Nicaragua

So my brother, Nick, and I took off for a couple weeks to Nicaragua. My first pass at Central/South America--an escape from the New England cold and a chance to improve my Spanish.

We stuck to the West/Pacific coast; the more politically/socially modern side of Nicaragua. The Eastern/Caribbean side was mostly undeveloped mountains, inhabited by only small, dispersed more indigenous locations.

Water
We came across quite a bit of water.
Water as volcanic lakes:
--Laguna de Apoyo


--Volcan Conseguina


Water as beach,
--far removed from others

--where kids bike on the rocks and the beach...?

--to eat with a view


--at small fishing villages

--to ride the waves and fill our ears with sand...oops

--for beautiful vistas,



--with the sunsets of the west.




Water by kayak
--Padre Ramos Estuary

--Las isletas (little islands) in a huge lake

(This is the island Ometepe, with it's 2 volcanoes in the background, in the middle of a lake. It was VERY windy; so windy, in fact, the ferry to the island stopped, for it had almost turned over with cars on it).

Churches
We came across only a handful, exclusivly in the cities.



...a far cry from the widespread temples of Thailand.

Animals
Famous for its sea turtle landings, we came across:
monkeys

prancing in the trees (center below)

and, oddly enough, pig...turtle... and manta ray... in one place!... only one's alive though...


Food
The local fare was, well, fair...
fruit

vegetable soup, rice chillies,

gallo pinto (beans, rice, eggs, cheese, tortilla, fried banana)

and plenty of fish, all prepared the same way: deep fried whole...


almost always eaten with "dos Toñas por favor" :)


Traveling
Getting around the country was relatively easy. The bus system could get you pretty much anywhere for dirt cheap...just no guarantee how long it will take or how comfortable you'll be along the way.
The roads were sometimes pretty awful, especially going into more remote locations. Of dirt, they were passable only by horse, 4x4 or (like us) by the retired US school buses fitted for off-roading.

They were packed to the brim with 2-3 people to a 2 person seat and people packing in the aisles, many of whom were there only to walk up and down the aisle selling bagged water or all sorts of deep fried stuff they cooked in their kitchen.

And there were always a couple young guys, on the inside, pushing through the aisle to collect money and, on the outside, moving stuff up and down from the roof of the bus, crawling atop and along the side of the bus as it bounced along.


Language
The Spanish spoken in Nicaragua is, in my experience, a more intelligible variation of Castilian Spanish than that spoken in other Spanish speaking countries. It is certainly more intelligible than the Spanish I came across in Andalusia and Catalan Spain. Although, I found it more essential to speak Spanish in Nicaragua than I did the more touristed Spain.
While I certainly came across other Westerners traveling through Central America who didn't speak much Spanish, I did find it quite essential to be able to speak Spanish--especially when venturing away from the larger towns/small cities or when arranging guides for the hikes and kayaking we did. In a couple of the smaller places we went, no one spoke a word of English--FUN!.
I tried to stir up conversation as often as I could--with a bus driver, a hostel worker, or kids playing (often curious about my white skin).


Although far from fluent, I can hold down conversation reasonably well. In fact, at one point, I found myself in between a coversation of 2 people--one Nican, one American--who thought I spoke Spanish well enough to translate for the Nican environmentalist as he downloaded his life story and the travails of trying to protect a national reserve in the face of foreign corporate ventures to exploit the land....After 45 mins or so, I had to bail on them, I was mentally exhausted.

It was a reasonably successful trip, although more of a vacation than true traveling this time. I will most certainly make another pass to these parts.
Hasta la proxima vez!