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Published: December 22nd 2008
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Hablas espanol? You better had if you come to Nicaragua as almost no-one speaks English. In a way it is a good thing as it is forcing me to practice the Spanish I´ve learned after a week of classes, and it gives Scott a chance to re-learn a language he was once fluent in.
Our first week in Nicaragua was spent in the cute little town of Granada. We arrived at 11:30pm in a taxi and was dropped off on the main tourist street, Calle la Calzada. The party was in full swing with a huge group of locals sitting at a long table which stretched for about two blocks, listening to loud latin music. We quickly checked into the first room we looked at and went out to join in the fun. As we walked along, there was a fire work display - a nice festive welcome! We sat at one of the outdoor bars and ordered a bottle of the decidedly un-Nicaraguan sounding Victoria beer. It comes in huge one litre bottles for less than $2, making even Thai beer seem pricey!
The next morning we went out to explore the town. Setting off along the now
quiet Calle la Calzada, I instantly noticed how colorful all of the buildings were. Even the huge central cathedral is painted a bright and cheery yellow. By 4pm that day I had signed up for 20 hours of Spanish classes.
For the whole week, I´d go off to class from 8am until 12 noon while Scott went to an internet cafe to look for jobs online. In the afternoons, we´d meet up. Somehow, we spent the whole time running errands such as buying bus and plane tickets for onward travels. Before we knew it, the week had flown by. It was time to hit the road and give the newly-learned Spanish a try.
Our next stop was Isla de Ometepe. Plonked in the middle of the huge Lago de Nicaragua, the island is made up of two volcanoes. One of them, the perfect cone of Volcan Concepcion, is still active and we could see smoke coming out of it once the morning clouds cleared. The island was very lush with tropical vegetation and had a back-in-time feel, with horses and ox carts being popular forms of transport. We only had one full day there so travelled around the
island on the big colorful public buses which are converted from North American school buses. We tried to find the beaches we´d read about but found that they were two feet under water due to rising lake levels, leaving the thatched beach umberellas sticking out of the lake comically. Instead, we ended up swimming at the immensely popular Ojos de Agua swimming hole.We ended the day with an ice-cold shower (not so nice) followed by an ice-cold beer and hot pizza (nice!)
So far, our impression of the Nicaraguan people has been great. Everyone is helpfuland friendly and very tolerant of my pathetic attempts at Spanish. We´re off to Costa Rica next. I hope the people there are just as nice. Adios until the next blog!
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