Leon

This blog is kind of going to backtrack a little only because I forgot to mention previously that due to the swine flu pandemic they had each person walk past a heat sensing camera before immigration to check for high fevers. Luckily I made it through, and after stopping by the internet cafe and exchanging dollars for cordobas (20 to 1) I finally braved the taxi stands outside the airport.

I was immediately latched onto by a driver who wanted to charge me 12 dollars for the trip from the airport to Managua. I said I wanted to go to Mercardo Israel Lewites and he was like where are you going, Leon, then I´ll take you to UCA (ooka) for 12, so instead of going to the bus terminal and catching the expreso bus up to Leon, I end up following this man down to the parking lot at the airport (at least his car had the red taxi plates) and getting dropped off at the mini bus terminal. Where all the drivers stand around waiting to fill up the minibus before they leave for their destination. Luckily it only took about 15 minutes of the drivers belting out AleonAleonAleonAleonAleon to draw enough people over and fill the bus up. No A-C but the windows were open so the heat wasn´t too bad. We drove out of Managua, through traffic that was mostly cars and motorcycles instead of the scooters that are so popular in southeast asia. The traffic also includes a fair amount of horse and cart combinations that I attributed to the Spanish colonial influence. We drove up through a valley surrounded by green and rolling mountains that are very different from the Karst scenery I was used to seeing and within half an hour I saw my very first volcano. This volcano mocked me for the next half an hour as I tried to take a picture of it out of the van window and across some sleeping womans lap, and managed to snag pictures of Lago de Managua, trees, random trucks full of trees, more trees, powerlines, etc. Everything except the giant volcano that was literally dominating the sightline to the right of the van - it was like a freaking vampire volcano, clearly there but vanishes in photographs. Eventually I persevered and captured it on film and then immediately fell asleep for most of the rest of the ride, waking only when the small child on my left stuck his hand into my armpit and started tickling me. I caught a ride with a taxi to the Bigfoot hostel from the minibus terminal and checked in for a night in a dorm room, unlike the first taxi driver who I had managed to hold a very short conversation with (along the lines of theres a fiesta in Managua right now for Santo Domingo their patron saint, and how nice some of the other cities are and how he would drive me to Leon for 80 us dollars) I didnt understand a single word that came out of this mans mouth and after I paid him he just kept standing there talking to me while I made what I thought were ¨i dont understand you¨ faces.

This afternoon I spent wandering around Leon in fairly oppressive heat, visiting a ton of very nice looking churches, parks, etc and trying not to trip on the broken pavement since my foot is still on the mend. Tomorrow I hopefully will spend the morning volcano boarding on cerro negro and then the afternoon at las penitas and if I can figure some way to get to Grenada tomorrow evening I´ll head there.

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