Medio Quemado

After a day of traveling by old school buses, boats, and rickity taxis, I have made it back to Granada. Without realizing it along the way, I must have been sitting on the same side of each means of transportation, because as I just dipped into the mini pool in my hostel, one side of my body, I find is completely burned and the other in good shape.

But before any more details about the here-and-now, I feel some backtracking is in order. As I had mentioned, while the students at Ak'Tenamit are on vacation for Semana Santa (Easter), I would head off to Nicaragua. I have finally just had some time to reflect on some of the past days goings-on and am quite pleased to report back on the range of these events from some good and bad, some that went right and others wrong, and some that are just plain bizarre. And it is there we will begin...

Before reading this anecdote, one must understand that I am still unsure to whether it is dream or reality, and for that it should be read with a grain of salt. Background: Guatemala offers a 90-day tourist visa. April 3rd I got back from a three-week trip to the States and therefore was granted a new visa. Introduction to 17-hours on bus from Guatemala City to Managua: In order to prepare for the ride, I took sleeping pills, and because they had expired decided to up the dosage and take two. One, we can now safely say, would have done the trick. My memory reports back the following: One of the employees of the bus company wakes me up at the El Salvadoran border demanding the payment of a fine of some 300 Q or $40. I don't know too many people who react well being stirred from their sleep, especially for demands of ludicrious payments. The drugs in my system were just an added bonus. Lacking the ability of words and thought processing, I stared dumbly until I could shake into some state of relative consciousness. It eventually dawned on me that they were probably referring to the aforementioned visa and merely struggling to find my newly acquired stamp. Be it in my dream or reality (that I will never know) - I showed them the stamp and fell back into a deep sleep - or was never out of it to begin with.

My day began in both Managua and Granada with tours from boys from the street. In Managua they boys explained to me the history of the old cathedral, National Palace and a local park. They children blew me away with what seemed like endless knowledge of their city and shared it with such pride. All day, people had been telling me to steer clear of such children who lurk around, and that they are "robbers," "cheaters," and in general were up to no good. When I asked my "tour guides" about this, they conceded that some boys were exactly those things - mostly out of necessity. My guides went on to say they felt it unfair, however, that most gringos stayed at a distance and even went to great lengths to avoid their paths all together. In exchange for their services, I gave each a quetzal (the Guatemalan currency) as a memory of our interaction. That was Easter Sunday and each of the three gifted me a little art sculpture made from banana leaf. Great kids.

After we parted ways, I headed off to the new cathedral to see how the people of Nicaragua were celebrating Jesus. It seemed though that most Managuans had headed out of town and I soon followed suit. In Granada, my guides new much less about their city, but were sweet and helped pass the time as I tried to get my bearings in a new city.

Granada led me to a Canadian woman who told me she was "doing business." She used the word so non-chalantly as if one would have no difficulty in understanding. Over our conversations to come, I learned that she, her brother, and another guy had started a business with the intention of buying property and "developing" it. Six properties later she claimed a successful trip. When I asked what they planned for their business, she said there was still debate within the "partners" and that the land would need 15 years until ready for whatever might come in the future... She then ranted about what awful steps the new government had taken to prevent foreigners from purchasing land in Nicaragua. We back-and-forthed for a bit about colonization, outsiders buying up and pillaging local resources without giving anything back. These ideas had not been points of concern thus far, she told me and they would cross that road when it presented itself. Clearly this was not the most pleasant way to start my re-immersion into hostel life.

After a day in Managua and one in Granada, I headed off to las Islas de Ometepe. Tagging along with a British guy I met, my adventures carried on at El Zopilote - an ecological hotel. Environmental consciousness is at a high and natural beauty is its rival. A couple days ago I hiked Maderas, the smaller of the island's two volcanoes. Size is such a relative concept, as "smaller" in this case is still a 6 km hike to an altitude of 1400 meters, so give me a break. Our group was composed of the Brit and a woman from New Zealand. We got up in a little more than 4 hours and with how I felt the day after, I believe it to be one of, if not the hardest hike I have ever done. There was no lookout from the top, but a climb down into a crater with a beautiful lake at its center. At this spot we relaxed for a little more than an hour, and ate homemade bread and jam to build our energy back up for the trek down. It was breath-taking... on many levels. Upon our descent we took a wrong turn and at some point, it dawned on all three of us that we were not on the parth which we rose. Carrying on, we eventually (3 hours or so later) came out into a banana field in the backyard of our hotel. It worked out perfectly and were greeted back with a great pizza dinner. A great meal to end a great day.

(Pictures of volcano hike and other highlights to come...)

So now I am back in Granada for the night, only stopping through to split the journy from the islands to Leon. There I hope to get a better feel for the Nicaraguan political scene of which I have heard so much. Hoping that the world is well and that the pirates stay out of this part of the world :)

With love,

Jesse