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Published: March 1st 2006
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Isla de Ometepe
sailing across Lago de Nicaragua. It wasn't possible to climb this volcano as recent seismic activity had had the summit closed to visitors. So we went up the one that forms the island's other half instead. So... a bus, a bike-taxi thing and another bus later and we were in
Nicaragua, a fascinating and lovely country with possibly the most interesting history of any country I've visited so far. A nation of proud, friendly people this place felt undeniably safer than many of its neighbours. This, despite me reading that, after Haiti, here is the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
The two main cities founded when the Spaniards came a-rapin' and a-pillagin' were Grenada and León. A number of factors made Grenada a rich colonial city attracting the wealthy elite, who brought their conservative political outlooks and Spanish beliefs in the strength of the monarchy and Catholicism, so it wasn't long before Grenada became the base for the colony's Conservative party. Meanwhile León attracted intellectual types and radical clerics who quickly formed the colony's liberal party there, and the Spanish declared here to be the province's capital in the early 17th century.
As a result of such differing political ideologies, a vast gulf in prosperities and León's political supremacy a tempestuous rivalry existed between the two that often spilled over into full-blown civil war. Eventually the Spaniards had had enough and in 1857 founded
With our Guide at the Top of Volcan Maderas
By the crater lake at the top of the Volcano. It rained so hard up there. today's capital in between the two, Managua, which is shit. Really shit. Please don't go. Not even to change buses.
More recent Nicaraguan history has been dominated by corrupt administations, endless coups and the Sandinistas. (Are you paying attention?)
During the 1930s, the leader of the recently formed Nicaraguan National Guard, a Conservative, Anastasio Somoza Garcia, masterminded the assassination of prominent liberal rebel Augusto Sandino, overthrowing the Liberal president a couple of years later and declaring himself - through fraudulent elections - leader. This began some four decades of an internationally notorious despotic family dynasty as family members replaced assassinated leaders.
Inspired by all of this, the Sandinista National Liberation Front -
the Sandinistas - formed, seeking to bring about an end to the Somoza dictatorship. Growing ever more popular (in the face of ever-rising opposition to the Somozas) the Sandinistas set about systematically kidnapping leading regime members, gaining ransoms and the releases of political prisoners. In 1979 the Sandinistas launched their final offensive from San José, Costa Rica with overwhelming public support, taking city after city, marching on Managua (shortly after Somoza resigned and fled) setting up a junta to administer the country.
Hey you
The girls juggling again.
Honestly, it's all they ever did... at the back! Sit up straight! As the Sandinistas looked more and more to consolidate their power in Nicaragua - and with a growing number of Soviet and Cuban advisors living in the country - Reagan's US administration suspended all Nicaraguan aid and began funding and arming the
Contras - counter-revolutionary military groups. Before long the Samozas responded by introducing conscription and by the late 1980's civil war and economic sanctions had once again crippled the country. A hastily called election in 1990, designed to wrong-foot the Contras by showing the public's support for Samoza surprised the government by taking power from them. The Contras disarmed, but the last 15 years have still been dogged with corruptions and scandals, and Nicaraguans remain divided over whether the whole Sandinista eipsode was a worthwhile experiment.sa
Woooooooooooah! Think I drifted off there. Maybe I should just get on with telling you what I got up to when I was there. Hmmm....
So first stop was
León. Spent about five nights having a great time here though not really getting up to all that much. Tried to visit a few museums but they were all closed when we arrived. Wanted to arrange
A street in Grenada
Not a great number of photos to choose from here, I'm afraid. a tour around the Flor de Caña (Nicaragua's main rum) distillery but the tour guide was away that week. Wanted to visit a nearby nature reserve but couldn't quite co-ordinate the buses in time. Toyed with the idea of visiting Old León (destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 1610) but it was a long way away and apparently rubbish, too. I'm pretty sure we managed to look around a Cathedral and also managed to spend a day going to check out some bubbling volcanic mud pools (imagine pools of mud. Now imagine them bubbling a bit. You got it!) but by and large I spent most of my time there going around with locals or gringos getting wasted. Who could ask for more?!
After our time in León, the girls and I moved south to
Grenada - another beautiful colonial city - where I reckon we achieved similarly little. The highlight might just have been visiting what my guidebook refers to as a 'must-see' museum, though frankly after that I felt cheated and betrayed and I still can't bring myself to rule out the possibility of legal action against Lonely Planet. Oh yeah, also saw that Peter Jackson's re-hash of King Kong. Should've been an hour long, actually went on for three, felt more like 10.
A bus and a boat later and we'd reached
Isla de Ometepe in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua. This is a cool little place. Lake Nicaragua covers about 7%!o(MISSING)f the country's area, is fed by some 45 rivers and is circled by volcanoes (Woo, Volcanoes, YEAH!!!). The island in the middle - Ometepe is formed by two adjacent, neatly conical volcanoes rising from the water each dotted with small villages around its base. Judging by the ubiquitous Abba, Wham and Band-Aid kareoke videos the entire island remains blissfully unaware that the 80s ever ended but its a lovely place to spend a few days.
The Danes were clearly a bit more earthy than me, so in an attempt to feign some kind of open-mindedness I agreed to check into Zopilote, a hippyish encampment seriously off the beaten track. The first thing I noticed was no mirrors in the natural cold-water shower cubicles, but this just made me more determined than ever not to grow a beard.
The place was actually quite nice really. We'd only checked in there cos Pastry had said she'd wanted to get closer to nature. A couple of hours later we'd hired bikes to cycle around the islandand she smashed her knee up flying full-pelt square into a pig.
Ohhh, how the irony tickled me...
The following day we went for a jolly up Madera, one of the island's volcanoes. It's actually a cool little thing that you climb up to the rim before descending inside, eventually reaching the large crater lake sitting in its middle. Because of the surrounding topography (ooh, check me!) the whole thing is often shrouded in thick cloud so you have to be quite lucky with the weather. We weren't - at all. It was the heaviest rain I'd seen for months and the paths up were absolutely gushing with rainwater. The visibility was down to maybe 30ft and the only time we bothered to smile was by the lake for the time it took for our guide to take a photo - not with my camera... obviously! - before we hastily began the long arse-slide to the bottom.
A few days later and we'd moved onto
San Juan Del Sur, a surfing hotspot in the southwest of the country. Set on a beautiful stretch of coastline full of stunning near-deserted beaches, this was where I'd planned to teach myself how to surf. Guess what? Flattest surf for months! So I spent most of my time taking boats out with a few guys and hanging out around different beaches, all of which was very nice.
Three nights more and I needed to get to Brazil. Finally leaving the Danish girls in peace I jumped on a bus to San José, Costa Rica to get me a plane ticket sorted.
Costa Rica knocked me for six; and all I did was spend two days in the capital! The people are so so nice and their smiles so warm and genuine; it's such a woozy pleasure talking with the fine women from this joint. Having successfully managed to fall nice and far behind schedule I was absolutely gutted to be bailing on Costa Rica after all of 48 hours, completely scrubbing around Panamá and saving Cuba for later - though hopefully not too much later. The girl in the travel agent's wouldn't sell me my ticket to São Paulo until I promised I'd go back and spend some more time in her country pronto. (Think Gary from Team America's "I promise... I'll never die!") But I'll definitely be back there soon.
And so my time in Central America had come to an end, and all I have left to console myself with seems to be eight more months cruising around South America, starting with Rio de Janeiro then Brazil's north-eastern capital of Salvador for all the fun of Carnaval. Oh well...
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Joe
non-member comment
Somozas
I thought Somozas were small pastry parcels filled with a mixture of vegetables, spices and sometimes meat. Are they tasty? Yes. Are they a triangle-shaped filler of a snack-gap? Yes. Could they ever have ruled a South American country? The jury is still out.