Previously
on the robrob show I´d just escaped rainy rainy Carribean Island Utila in
Honduras, just in time it seems as the rain continued for many more days and
Sam had to charter a light aircraft to fly off the island, which sounded like
super funny if a little budget busting.
Leon was my first stop in Nicaragua, a
beautiful small colonial town covered in murals paying respect to various armed
struggles and revolutions. The centre piece for the city is a massive cathedral
which for a small bribe the guard will allow you to explore. My breakfast
normally involed a 25p bumper bag of fresh fruit consumed while dangling my
legs over the edge of the Cathedral, admiring the view over the city to the
range of a dozen volcanos, blissful.
Being
such a relaxed, relatively small city which was pleasant to stroll around
seemed the perfect place to finally get some Spanish study done, so I´d spend
my days cooking and listening to hours of Pimsleur learn Spanish on the mp3
player. Amazingly the lessons worked a treat and I´d spend the rest of the day
testing out my Spanish on shop workers and quizzing them on the various goods
they had to offer. This led me to discover one of the highlights of Leon, the
second hand stores! They sell all sorts of stuff with some clothing gems if
you´re prepared to hunt for them, photos to follow.
An
observation I´d made was since arriving in Nicargua was the amount of
80´s rock music being played by shops, bars, markets stalls and cars was
very noticable, after the months of pure Reaggeaton http://tiny.cc/gasolinaaaa
throughout Mexico and Central America, I then realised that a lot of the items
being sold in the 2nd hand shops were retro 80´s toys etc. A theory I heard
later down the line was that as Nicargua was going through a revolution and
some serious changes were happening through the 80´s that, the music and items
are Nostalgic and a pleasent reminder of change, sound plausible. I´ll give a
visual and audio example of this when I get my ´Souvenirs for eyes and ears´
blog set up, it´s going to be sweet, watch this space.
After
nearly a week in Leon I
aimed to catch the 12;30 bus to Esteli in the Northern
Highlands, giving me enough time to run round the city taking
photos, I entered a building which had an interesting staircase on a quest to
satisfy my passion for roofs. Only to be stopped on the staircase and told to
wait, a jolly nice gentleman then came, took me onto the roof. Where he plucked
us some mangoes from a nearby tree, we then we chatted about the volcanoes and
admired the view, munching mangoes like apples, he refused to take any money
for his time, the icing on the amzing cake called Leon. Hasta Luego Leon, I´ll be
back.
So next
up was Esteli, Nicargua´s second university
city, it´s a bit of a one horse town and relatively
expensive, the Graffiti scene is big there so I spent a few days renting a bike
and admiring the street art. I also felt quite energetic and cycled to the
highest point I could find to see the city from above, meeting a real cowboy on
the way, strolling by on horseback as I rode past sweating on a ladies bike
with front mounted basket, I think the manlyness competition was won by the
weathered cowboy complete with cigerette in mouth and well worn hat atop a
strapping horse complete with branding.
Esteli
was fun but after the cowboy adventure I wanted to see some more of the remote
highlands so I woke up early on Saturday morning and started hitching towards
Tisey, A family in a people carrier stopped quite soon into the potential 15km
walk and motioned that they had no room inside, because of the muchos ninios
aboard but I could hang on the side, I said ´Si, bueno´ and off we went. They
took me maybe 5km but weren´t going any further, no money expected again and I
was clkoser to my destination. The road then became insanely steep as I trecked
up for what was probably vertical 12km, unsure if I was actually going the
correct way I stopped at the only shop I´d seen and asked if there was such a
place around called Eco-Posada (lodge), some confusion but then the lady
remebered there was and that it was ´just´ another 3km uphill, my reaction of
fained celebration and some broken Spanish made the poeple there laugh, which felt
like a breakthrough in my learning of the language, as I´d succeeded to make
peopel laugh in a new language, whoo hoo! 25m into the final leg, another
famnily stopped in a pick up and gave me a ride to the exact destination I was
aiming for, life is sweet!
So my
time at the Eco-lodge consisted of hours of Mp3 spanish lessons on top of the
nearby hill/mountain, practisiing my juggling and eating rice and beans. There
was no-one there who spoke English which was great for me, the lodging were
super basic and very cheap, solo time in the great outdoors. I heard there was
a crazy sculptor who lived nearby and set out to find him, after an hours walk
through fields I found my man. An eccentric looking white wirey haired chap who
was very keen to give me a tour. He had a large section of hillside which he´d
planted bananas, coconuts, pineapples and organic coffee, interspersed between
these were rocks which had been carved into various animals objects etc. It was
a nice walk and we were zig zagging up the hillside to his Pièce de résistance,
a 30 foot
cliff face carved into an ever evolving mural of animals, biblical figures, an
interpretation of his verios of downtown New York(?) and a Helicopter which had
once flew past. A in a carvey amazing place, I showed him my apprection for the
craftmanship and we sat on a bench looking out over the amzing rolling hills of
Nicaraguan forest, what a dude.
Ok
enough lonely time, so I headed back to Esteli to read an e-mail that Sam and
crew had made it to Granada, Leons rival city, I
hopped on various buses and made it to Granada
before sunset, travelling quickly through Managua
the capital which was a hectic sprawling city with a strange vibe.
Granada
was like a touristy version of Leon which I didn´t like too much, but we made a
day trip out to Laguna de Apoyo which is a crater lake, perfect for swimming
and a very peculiar site to see, a circular lake sitting in a volcano crater.
Lago de
Nicaragua is the biggest lake in cenntral America and contained within it is an
island made up of two large volcanos, Ometepe. It also has a little island just
off the coast called ´Monkey Island´ bit of a nerdy game reference but having
grown up playing Monkey
Island on the computer it
was always an essential trip! So feeling like the swashbukling Welsh pirate
Henry Morgan (who actually took over Granada
with 12m canoes, some rum soaked merry men and got lots of riches) I set off
for the water and to find Monkey
Island!
Ometepe
was incredible, we stayed at a place with a dock where we´d swim as the sun
went down. Hiked the smaller Volcano called Madera, we took sandwiches, a tour guide and
a bottle of Skotch. What more do we need. The hike was very tecnical and
involved a fair bit of swinging through branches to get through the thicket,
but we made it, and the views were beautiful. Looking over towards the higher
Volcan Conception which was heavily fuming and is rumoured to be about to pop
in the next few weeks, we chilled at the summit and toasted to a job well done,
now for the wobbly descent.
We hired
motorbike the following day figuring it´d be a nice way to see the island and
the fact there were hardly any cars would mean it would be safe. The roads were
rubbish with loose gravel and rocks and our abscence of motorbike skills meant
it was a wobbly start, we picked it up ok after some top tips from a local chap
called Elvis who popped out of the bushes next to where we´d had an unplanned
lie down with the bike. It was an amazing day and we circled the volcano in
around 4 hours, getting back in one piece with a few posed badmen on motorbike
photos as souvenirs, result!
The
following day an amiga and I hired kayaks and set off for Monkey Island!
Sam had been the previous day and had been attacked by the monkey with the big
balls as he´s not so keen on males hanging out with his seven monkey wives on
the island, the situation ended with a few punches thrown from both sides but
thankfully no bloodshed. So we decided not to dock the boat and taunt the
monkeys from afar, it was nice, if a little sad as the monkeys had been put
there to attract tourists, although unfortunately there´s not enough food on
the tiny islands to sufficiently sustain the population, which probably explains why they´re so bad tempered, we threw them some sandwiches which they
seemed to enjoy but didn´t change the look of anger on their little faces.
After successful monkey spotting we fancied some more motorbike action and so rented
one for a few hours to visit the other side of the island, things were going
well until on a dusty back road a pair of scruffy police men pulled us over.
The skinny cop starting yabbering hard in Spanish about something, I explained
I had a license and gave it to him to see, he passed it to the fat cop who
glanced at it then stuffed it in his pocket, this wasn´t a good situation. He
then began to demand the keys for the bike which I´d put in my pocket, naturally
reluctant as I was hardly convinced they were real police, having shown no ID and
no numbers to be seen on their shirts etc, although what they did have were
guns. Still unprepared to hand over the keys I tried to get some clarification
of what they were going to do with the bike, and couldn´t we just ring the
owner to come and resolve the situation? It´s hard to communication in another
language when all the words you´ve learnt have been scared out of reach by
armed police, and so he just kept shouting ´Llaves!´ and motioning the
application of handcuffs etc, so I kept
shaking my head, when and how was this going to end?
In the
end the police flagged down a passing pick up truck exchange a few words and
the bike was taken from my grip and loaded on to the truck, the truck driver drove
off, the fat police man wobled off on his motorbike after the truck, the skinny
one revved up his bike looked me in the eyes and in a moment of lingual clarity
waved and said “See ya later”. Hmmm, well at least I still had the keys. Every
eventuality rushing through my brain, mostly terrible and financially trip
ending, we decided to hitch hike back to the owner. A truck stopped within a
few minutes and we hopped on, bouncing along towards an uncertain fate in the
back of a pick up truck with some locals, surrounded by local produce,
beautiful views of the volcanoes wondering if this would sour the Nicaraguan
experience?
We
finally arrived at the owners house after what felt like days, we found him sat
round a table with his amigos, I held up the keys and he said “ah great, but
where have you parked the bike?” I told the story as it happened in full,
clearly shaken up by the situation. Without even standing up he calmly said “Ah
right, no worries I´ll make few calls and go pick it up in the morning”
“How much is this all going to cost?” I said.
“Just give me $5 dollars for an hours rental, as that´s probably all the use
you got out of it” taking a swig of beer, “Well done for not giving them the
keys too, they´re bandits and would have been driving it around all night, do
you need your license back?”
“I´d rather never see the police again thanks, they can keep it”
“Ok cool, put it down to experience”
We shook
hands and walked away, infinitely best case scenario, elated. Nicaragua
rocks. We celebrated that night with permanent smiles and plenty of the local
Rum Flore De Cane. Result. The next day we left the incredible Island of Ometepe, sad to leave but having had the
most amazing time.
Next
stop San Juan del Sur where I´m writing this from, Surf and party central, the
first night here we chipped in with a group we were traveling with and hired a
three story villa on the hill with pool and partied hard. The following day I
went surfing which was tricky to pick up,not being the best swimmer n that but
after perseverance and a few tips from various people I got up and rode my
first wave, and can now say I know the feeling that only surfers know
(Billabong slogan innit). And there we have it, that´s how and why I
fell love with Nicaragua,
next stop Costa Rica then
Carnival in Panama.
I´ll keep you posted.
In other
news:
·
I
met the leaf cutter crew, an ant based collective chopping up leaves and
carrying them like sails.
· Sam purchased a badman Batman vest from a 9 year old boy for 10 cordobas (33p), both happy, fair trade, it´s ace.
Thanks
for reading.
Miss you
all
x
