Gong Show

---

So last night I moved out of my other hostel and into the center of Leon. There are two main hostels here - Via Via and Big Foot and they are literally across the street from each other. These are pretty much the hostels to stay at if you are in Leon. Most people stay at one and then hang out at the other and vice versa.

The first night I hung out at Big Foot and was chilling with the owner who use to be a pro surfer but now he said he was too old so he bought the Big Foot hostal and just enjoys running it.

Thomas and I were having $1 mojitos all night and we met this girl who originally lived in the states but now teaches in Granada for the past 3 years, working with blind people and showing them how to massage people for a living. I thought about getting a massage but then realize there would be no way for me to communicate with them since I relied on my expert hand signals so much to describe things.

We had a pretty good chat and she went in detail of the safety of Nicaragua and how the average person only makes $100 a month, so people should be careful with their valuables. She then went on and told us that she had been robbed twice. Once in her apartment and the other time she was in a cab and someone pretended to get in but instead grabbed her bag and ran for it. She said this happens alot in Managau people getting robbed.

I was so use to walking around the streets of Nicaragua that ignorance became bliss and did not know it was that dangerous. Just to put icing on the kick, she told us this one time in San Juan, robbers stormed in a hostel and locked everyone in and robbed everyone and then left them in a field. Apparently the security guard got too scared and took off. All those scary stories only got us all worked up and made us drink more which probably had the reverse effect after 6 mojitos.

By this time the bar was closing at the hostel and the owner invited us to come out with him at this local bar so we tagged along. I had my bag with me and didn´t have time to leave it back at the hostel so it came along which probably wasn´t a good idea after hearing about how bad Nicaragua was at night. The night soon became a gong show. We met all these locals and they love to drink. Especially this one russian man I met in his 50´s that just kept ordering us Stoli´s. The bar was jam packed and the entire night I had forgotten that I left my bag under a table in plain site because I was too preoccupied with tring to figure out how to say doubles in spanish. There was salsa dancing and the locals were were singing on stage, and the place was just going off.

By 2am the bar was closing so someone threw the idea out there to hit this after party. I looked over at Thomas and we agreed it must be fate that wants us to go because my bag was not stolen and his nice umbrella was still there. We walked down the streets of the seedy parts of Leon and bums were all over the place with sketchie guys standing on the corner looking suspicious. I was telling Thomas my spanish sucks so much I only had a few worlds so if we got jacked and beaten up, all i can reply with was Hola gracias.

We finally got to this bar call Oxegen and outside was this local all bloodied up and looked like he just got kicked out from a fight. We were debating if we should go in but then someone gave us free drink vouchers so we had to get those.

Again we threw our bag and umbrella down and headed to the bar which was abit crazy. No one waits in line and everyone sorta strong arms one another to get a drink. By this time I was too tired and wanted to leave because we had to wake up early for Volcano boarding. I took a taxi home and they dropped me off at the park because the driver did not know where the hostel was. So great I had to B line it out of the park with all these sketchie dudes and went to my hostel. There was two guys sitting right in front of the door so I wasn´t sure if they were security or just bums. I went over and smelled urine so yup they were not security. I got nervous and for whatever reason good morning came out of my mouth. That must of confused them because they got out of the way. The door did not open but then why blame the door when I can blame the bartendar for serving me so many drinks. The two homeless dudes were nice enough to help me open the door to the hostel. Go figure.

---