A Few More Days
I am now at the beach. Yay!
I drove from Esteli, into the Reserva Natural Tisey-Estranzuela with a hitch-hiker, took some pics, returned to the highway. The only thing notable about the “reserva” was the miles of uni-stone road leading up to it. I then went past San Isidro, Sebaco, Tipitapa by Lago de Managua, through Managua the capital (only having to ask for directions once and had an escort to the road out by a guy who drove taxi and also refused payment because he had been lost so many times in the states and was returning the favour), onto El Crosero which has absolutely incredible views (which also is the turn I needed and isn’t even on my map, thanks again to the the taxi-driver), and to the coast on 35 km of terrible road towards Pochomil.
El Crucero
Pochomil is one of the main vacation destination of Nicaraguans, by the way, and you can ride hoses down the wide flat beach, or rent a quad, or if you really want you can drive your car like a maniac down the beach doing donuts in the sand. Other people do it, why not tourists?
Ok, kidding, I didn’t do that. But others do.
First off, a little bit about Nicaragua. The PanAmerican Highway rocks! This piece of road is smooth as glass, wide, lots of passing lanes, and winds through the mountains as if it was a game. The rules of the road have now changed. Here, the pedestrian has the right of way again. There is none of this jumping out of the way of traffic, you just stroll across the road. Wherever. There is no speeding here, unless you are following an inter-city bus like I was, and taking the cues from him (gotta love that Canadian flag in my back window). When you go through a little pueblo it is 45 km/h, no more! It seems as though people actually respect the lines in the road and general road markings. I was stunned, and had to relearn everything I had unlearned. The TV last night (a rare addition) had about 15 channels in English, some with Spanish sub-titles. This place is North -Americanised for sure. There don’t seem to be as many mangy dogs around, a lot of people will speak English to you after you talk in Spanish for a while, Managua (from the highway)reminded me of Vegas in places, and I have entered the world of BUGS. No mosquitoes to talk of, but BUGS. Also, Nicaraguan Spanish is a little different than what I learned in Guatemala. That is to be expected, but they all speak so fast here I often have to ask them to slow down, and then they throw in a work that is an absolute mystery to me. Good thing I still have the dictionary. I haven’t had to pull that thing our for quite some time. I will need it as I am told that people in Costa Rica speak even faster.
There must be a lot of Yankees here because I saw dozens of bikes heading up the other way, and not little putt-putts either. Full bore Harley’s, open face and flyin’. I was green with envy. Twenty-six degrees, nice breeze, little or no traffic in most places. Perrrrfect.
Ok, so it was nice to plunk my feet bank into the Pacific again, but this hotel, the Hotel y Restaurante Alta Mar, sucks ass. Excuse me for being frank, but the only good thing about this place is where it is. There is nothing to do at night here, no comfortable place to sit and chill that isn’t under a parking lot light. When the sun goes down they turn the beach off. The shared bathroom/shower doesn’t even have a door so you can undress in private!?!? (that’s right, buck naked with the maid walking past), there are ants and some other type of bug landing on me as I write this, and to top it all off it is expensive.
Do NOT stay here. I would like to stay another day, but in the morning I will look for another place. there are plenty around here, but after all the driving I did today I got here around 3:30, in the heat of the day (low 30’s), and made a bad decision. All I wanted was a shower.
It is not often that the Lonely Planet guide steers me wrong, but this is one time for sure. I am going to go have another public shower to cool off a bit.
Well, today is better, but not choice. This place, Hospedajia Johana, is much friendlier and closer to the beach. The same is true at night, though. Everything is shut down, but here, everybody gathers around the TV at night to watch their favourite show. It is a little like being a guest in somebody’s house, and a chair was offered, but I could watch more comfortably sitting on my bed.
The bugs are gone… mostly. Still no mosquitoes to talk of. Oops… spoke too soon. One just jumped on my laptop. Oh well, they are not as bad here, anyways. I am told that this is not so much a tourist spot as a place where rich government officials have their “other house”. Most of what you see in the hills here are private residences, but for those of you looking to buy, there are quite a few “se vende” signs right on the beach. Owning beachfront here is open game to all comers, a little different situation that Mexico (where you have to set up a bank trust or corporation to do that), and I am told that a lot of the land around here is owned by Germans and Canadians. Go figure.
And again with the attention to my car. People are just fascinated with it. And then show them that the steering wheel comes off… well, batten down the hatches!
There is a breeze here, no… a relentless blast of wind that peppers your legs with sand when you get out of the sea. This wind has been at my back fro a couple of days now, and at first I thought it to be just a phenomenon present when crossing the long valleys between mountain ranges. I am told that this wind changes with the coming of the full moon. Huh??? The guy who told me this has lived here all his life and said it with a straight face, so I am tempted to believe him.. I have heard stranger things in my life, so what else is new?
I spent most of the day body-surfing or lounging in a hammock reading up on Lago de Nicaragua (I am generally reading about 2 days in advance of seeing). There are two volcanoes that make up a single island in the middle of this lake, one of which is active. The islands are sparsely inhabited, we preserved, and cheap like borscht. With the advice of those here, I think I have found a nice place to stay at the base of the active one where I can hire a guide to take me up the volcano and look into the guts of this planet. I can hardly wait. I just hope the old ticker makes it up the hill with me.
Let me apologise for that last video. I have found a way to do it and shorten the file size as well. The magic of Window s Movie Maker comes to the rescue once again, the only problem being the length of the clip that this program can accommodate. I will upload this when next I get a chance. It’s 70 MB, but it is a lot longer (in time) and contains many of the little “motion pictures” I have taken along the way. It is my first attempt at something like this, so cut me some slack. I was learning how to use it along the way, and you may notice this is as it progresses. By the way, I am aware that the link I have given are still a “cut and past” sort of thing. Sorry, nothing I can do about that.
I am now at San Jorge, within sight of the two volcanoes, and apparently you need to call a day in advance to get your car onto the ferry across tho the island. When i found this out I was a little upset, but what can you do? However, right beside the access to the ferry, you could drive your car onto the beach of the lake, so that is what I did while though of what I was going to do next. Now that…. is a sweet pic.
I decided to stay here for the night. It has dorms, a good restaurant, bar, pool, and is an all-round classy place owned by two Canadians from Quebec. It ‘s nice to see a place done properly for a change. Also, there are other travellers here (Canadians) that had just come from Costa Rica and Panama, and gave me a few tips on where to go and what it was like.
This place is still under construction, as is typical of many places here, and a few of the workers stayed after for a few drinks at the bar. they all tell of dreams of one day going to the States, and we ended up all playing cards. Just try teaching a new game to four different languages. It was a good night.
I am still not sure what I am going to do tomorrow, whether drive into Costa Rica or two another spot on the coast, or head across to the island anyways. I will let the morning decide. Right now i am just going to adjust to sleeping in my first dorm. It’s kind of like Cub camp all over again, with women.
I will now head closer to the Costa Rican border and go over tomorrow. Or maybe today. It depend on whether the bank lines are up and running for the Plus system. I will know shortly after I get to Rivas, the last big town before the border.
So off I go.