toyota minivans we have in the states but they are customized to fit more people. You hop onto the bus headed for your destination and wait, as it doesn´t depart until full. It´s hot and sticky, people keep wandering by with things for sale, bags of water, sweets, chicken, fruit, sunglasses, bandanas. Just when you think the ride is full, more seats miraculously fold out from nowhere, making room for more folks. When we finally departed (about 40 minutes later) there were 15 people in my van, including the driver. Thankfully I´m a petite person and I shared a bench seat in the way-back with two young women about my size. I was very comfortable and once we hit the road it wasn´t even hot. This first trip was exhilerating for me. In the U.S. there are so many safety nets to protect us from harm. Traffic is relatively safe and supervised, with clear rules and regulations. We have rapid access to ambulances, police, and fire protection. We have vaccinations, (somewhat)reliable healthcare, clean water, safe food, and on and on and on. A good number of us can live our whole lives in the U.S. without much risk. What I found most interesting on this trip to León, bumping along the highway in a mini-van overloaded with human lives, devouring the sights and sounds as we went, is that at that moment I felt more fulfilled and happy and satisfied than I have in, well, I don´t know when. Was it because I had successfully mangaged the first leg of my long journey alone? Maybe it was the first time since I departed Denver that I really felt like my travels had begun. Maybe it was just an incredible sense of freedom, I´m not sure. It felt wonderful, though.

My last day in León, I took a 45 minute journey to the west coast for a day at the beach. I first rode a camioneta from León to Subtiava, a short jaunt across town. The camioneta is a pickup truck with two benches facing eachother in the bed. It´s covered in tarp. This is a little local bus which gets you around town. It costs 3 cordobas, which I think is about .000003 cents. The driver goes about 80mph between stops, all of which are spaced about a block apart. You can imagine the effort to remain upright. The cobrador assists the driver and the passengers while hanging on from the back. He whistles for a stop and a go, holds the ladies hands while they disembark, helps with packages and more. It´s a busy and complex process, totally fun to watch. From the camioneta I hopped onto a very full and large bus...one of the "vaya con Díos" ones I mentioned earlier. This time the bus was packed and full, I just focused on my destination, knowing I´d find respite there, and kept mopping my brow. The bus in Nicaragua, much like the RTD at home, is the most wonderful slice of sweaty, sweet, sticky, loud, bouncing life. Everyone rides the bus and everyone has different business to attend to. It´s a wonderful vantage point from which to watch humanity.

My next big trip was from León to Estelí. This was about a two and a half hour trip through country. By which I mean poorly paved, practically dirt roads, no cities, el puro campo...country. This was also quite possibly my most memorable experience so far. After first being led to believe that I was going to have to sit at this dusty, grungy bus station for about four hours waiting for a bus, I was thrilled to learn that I could hop a bus to San Isidro and catch the Estelí bus from there. I eyed a gringa halfway back and asked to share her seat, hoping for a nice visit along the way. Turns out she is Austrian, she thinks that means she´s not a gringa, I think todos los blancos europeos y nortamericanos son gringos, but no matter. We spoke spanish together, the one language we had in common, and became fast friends. It´s always nice to hook up with other travelers on the road, but it´s especially nice to find one with whom you have a lot in common and with whom you can practice your spanish, rather than fall back on your native tongue. ¡Saludos Simone, amiga mia! The bus was manned by three men, two of whom were barely 20, both cobradores and the driver, a bit more mature and stately fella. I knew the driver mostly from his eyes as they rolled upwards every so often to check his rearview. He wore a baseball cap backwards and a bit off kilter and chewed gum the whole way while playing DJ. One of the most important components of any road trip is the good music. This bus had the loudest, worst music I ever loved so much. We rolled out of the lot on our way, my compañera, the Austrian, singing along next to me...rising up, back on the street, took my time, took my chances...

I should mention here that one could never starve on a Nica bus trip since both at stations and along the way, various women and children climb aboard selling papas fritas, cold drinks, sweets, shredded cabbage, platanos, you name it. Sometimes you can even do business right out the window. All the food is homemade and fresh. Certainly the vendors sing along too, don´t they? ...Oh mother dear we´re not the fortunate ones, and girls they wanna have fu-un, oh girls just gotta have...Then there are the snake oil salesmen. I mean them no disrespect, but that´s what they remind me of. From what I gather, these men and women sell various herbal tinctures, creams, and pills, mostly to ward off various parasites, aches, and pains. They usually have some visual aids when it comes to the parasites, illustrations of the little guys, at which point I turn away and try not to listen. (I pray to El Señor everyday that I get out of this trip without any special guests). Many people buy from these guys, their products are cheap and surely effective for many complaints. This is the land of the curandera after all...We ain´t, we ain´t, we ain´t afraid of no Ghosts, Who you gonna call?...In between stops, at which various and sundry folks and their belongings come and go (chickens, puppies, huge sacks of rice, beans, and more, the two cobradores take turns hanging out up front with the driver and nestling in one of the back seats, flirting with the single young ladies aboard. They laugh and dance and sing along...Playing with the queen of hearts, knowing it ain´t really right, joker ain´t the only fool, who´ll do anything for you...In the meantime, when we´re not hurling across the country at a break-neck speed, we´re crawling and bumping along, while the driver swerves left to right and back again, negotiating the holes and rivulets in the road. Now I understand the gum and the loud music and the value of a good cobrador...And she knows just what it takes to make a pro blush, all the boys think she´s a spy,she´s got Betty Davis eyes...Just when I start to wonder what exactly would happen if our bus broke down, we pass a broken down bus. The driver´s and my eyes roll heavenward to have a word with El Señor. I think it makes us lucky, though, because what are the odds of two buses breaking down on the same road???? Anyway, worst case we´d spend the night in the middle of rural Nica gnawing on chicharones...the horror...I said do you speak-a my language? He just smiled and gave me a vegimite sandwich...Simone and I bounce and smile, certainly these people think we´re locas. She leans over and says that it´s like crossing through never-never land. She´s right...There´s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do, I bless the rains down in Africa...By now we each have our own seat. We´re talking less and watching the land go by. I think about the crazy ridiculousness of it all. Not that what goes on down here is ridiculous, but more that I´m able to plunk myself smack dab in the middle of it. And the ridiculousness of these old buses, which came from my youth and have put on hundreds of miles under grueling conditions, painted with beautiful colors and prayers and given names, filled to bursting with so many stories and so many voyages...I don´t want to live alone, but god knows I got to make it on my own, so baby can´t you see,I´ve got to break free...

My last bus story, for those of you still with me...Matagalpa, a city of about 125,000 in northern Nicaragua. Other than Managua, it´s the biggest city I´ve seen in Nica. The bus station is this huge dirt lot with a covered waiting area filled with people. There are vendors in fixed huts surrounding the station, plus lots of vendors walking around selling things like women´s panties, flavored waters, chiclets, chicken, mas y mas. I have lunch at one of the huts, a taquito type thing with repollo which is shredded cabbage and beets, topped with a cream sauce and chile, and I drink a bottle of coke. This is a busy station which serves the northern parts of this state. Many of the people here waiting probably live in the campo and are quite poor. They come to Matagalpa for provisions. Therefore the buses become loaded down with everyone returning home with their purchases. The cobradores hump HUGE sacks of grain on top of the buses which are now equipped with racks on top and ladders down the sides and back. There are mattresses, bushels of fruit and vegetables, furniture, farming equipment and supplies, and a baby goat in a grain sack (no joke). These guys move up and down the sides of the bus with these loads on their backs. They also deliver I learn, as we make several stops on the way out of town at various stores to load up boxes and packages. Anyway, I´m still waiting for my bus at the station, bound for Yucul, arriving around 1 or so. I watch several buses come and go, I watch the vendors, the people waiting. Every once in a while I ask after my bus. Some of the buses are in perfect condition, shiny and clean. Others look a bit worse for wear. One backs up to the waiting area, a particularly desparate case. It´s beat up and rusty, old. All but two of the rear lights (including reverse, break and taillights) are broken out and filled with mud. God, I hope that´s not my bus, I mutter under my breath. Of course that´s your bus, dummy. ¡Aye, Señor! I climb aboard, shove my pack onto the rack over my head, and settle in. The bus fills with more and more people all carrying more and more stuff. Vendors walk the aisles hawking their wares...I buy some kind of taffy carmelo treat...delicious. I watch in awe as the cobradores on the other buses load their burdens. Eventually we roll, stopping along the way to pick up more stuff. Our cobradores climb the bus like spiders up and over, on top and back down through the doors, both front and back, loading and unloading all while the bus rolls along. Sometimes they hop off and go buy a water or a snack from a street vendor and run back just in time to hop back up. More folks get on at stops along the way. I´m sitting three to a seat with a woman and her daughter. We´re rumbling along a narrow dirt road, uphill into the mountains. The whole proces defies any sort of reason and yet functions like a well oiled machine. Keep in mind the cobradores are collecting fares, calling stops, retrieving and loading packages all the while. Absolutely incredible.

I continue to be amazed and thrilled with just about every bus trip I take here in Nicaragua. I also continue to be amazed by the kindness and pride of the people who live here. I couldn´t ask for a more meaningful experience.

La Primer Semana

12 May 2006

I´ll apologize that my blog is missing such bells and whistles as photos, links, a more interesting graphic layout, but I´m a bit clueless with the technology and lack the motivation to figure it out, especially not now while I´m on the road. At least I know how to type and I will do my best not to bore ya´ll to tears with my stories.

While I am not foolish enough to forsake my country and the countless privileges it offers, nor am I naive enough to think that I could actually leave my country behind (mi patria follows me around like a little grey cloud), I will say that I found it to be especially satisfying that I exited the country from Houston, Texas, the home of our great leader,the Decider--GW. ¡Adios, tonto! I arrived in Managua, Nicaragua around 9pm on the 8th. There is nothing more intimidating than landing in a foreign country, alone, at night. Thankfully I made fast friends with another solo traveler, a woman from England who was returning to Nicaragua after a year in NYC. She was familiar with the so-called ropes and I followed her lead through customs and out the door to a hotel across the street. We enjoyed a cold beer at the patio bar of our lavish hotel...the likes of which I will not be seeing again on my trip, and parted ways. In the morning I took advantage of the breakfast buffet, packed my things and headed out to the highway in search of a taxi. In many ways, this trip is like a series of little leaps of faith, it´s like jumping off the high-dive, or out of a plane, or out of a lava tube into the ocean...your sensible self asks, what the f´in hell are you doing? While the less-sensible, more adventurous part of you says, tranquila, this is going to be fine. When I hopped in the back of a taxi on the highway outside the Managua airport and asked to be deposited at the bus station, I just sort of took a deep breath and hoped for the best.

Of course, as I´ve learned over and over this week, this is going to be fine. The people of Nicaragua are kind and generous, willing to suffer my insufferable Spanish, always wanting to visit, always eager to hear why I am here, why I chose Nicaragua, and what my plans are. And so here I am, spending my fourth day in Léon, about an hour and a half north of Managua. Léon was once the capitol of Nicaragua and is probably most well known as a Sandinista stronghold, having played a crucial part in the revolution during the late seventies and early eighties. (If you are unfamiliar with the Sandinista Revolution, I enourage you to take a bit of time to read up about it. Not only is it an incredible bit of Central American history, it is also a shameful piece of U.S. history). This was the reason that I came, but I learned that it has other great features. It has the third largest cathedral in Latin America (Peru 1st, Mexico City 2nd), an incredible art museum, a beautiful 19th century theater, is an hour from the Pacific, and is home to several different universities. I have met lots of people while here, including Camilo and Cesar, who gave me a tour of the theater (reminded me so much of the Gothic and the Bluebird) Ruth, a trabajadora in my hostel who has made me feel welcome, Salvadora who talked politics with me last night while I ate dinner, and Norman and Marta who gave me a walking tour of the city, which focused on landmarks important to the Revolution. I was going to leave two days ago but keep extending my stay as I find that the longer I´m here the more I discover and the more comfortable I become. I´ll stay through tomorrow, when I will take a day trip to the ocean and then I leave Sunday (for sure) to head north to the city of Estelí.

While I am enjoying myself immensely, and really starting to settle into this lifestyle, it has also been a difficult week. At times I am horribly lonely, wishing for nothing in the world more than home. It´s incredibly hot here...in the high 90´s and this gringa walks around like an old lady, constantly sopping sweat from her brow. It is always difficult at first to become accustomed to the food in a new country, since not only are you faced with trying to figure out who makes the good food versus the bad--the struggle faced my any kind of traveler, but you also have to try to figure out what everything is, how to order it, how to eat it, is it safe, etc, etc. Slowly but surely, I am getting better at choosing. It´s also good to find the market or the supermercado where you can buy some things that are more like home.

So here I am, in the middle of Central America, quite far from home in distance and very far from home in all other ways. Lots of people think I am crazy for doing this, myself included at times, but everyday day, several times a day, something happens which makes it worth it and makes me realize why I am doing it. I am doing it because I want to live more and fear less. I am doing it because I want to see with my own eyes how people other than my people live. I am doing it because I want to have a better understanding of the interconnectdedness between the U.S. and the other Americans with whom we share this hemisphere. And regardless of any of my intentions, for better or for worse, I am humbled. So much so that it´s even difficult to write all this down for fear of not being able to convey the reality of this experience. I will try to do so more in future blogs as the ideas settle in my brain a bit more.



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