Can I just start by saying that it is incredibly difficult for me to believe that I only have 17 days left in Costa Rica? That seems almost impossible. This trip to Nicaragua seemed so far away when we first arrived way back in January, and now it has come and gone, not unlike the rest of my time here. For a country that is so slow paced, the time here seems to move more quickly than in the States. Probably because I don’t want it to end.
For our trip to Nicaragua, we visited the city of Granada, which dates back to the 15th century. It is has a lot of European flair, and has a very unique and lively atmosphere. Horses are still a major means of transportation, the buildings are painted in bright colors and you can hear music everywhere you go. The best thing about it is that Granada is safe enough that women can walk at night in a group. You can’t do that in Costa Rica, or other parts of Nicaragua. In fact, you are told to walk instead of taking the cabs because they are likely to rip you off, or worse, try to rob you. So, we walked everywhere within the city, which was fine because it isn’t the biggest city.
On Friday we took a Tica Bus to Granada, which is basically a Greyhound. The ride was about nine hours, including our stop in customs at the border, which was very different from the border with Panama. That day there was a fundraiser going on for a local hospital or school or something and there was music and kids dancing. We didn’t really know how to feel about it, because the girls were between the ages of eight and 13 and they were dancing very provocatively in skimpy little outfits. It almost felt like prostitution, since they were doing it to raise money. Some of the acts weren’t as bad and were just traditional folk dancing, but for the most part, it seemed inappropriate by U.S. American standards. But, that is the culture they are growing up in; sex is everywhere and it’s completely machismo, or male-centric.
Finally around 3 p.m. we arrived at our hotel, Hotel Terrasol, which is a little boutique hotel owned by a gourmet chef from San Francisco and his wife, a baker from Costa Rica. The food there was amazing, as you can only imagine. It is a cute little hotel, well located about four blocks from the central park and main walking street of Granada. We had brought U.S. dollars to Nicaragua so that we could exchange it for the Nicaraguan currency, córdobas. The exchange rate is about 22 córdobas to a U.S. dollar. In order to exchange the money, we went to a bike shop. Yes, a bike shop. Apparently, you are less likely to get ripped off and you are more likely to get a better exchange rate there than at the bank. It wasn’t really just a bike shop and money exchange, though, that little store had everything, clothes, toiletries, jewelry, and pretty much anything else you could want except food.
The rest of Friday was spent wandering around the city of Granada and taking photographs of the beautiful Spanish architecture. We went to this gorgeous old church called La Merced to take pictures from the bell tower of the city at sunset. It was like a dream. You could see the entire city of Granada, and Lake Nicaragua. It was surreal, one of those things that you can’t really explain, and my pictures can’t do it justice. Sitting at the top of this centuries-old church and overlooking a beautiful city with mountains and volcanoes and lakes surrounding you. It sort of heals your soul. Of course, I have a deep-seeded, intense, irrational fear of heights and the spiral staircase (which had no handrails and was just completely open on one side) gave me a slight panic attack going up and coming back down. So I needed my soul healed when I reached the top, and to just take a deep breath when I safely made it back down. After exiting the church, we went back to the hotel to change and clean up - it is unbearably hot and humid in Granada; sweat begins to coat your body the minute you walk out of the air-conditioning – before going out to dinner at a restaurant called El Dario, which was beautiful. It was Caribbean Night there, and they had dancers for entertainment. I got pulled up by one of the dancers and I learned a few steps of a Caribbean traditional dance. After we ate an amazing meal – I had Jalapeño Chicken – we got pulled up by more dancers to dance and do the limbo. It was so much fun, but it drenched us in sweat once again. Totally worth it, though. We slept like babies that night.
On Saturday we started our day early once again with a wonderful breakfast of freshly home-made croissants (what is the point of staying in a hotel owned by a baker if you don’t get fresh baked goods?) before heading out on a completely full day. Saturday was our day of exploration; we started at 7:30 a.m. and didn’t return to the hotel for the day until almost 2 a.m. on Sunday. We went to the city of San Juan de Oriente to visit a ceramic making school where they use the 3500 year-old traditional methods of making ceramic pottery. The only modern technology used is shoe polish as the final polish and bike spokes for sketching on the pottery. They use natural paints, foot-powered pottery wheels, clay kilns, and stones for polishing the paints. We couldn’t watch them process a specific pot because it takes 15 days, but we saw pieces at each step. After we were walked through the school, Lacy, Chris, Toya, and Catie each tried to use the pottery wheel and realized that it is a LOT harder than it looks. Of course Chris could do it perfectly because he had taken a class on it that none of us were aware of, but the others struggled a bit. We all bought a bunch of pottery because we knew we were going to get the best price there and because if you’re going to buy something like that, you might as well buy it right where it is made from the people who made it. They had a traditional, ceremonial sword there made out of genuine cow-skin leather and bull penis. Yes, the blade was made out of dried, stretched bull penis. Talk about a shocker; everyone had wanted to hold it until they found that out.
After we left San Juan de Oriente, we went to Masaya Centro and explored the central park and a few plant nurseries and small fruit markets on our way to the Apoyo Lagoon lookout point. Apoyo Lagoon is considered a sleeping volcano, and is surrounded by tropical dry forest. From the look out, you can see the lagoon and Lake Nicaragua and Granada in the distance. There are also little shops lining the lookout where you can buy souvenirs, which we did, because everything is pretty cheap in Nicaragua. After the lagoon, we drove through the city of Catarina to see the artesian neighborhood. It was very interesting, because almost every home was also a family-owned factory of some sort. You’d look in the doorways and see people weaving hammocks or making shoes or saddles. According to our tour guide, David (who was amazing, by the way), Catarina is one of the most self-sufficient cities in Nicaragua because of its artesian roots.
Around 12:30 we stopped for lunch in Masaya at one of the markets, the one more directed towards tourists that was more of a souvenir market. It was a maze of little stands selling a plethora of different objects, some normal (like clothes and t-shirts and ceramics) and some strange (like baskets made out of taxidermy chickens). We spent about two and a half hours there, and I got almost my entire souvenir shopping list done for my whole trip; I only have one person left on my list to buy for and I finally know what I am going to get that person. I bought myself some gifts too, including a Nicaragua baseball t-shirt because I love baseball and it is the number one sport in Nicaragua. It is red, and I enjoy it. Catie bought a matching orange one. She is brave to wear the color orange. After we finished up at the souvenir market, we went to the real market in Masaya just to make a comparison. We wouldn’t have lasted long in there, it was very claustrophobic and hot and smelly. I saw more poorly-done taxidermy on this trip to Nicaragua than I have ever seen in my entire life, and that includes all of the trips I did in elementary school to 1000 Islands Nature Preserve in Wisconsin. At least their taxidermy is well done, so it’s not as creepy. I bought a rope hammock for five dollars at that market, though, which is a pretty good price. I’m thinking of stringing it up in my apartment next year, but I need to figure out how to do it.
The day closed at Volcan Masaya national park. We walked through the museum to get a bit of history on the volcano before visiting the crater. Masaya is a very active volcano, located near Nicaragua’s capital city, Managua, and any real eruption would put the city in danger. It is constantly spitting fumes made up of carbon monoxide and dioxide, sulfur, lead, and other various harmful toxins. Masaya Volcano is considered the number one natural pollutant in Nicaragua. The indigenous people of Nicaragua used to throw human sacrifices into the volcano from a cliff until the Spanish came to the country and forced Christianity onto them. Now, there is a giant cross that sits on that cliff that the Spaniards put there to exorcise the evil spirits from the volcano. We climbed to the cross’ lookout point and also to the highest point of the ridges to get some more beautiful, sweeping views of Nicaragua’s lakes and craters. Then we were fitted with helmets and flashlights for a night tour of the lava caves, where we got to see a bunch of bats – which was awesome because I have always loved bats – and walk through one of the underground caves that was formed by slow moving lava. The same cave was used during one of the civil revolutions of Nicaragua as a hiding place for the people fighting for the freedom of the Nicaraguan people.
Despite our mental and physical exhaustion due to the heat and waking up early two days in a row, after an amazing dinner at the hotel made by the owner (who I previous mentioned is an ex-gourmet chef) we went up to our rooms to get ready to go out dancing. Our first stop was an Irish pub for Macua, which is a Nicaraguan drink made out of rum and some sort of fruit juice, and then we went to a salsa bar to go dancing. We didn’t stay long, though, because it was a million degrees in the bar and we were all exhausted. Somehow, we still were out until 2 a.m. because we didn’t even get to the salsa bar until close to 12:30. We were slap happy by the end of the night, and you could tell because the sarcasm was dripping almost as heavily as our sweat.
Sunday was a little bit more leisurely, we didn’t leave the hotel until 9:30 a.m. after another breakfast of croissant, coffee, fruits, and home-made jam. We went to a chocolate museum and had this wonderful cold coffee drink made with real cacao. Then, around 11:30 we were back at the hotel to meet up with my friend Brigid, who also goes to Carthage and is currently studying in Managua. She spent the whole day with us. We sat and talked in the air-conditioned hotel for a while and then we went to lunch at this wonderful little soda restaurant that had really good food. But, we were running out of time before our boat tour of the islands of Lake Nicaragua, so we had to take our food to go. Luckily, I ordered a chicken kabob so it was pretty easy to eat on the walk back to the hotel.
The island tour was a lot of fun. Brigid had done it before, but she still enjoyed it because she was with new people and we did a few new things. We visited a pirate island hold with a building that dated back to 1784. It was really cool to be in a building that had withstood so much for so long. And it was cool because it had to do with pirates, and pirates make everything cool. Even scurvy. Our guide told us that you can buy an empty private island in this area for $100,000 USD. We all decided that that would be awesome. You can buy a fully furnished one for $500,000. I think it’s worth the investment. We also saw Monkey Island, which is a small little plot of land where a batch of spider monkeys lives. They were cute and came right up to the boat, which I enjoy but I can’t decide if it is necessarily a good thing that they have lost all fear of humans. It’s the same as the monkeys in Manuel Antonio or Montezuma, it is wonderful that they come right up to you because you can take pictures, but it really isn’t good for them. We also stopped at a little island with a bar on it for drinks before heading back to shore. Janiva ordered coconut juice and she drank it straight from the coconut, which is how it is almost always served in Latin America. We also taught Brigid the basic steps to the salsa. Another one of those days that makes you feel at peace with where you are and you stop thinking about what responsibilities you have waiting for you and you get to sincerely just enjoy the moment and the people you are with.
Brigid had to go back to Managua after we got back to shore, so she didn’t get to join us for dinner. I was sad to see her go, but we had had a great day. That night we went to Mona Lisa Pizza for dinner. Catie and I split a pizza that was half Mexican Pizza (hot peppers and bacon) and half Salmon and all white sauce. It was interesting. Catie preferred the salmon, and I preferred the Mexican, which worked out well, but we both tried both halves. We ate a slow dinner (that was actually brought out to us in record time) and watched the street performers before going back to the hotel. That night we all gathered in Toya, Catie, and my room to watch The Parent Trap on Disney in Spanish. It was awesome. Another night where we were all a little slap happy and giggly like girls can be.
After listening to Brigid talk about her experience in comparison to my own, I realized how lucky I am. She doesn’t necessarily get along with her whole group, but I feel like my group gets along very well despite our differences. We desire to spend time together and make a point of doing it. We support each other and respect each other. And we are sincerely going to miss each other when this semester is over. I’m also lucky to have my host family, who loves me and goes above and beyond to make me feel comfortable and like I am part of the family.
Finally it was Monday, and none of us were quite ready to leave, but we all agreed that we missed Heredia. It has really become home to us. We wandered around Granada a little more, trying to finish any last minute souvenir shopping before heading over to the Chocolate Museum again for lunch – they have a wonderful buffet that ends at noon. Our lunch was a little too relaxed, and we ended up having to hustle over to the bus stop to get there in time to check in before our bus left for Heredia. The bus showed two and a half movies, all of Alice in Wonderland (which they paused with about 30 seconds left when we had to get out at customs because God forbid that we miss that last 30 seconds of Alice in Wonderland), the last hour of Avatar (please explain to me why on a 9 hour drive they would take a good, 3 hour long movie and only show the last hour of it), and all of Alien vs. Predator (which I didn’t pay any attention to). Catie and I talked almost the entire way and shared my Zune and serenaded the bus like obnoxious gringas. But we had fun, and tried to stay quiet. We decided that bus ride could choose to not end if it wanted. But it did, and we finally got home around 10:30 p.m. on Monday.
This week we have a traditional cooking class on Thursday and Poas Volcano on Friday. Also, on Friday night we are having a big goodbye party at La Birreria with all of our Costa Rican friends. Everyone is invited; it will be interesting to see who all shows up. Other than that, not a whole lot this week. Every blog post gets harder and harder for me to write because I keep realizing how few I have left to post. I leave two weeks from Saturday, and I can’t help but feel a little terrified. I’m going home to some losses, and it scares me because I have been able to avoid it for so long. The 23 of April seems to just be a date, looming on my calendar and in my planner, daunting me. Luckily, it is Easter weekend so a lot of my friends and my family will be home so I will be distracted right away. But I know, as hard as it may be, I have to go home.
Well, on that note, until next time.
Pura Vida.
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