The Whole Nacatamale

(Or Zen and the Art of Waiting)

I thought I should describe our Nicaragua trip in detail, mostly because it is one of our last but important piece of our Central American puzzle. There are no glitzy posters like that of Costa Rica or has colorful villages like that of Gautemala, Mexico or Panama or coral reefs like Belize or Mayan ruins that in Honduras. Locals wonder why you are there. Some even inquired if we were missionaries. Summary: Nicaragua is a wonderful place to explore (big surprise, has there a place we haven’t liked so long we are going somewhere?) The volcanoes and lake vistas are dramatic, colonial places pretty, the cloud forests are pristine, the price is right, the carrots are sweet, but what stands out is the personality of the people who have endured a long civil wars and interventions (click on this or the title to view the photos). All packers I have met seem to agree. It takes a long time to order food since everything is freshly prepared and the cook will even ask you how you want it -- even in big cities. That was our universal experience. Not everything is perfect however. It is the poorest in Central America and doesn’t hide that fact well. The Contra war in the 80s had a devastating economic and human toll and Hurricane Mitch added to the injury. Besides Granada the infrastructure of the country is quite poor. Buses may exist, but you may get the connection tomorrow. The roads are work in progress and traffic on both sides contend for the little critical piece of undamaged road. Little children will sometimes wander into the restaurant and ask you to buy them food or point food they want to eat from your plate. It is possibly one of the remaining places where Lonely Planet hasn’t covered the region. And the only good guidebook available is more of a political commentary written in 80's ("Not another guidebook to Nicaragua"). The most critical portion of our trip besides experiencing the country was also to keep our kids sterilized especially 5 month old Anav who is in the phase of putting everything in his mouth and smiling at strangers who want to pick him and hug him. Nevertheless both the kids had a safe journey. If you order juice, you must insist on no ice (visit the kitchen if possible). If there is some salad on the plate, discard it or inquire when it was cut. In general the Nicaraguans are also very health conscious. They will volunteer to cover food for you from flies. Reena became an expert at breastfeeding on the road and with our little pouch it was quite convenient. All in all, the kids were never the problem. It was mostly in our ability to handle the logistics with flexibility and no matter where we were, we never felt stranded.

We stayed in Granada for the longest time and made it our first base. It was the best considering we had to juggle kids and packing and everything. It does compare to Antigua with its earthquake destroyed churches and its backpacker atmosphere. Our hospadaje was roomy and had a nice courtyard for kids to play in. Granada has good selection of restaurants and night life. One notices is that it is hot all over the plains, even in December and wonder what it would be in the summer seasons. The central plaza is active till late in the night. It sits on the edge of Lago Nicaragua (Coqibolca) the largest freshwater lake (and the only place where fresh water sharks are found) in Central America. We spent the first few days exploring the city, the museums, churches and cathedrals. There were processions both marriage and other festivities. Managua is a 45min express van ride. Visited the central plaza (Plaza de la Revolucion, as we found every central plaza in Nicaragua was called that) its natural history museum and landed up walking into one of their big malls in search of food. Westernized style malls has been pretty much been adopted in Managua in the 1990s (Payless shoe stores to Nordstrom). Subsequent days: We also hiked up one of the nearest volcanoes,.Mombacha and the view of the lake and surroundings was gorgeous. Visited one more active volcano at Masaya and swam in a crater lake (Laguna de Apoyo). Places such as these are a treat for the kids. Bottled water is not easily available, but Coca-Cola is. On Friday there was a nice dance festival in the main plaza in Granada with dance and festivities mostly for local consumption. In the evenings we would board an open air dance bus with blaring music (the local dating scene) or ride a horse carriage ride where Amal handled the horse reigns on the beachfront. The first day we were recommended a pancake breakfast from Nica Buffet, a German owner and it turned out to be so delicious we visited it for all the 8 days we were in Granada. Granada is also known for its fight the citizens put up against William Walker, a Texan who appropriated the country with a bunch of mercenaries and proclaimed himself the president in 1856 (as was quickly recognized by the US). He burnt down Granada and later tried to takeover a few more countries wherein he ran into conflict with the British and was executed in Honduras.

Dec 26th we went to Isla de Ometepe. There was no direct service to Rivias the nearest port so we ended taking a bus to Nadiame and hope that we would get a connection on the main highway. After an hour of waiting we decided to take flag down the next taxi. The driver was completely drunk from the party the night before. He hugged his steering wheel, swerving wildly in both directions and missed going off the road. I kept asking him to concentrate on the road. 15 minutes later, at a police checkpoint we got off and asked the police to arrest him. The police unfortunately did nothing. Instead asked me to pay the driver, which I refused and asked their badge numbers and they in turn asked for our passports. Eventually we ended up paying and luckily boarded the bus to Rivias to San Jorge for the ferry. Isla de Omentepe is an island with two beautiful volcanoes. The beach at San Jorge was filled with locals taking the day off. The ferries mostly taking trucks filled with plaintain bananas, we found a boat and one coming back before dark. The town was shut. But we found a taxi who took us to our hotel in Granada for $20.

We spent one day in Leon and Leon Viejo. One of the earliest new world civilization, Leon Viejo (a world heritiage site) was destroyed by earthquakes from a nearby Momotombo volcano which towers over it. The new city about 30km away was a hotbed of Sandanista territory during the Contra times and the murals don’t hide that. There are beautiful churches and it has the biggest cathedral in Latin America and an interesting museum of the revolution, chronicalling the Sandina and the Contra times and its violent past. From the 22 years that US marines occupied Nicaragua (in the wake of the removal of an earlier dictator Santos Zelaya, occupation was under the Monroe doctrine) to the rise of General Sandino, the overthrow of Somoza and the subsequent Contra movement financed by the US, the reality of which was driven home by the shooting of an US citizen by the Contras and the Iran-Contra scandal. Chiapas and San Cristobal, Mexico is possibly the other place where the Latin revolutionary spirit seems so alive in its regular culture. In 2004, the FSLN (a remorphed Sandanista party) won seats in ALL but 2 of the municipal elections (and in Granada by a few dozen votes), the US sending signals against FSLN for the national elections as was the visit by Powell and Rumsfield to the country mid last year. Leon Viejo is interesting. It took us a couple of buses to get from Leon. The site can be covered with a (mandatory guide, Spanish only) in about 45 minutes. It is located on the outskirts of the small town of Mamotambo, a 20 minute bus ride from La Paz Centro, which is accessible by frequent buses from Leon or Managua. There had been fewer than ten visitors in the past three days according to the guest register. It is a very hot and humid location but it is well maintained. Especially interesting are the cathedral, a massive stone structure, given the overall size of the settlement and the governor's house, the layout of which is still the norm in nearby Leon. Plaster casts of the founders, one of whom killed the under, lie together under the cathedral vault. Monuments to the Spanish rulers and Indians who rose in revolt against them attest to the brutal, bloody history of the settlement. There an old fort and the climb to the top offered a stunning view of the nearby volcanoes and the lake.

We took a day break and shifted our base to Managua a wonderful little Hospedaje with all sorts of birds and parrots and even a monkey on the loose a treat for Amal and Anav. From Managua, we took a trip to one of the beautiful parks of the region, Miraflor near Esteli. You realize quite quickly from the graffiti, this is Sandanista country. The area is known for its coffee and also progressive agriculture. After Somoza was removed, the Sandanista reform policies gave land to the peasants. Now almost every farmer owns his land and the region touts sustainable agriculture method in all of Latin America. The half hour bus ride to the entrance of Miraflor took us almost 2 hrs. It is a cloud rain forest and possibly the only comparison is what Monteverde in Costa Rica would have been 50 years ago. We met no one in our hike. It was a little chilly and rainy and we could hear a stream and we kept climbing in that direction. We met a compesino at one clearing near his hut. Where would we find any place to stay? There was sufficient place in hut, he said What about food? We have food in our kitchen he said. It reminded me of winter/monsoon treks in the Sahyadris at IIT. It was never too hard to find shelter and food if you knocked on someone’s house. We were trying to get to La Rampa we told him and he pointed to exactly the opposite direction we came from. So we headed back. An hour later we met a few kids and they said La Rampa was in the opposite direction we came from. Fustrated, we headed back to the place where the returning bus would stop. The bus was an hour late (during the time we had second thoughts of taking up the campesinos offer). We managed to get the last bus back to Managua.

The final four days we spent in Corn Islands an hour and half flight away from Managua. There are no roads from the west to the east. Flight is the only option. (possibly a bus ride and a ride down the river Rio Escondido was an option but we would have taken 3 days off our plan) We burnt off our illegal xmas fireworks we had accumulated over the days but the security still objected to Amal’s dangerous slingshot. The ride was smooth. Every passenger and every baggage was carefully weighed before we got in. Perhaps that was the reason why our lugguage came in separately three hours and three flights later. The lights were off at the airport and it was raining heavily. We went to the north shore and while Reena and kids took shelter in a local shop. I serendipitously happened to ask a local if there were any place to stay. She took me to a bungalow right on the ocean and asked me if $15 was ok for me. The rain continued for the next day or so. We discovered some nice food hangouts and good beaches. The snorkeling on the island was not good because the visibility was quite poor. The flight back to Managua hopped at Bluefields a small port town and a 8hr flight back to San Jose via Miami.

* Although gallo pinto (literally “painted rooster”) is the standard fare, there are The Nacatamale, a combination of cornmeal, pork, rice, potato, onion, tomato and green pepper packed in a banana leaf and boiled or steamed, is considered Nicaragua’s national folk food. On the pacific almost every salsa or curry is mixed with bananas or plaintains. At a local bus market I bargained for what I thought was 50cordobas (0.30cents) for one banana and it turned out that I was bargaining for a whole bunch.