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Published: April 11th 2009
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Granada
A beautiful city. Nineteen hours in a stiflingly hot, packed, unroadworthy chicken bus... hurtling along at ridiculous speed on pot-holed dirt roads... dealing with the chaos of Central American border crossings - first from Guatamala into El Salvador then Honduras brielfy before entering Nicaragua. Doesn´t sound too good, does it. We didn´t think so, so we flew. Nice little hour and a half where we didn´t fear for our lives at all.
As Ally mentioned in the last blog, Guatamala was tough. Incredibly rewarding experience, but confronting. Along the road we´d heard fantastic things about Nicaragua and we weren´t disapointed. We landed in the capital, Managua, and went directly to Granada, which is stunning. It was founded in 1524 and stands on the northwestern shore of Lake Nicaragua in the shadow of the Mombacho Volcano. The lake feeds into the Carribean via the Rio San Juan. The ease of access to the Carribean made Granada an easy target for pirates and it was attacked with some regularity back in the day (as were most Spanish settlements... the Spanish took the gold and silver from the indigenous population and English and French pirates took it from them). The Spanish colonial architecture is the best we´ve
Nica street kids
Little hustlers, having a ball. seen so far and the city has an amazing feel to it. It´s pretty hot though and on the shore of the lake is a big sign we couldn´t understand except for the picture of a guy in a toxic waste suit. We decided not to swim. The extreme heat encouraged us to move on the the Pacific coast and the surf town of San Juan del Sur. Now this is a classic remote Central American surf town, or at least what I imagined one to be. Really rough and ready... more Nicas (locals) than gringos (us), but still plenty of both. It seems Nicas come from miles around to swim, party, and literally sleep where they fall.
On our first afternoon we joined a fishing ¨booze cruise¨and hooked up with a bunch of Irish travellers. We didn´t catch anything as we were up the front of the boat with the Irish drinking while an American guy was down the back reeling them in. Good fun, and led into a great night.
The following day we hired a couple of surfboards and a local fisherman to take us exploring. To be honest the Pacific coast beaches we´ve seen aren´t that
Nicaragua fishing
Mike fishing, still not catching anything. great (although we are spoiled in Australia) but the coastline is spectacular and the water warm. Despite a small swell I managed to get a couple of waves and we caught some nice fish. It was a great few days.
At this stage of the trip Easter started to become a serious factor in our plans. Semana Santa (Holy Week, leading up to Easter) is huge in Central Amercia. It is perhaps their biggest holiday of the year and there are people moving everywhere. Accomodation gets expensive and difficult to find. With this in mind we decided to move a little more quickly through Nicaragua and Costa Rica, heading back to the Carribean coast for our entry to Panama.
I´m not sure how directly related it is to the religious significance of Easter, or whether it´s more a case of it being the dry season and the best time to holiday here. Central America has been a lot less religious and particularly less Catholic than I had expected. There are a lot of pentecostal churches and a lot of locals just don´t seem that into it. There are exceptions, like Antigua in Guatamala and Granada in Nicaragua which are very
Nica fishing
Ally, actually catching something big. Catholic.
In some areas the Maya have incorporated some Catholic teachings into their belief system. There is an interesting creation story the Maya have where the young Jesus and the old Jesus fight, until Mary intervenes and calms them down by climbing the umbilical cord to heaven - Jesus becomes the sun and Mary the moon (at least I think that´s how it goes). There is also a deity revered throughout the Guatamalan highlands who is a mix of Mayan Gods and the biblical Judas. Offerings are made, his favourite being good cigars and fine rum, although we´re told he´ll accept the lcoal vodka (I´ve tried it and it´s rough, really rough). Anyway, I digress.
As for our fast track to Panama, it´s a real shame we don´t have more time. I just don´t think you could travel through this part of the world and ever feel like you had enough time. It is so interesting and beautiful and there is just so much to do.
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