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Published: September 14th 2007
Mono
We saw dozens of monos like this little guy just steps from our lakeside hotel.Nica, Nica, Nicanotgonnastaytoolong. Well, let me start off by saying that I wholeheartedly realize that we most likely did not give this country as much of a chance as we should have.
We arrived in Managua to a super sketchy one block walk with a bunch of dudes running after us from the bus stop to our hotel. The "receptionist" quickly unlocked about 4 metal gates and let us in. She told us that we could walk a half block to get some food (which strangely enough was an Irish pub where I had a delicious Guiness), but that we could not walk any further or we would be mugged. Interesting way to start the trip. Needless to say, we quickly got out of Managua the next morning and headed to Granada. Granada was another really pretty colonial town on the edge of Lago Nicaragua. We spent about 4 days here relaxing and milling around town. We enjoyed many a Tona (local cerveza) to keep cool. It is pretty amazing how many Americans live in that town. There were even American sportsbars there.
A funny story: Because litter is such a huge problem for Nicaragua as well as all
Ometepe
The Nahuatl words Ome = two and Tepetl = mountain, meaning two mountains (volcanoes). of the other countries down here, Rotary Intl organized a huge trash cleanup on the beach in Granada. About 200 kids from the nearby schools spent the day picking up all of the trash. At the end of the day, the local english newspaper reported that at the end of the day the kids took off their plastic work gloves and tossed them onto the beach. Ironic, but at least there was a step in the right direction with the cleanup.
We hopped a schoolbus south to meet up with a ferry to the large volcanic island that is in the middle of the lago. Our ferry barely passed my seaworthiness test and we hopped on. A really great sight was watching some Nicas unload a bunch of huge pigs from a little boat and up a ramp to an awaiting pickup. The pigs were flipped out of the boat and then wacked up the hill with a twig to the pickup. The pig was then flipped by its back legs into the back of the truck. The great part of all of this was watching all of the dreadlocked hippies on our boat welling up and looking for
Our sweet ride
The vessel that barely passed Trev's sea worthiness test. Don't worry, we had lifevests. a phone to call PETA. This aint home, boys and girls.
The island was really beautiful and had a great nature reserve that Liz and I spent some time hiking in. We came across a troop of howler monkeys that were pretty curious what we were up to. We spent some time sizing each other up and then had some howls at each other. In the end they won and we moved on. It is really cool to run across wild monkeys! We decided to skip on over to the beaches of Costa Rica instead of staying any longer in Nicaragua. Our school bus to the border was as crowded as any bus we have been on yet and included many delicious odors of "life"!
P.S. Our camera is no longer working, so the pics included are some that we stole from websites. We bought a throwaway camera and are thinking we will buy a new digital in a few days.
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The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. -- Saint Augustine (354-430)