La la bamba

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Crossing the border into Nicaragua felt like a home-coming. The song “La Bamba” (yo no soy marinero...) was blaring out at the customs offices, next to a statue of the revolutionary hero Sandino. La Bamba was a theme song for us 23 years ago when we worked as “Sandinistas” on the cooperative. Within a couple of hours of being in Nicaragua we’d spoken more Spanish than we had during a week in Costa Rica. In the tourist towns we visited in Costa Rica people spoke flawless English and conversations were restricted pretty much to ordering food, arranging travel etc. Here in Nicaragua we haven’t yet met anyone who speaks English and conversations have much more substance. It is certainly stretching our language skills.

Our first stop was Granada; a beautiful city set on Lake Nicaragua with renovated Spanish colonial buildings. Traditionally Granada has been the stronghold of the conservatives. I mentioned the war (against the contra) once and unlike John Cleese didn’t get away with it. Andrew and I had a few Spanish lessons while Jackson played soccer with a local boy at our guest house.

We are now further north in Matagalpa. It is pretty much the opposite of Granada – noisy, crowded, untidy. It’s the centre for coffee production and along the highway coming into town are dozens of coffee processing companies. We remember Matagalpa as a much smaller, quieter town where we would come after months in the countryside living on rice and beans three meals a day. Our one and only stop in Matagalpa back then was a pizza restaurant which alas we have been unable to rediscover. We did however discover the CARE field office here in town so popped in and said hello.

Nicaragua is (thankfully) a very different country today compared to 23 years ago. Our first visit here was dominated by the war and the associated shortages and deprivation. Today, Nicaragua has all the signs of an emerging economy – reasonable main roads, economic activity, and fast food chains. Still the official statistics still place Nicaragua behind Haiti as the region’s poorest county – and some of the very obvious signs of poverty have come as a bit of a shock to all of us.

Tomorrow we are going to visit the cooperative we worked on 23 years ago – a mix of excitement and trepidation.

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