San Carlos and Isla Ometepe Nicragua

Muddy and Foggy, here I am at the top of the 4,000 foot Volcano Maderas in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua.

Moving north out of Costa Rica, I found myself on a small boat going up the Rio Frio, headed towards the boggy town of San Carlos on the southern edge of Lake Nicaragua. We debarked the boat, taking about as long to unload the cargo as it did to get there. Right away I knew I was in a different country; the customs office was a four room wooden shack on a dilapidated pier on the edge of town. The wooden slats that constituted the walls of this customs house were so shabbily put together that you could see through each one, not even tight enough to keep the bugs out I'm sure. Ducking down into the 2 foot by 4 foot hole that had been cut into the side of the building, I handed my passport to the customs official, and after 15 minutes of filling out paperwork he handed it back.



This brings up another point about life down here that will be particularly relative to people of my generation. Our generation has never really known life without computers infused into every wedge and corner of businesses, heck now the DMV even has the newest flat screen monitors. But life and economics march to the tune of a different drummer in Central America, and technology is not as pervasive and ubiquitous as we behold it in the United States. While they do have good computers and internet access in the cafes of many small towns across all of Central America, the connections are usually comparable to dial up and early ISDN. And the costs of such computers still remain too high for any government office and some businesses. As a result, all of my information was dutifully scribed in triplicate by the customs official whose whole job was to do this all day, every day. This process produces mounds of paperwork, and takes what seems like ages for the line of 40 people who would be there for the next 3 hours. Through situations like this, you begin to understand how Latin American culture in general moves slower and is never in a hurry to get things done ; it is a development of necessity because otherwise they would die of hypertension before they turned 30 waiting for stuff to get done.



I had heard that San Carlos was often a hot bed of mosquito activity, and not wanting to risk picking up a nice case of Dengue or Malaria (I hadn't taken my Malaria meds in a while) I opted for a little upscale place with air-conditioning. The AC was great, less because it was really hot, and more because it was going to keep the mosquitoes out.



San Carlos is town of about 10,000 people, and not really high on anyones list of places to visit, making it a refreshing change after Costa Rica. The town is on a hill overlooking Lake Nicaragua, which because of its size looks more like an ocean than a lake, and at the very top of the steep hill there is a domed central park of sorts with a typical church, police station, and surrounding shops. All of the streets here were on a steep 15-20% grade, except the ones running along the lake, which made walking around town quite of a task. There was no doubt about it, San Carlos was poor, and there was not a lot of change in site as the main income came from boats passing to other locations and sporadic small fishing. But the poverty also gave the town something more, it gave it an authenticity and purity. In towns where tourism has been allowed to run rampant you have kids, old men, and cripples asking for money on every street corner. With the easy money that tourism can give to some you get large drug problems, and with drug problems comes significant crime. Here in this poor town, there was a strong sense of community that provided social support and structure in ways that money cant. It was perfectly safe to walk around at night, simply no crime to speak of, and if someone did try to rob me all I would have to do is yell and people would come out of their houses able to identify the face of the robber. At night families sat around in their living rooms, which were usually the first room in the first floor facing the street. There they watched TV, ate dinner, and conversed for all to see. The doors were usually open to let the cool air in, and the windows gave you a perfect picture of what was going on. It was an openness in a comfortable community unlike any I had found before.



In the suburbs we build massive brick fortress right next to one another, and never come out but to mow the law or walk the dog. Then we retreat to our little castle on the hill, aghast if anyone calls after 9. What would we think if an unexpected guest rung the door bell at night? Probably grab a gun. The huge grass yards that we spend thousands mowing and maintaining create such distances between houses, that if you want to see someone who doesn't live in the immediate 10 houses, you have to get in your car and drive there. They are isolating places. In contrast could you imagine a suburban scene, or even a semi urban scene where people left their doors open at night, or the curtains off the windows?




Walking around the village that evening as the sun set, I ran into a 6'3" German and his girlfriend whom I saw on the boat from Los Chiles. They were doing a little traveling themselves, and an instant bond was created by our mutual physical freakishness compared to the average Nicaraguan. It was a celebration of fair complexion, blond hair, and ungainly height. After spending two hours in San Carlos, I confidently deduced that they were the only other foreigners in the town, and so I grabbed a bite to eat with Jentz and Mierka that evening. I turns out that they were in San Carlos as well to catch the ferry the next day to the Island of Ometepe. We both agreed that the small towns, while they lacked the restaurants, nightlife, or flair of the larger towns, were refreshing in their authenticity and simplicity.





The next day after a run, workout, and some picture uploading to the Ipod, it was time to catch the 2pm ferry. That may not seem like a lot to do in one morning, but prepare yourselves as I launch into another parable about doing business in Central America. You see... I have an Ipod that is programmed for a Mac computer, and while I could install the appropriate PC software for the Ipod, this would erase all of the music that is sustaining my sanity amidst a sea of reggaeton. I had planned on using my Ipod as an external hard drive to store all of my photos, and did not find out until I got down here that my Ipod will not work straight up with PC. AND there are no Macs in all of Central America because you cant install illegally copied software on these computers (there is not a single legal piece of music, film, or software in this whole subcontinent.) So I found a program that interfaces on PCs for Mac Ipods! I was saved right? Wrong? Once you find a connection that is fast enough to download said program in less than three hours, you have to find a computer that allows you to install software. 4 internet cafes later, I find one that allows me to install a program, so I'm saved again right? Wrong. For said program to work I have to restart the computer... I also did not know until I got down here that when most of these computers are restarted they erase the entire hard drive and start from a template. So now I have been through 4 different internet cafes, three hours of downloading a program, and it just erased itself! At this point I have to bargain with the Internet cafe owner to try to get them to change the setting. Half of the people running these shops have no idea how to change it, and the ones that do basically tell you to go screw yourself.



I have done this 4 times for uploading pictures to my Ipod, but there are week long gaps in my picture taking where I have spent several days trying to find a place to upload pictures... Welcome to life in Central America!


With all that behind me, I boarded a two story, 90 foot diesel steamer bound for the Volcano Island of Ometepe and debarked San Carlos at 2 in the afternoon. It was going to be another 10 hours until our midnight arrival on the docks of Ometepe. I paid the extra dollar ($5.30 total) and got a first class ticket, that had an air conditioned cabin, badly dubbed loud American movies, and a nice topside deck. Totally worth it. I took the opportunity to read up on a little Nicaraguan History, and listen to the entire discography of Bob Marley that I downloaded before I left. I also got to watch a beautiful sunset while sitting in a hammock overlooking the water. Later in the evening I caught up on a little Family Guy and Lost TV shows. I downloaded all the seasons to my Ipod before I left, and I have been rationing them as I go along so I will always have something to watch when I get really, really board. (like on a 10 hour boat ride across a lake in the dark)

Hauling fish onto the Ferry for the trip to Granada after Ometepe

Jentz and Mierka, the Germans, hooked me up with a really cheap hostel so we wouldn't have to look for one when we got in at midnight. The first night was spent in Altagracia, and the hostel will be one to remember! It was only 3 dollars a night, and so I should have been a little suspect. All 20 "rooms" of the hostel had a door that opened to the outside, and a nice wooden double bed. The problem was that the walls between the rooms of the hostel were actually just one, thats right, one, piece of sheet rock and exposed wooden framing. No paint, no mud, nothing, so I had one sheet rock wall on one side of the bed, and exposed wooden framing on the other. This too would have been livable until you get to the best part - there were no ceilings. All 20 rooms shared a common exposed roof, that was patched with trash bags. This was actually worse than dorm rooms, because the walls gave couples the illusion of privacy while at the same time I could hear every single whisper. Whispers aside, much worse was heard during the night I spent here, and so I thanked god again for my trusty Ipod!



There are actually two volcanoes that make up the island of Ometepe, which means "land between two volcanoes" One volcano, Concepcion, is active and the other, Maderas, is inactive with a lake inside the crater. The first night was spent in the city of Altagracia, pop.2000, underneath the fuming Concepcion, and the next morning I got up and went to the other town, Moyogalpa pop. 3000, to do some blogging. From Moyogalpa I caught the last bus at 430 across the land bridge to the inactive volcano of Maderas and the small coffee plantation of Finca Magdalena. It was from here that I was going to begin my muddy assault on the volcano of Maderas the next day at 7.


Finca Magdalena was equally rustic to the other hostel, but had enough character to more than make up for its faults. It is a working organic coffee plantation that is actually a cooperative between 20 or so families that have lived on the same part of the island for 4 generations. In addition to the coffee plantation, they grow Cacao, Bananas, and Mangos, and have taken their two story 10,000 square foot barn and converted it into a hostel. They rented out Hammocks ($1.50), dorms and single rooms ($4). My small 5' x8' single room had two sides that were part of the original 100 year old barn, and two added sides. They had placed a twin mattress on a 2 foot wide frame, and so I had to try not to get to close to the edges at night lest the mattress collapse in on me. Besides character, the Finca had some of the best views of the valley and the other volcano in all of Ometepe. They also had a restaurant right in the barn, with delicious meals prepared straight from ingredients grown on the farm, and 5 dollar bottles of Flor de Cana rum. That night I sat and played Gin Rummy with two steller guys, Dwight and Nathan, from California, and polished off a bottle of Flor de Cana. Turns out I would run into them again in Granada as the story goes, but I will get to that later.

Late to fall, early to rise, I shared a guide up the Maderas with an Austrian girl named Andrea at 6 the next morning. We were both in pretty good shape, but I can tell you now we weren't mentally prepared for the hike we were fixin' to get ourselves into. Guides had been required ever since a German guy died here 8 years ago after he slipped and broke his ankle. Our guide, Mario, said it was going to be a 8 hour hike round trip, which at the time it seemed like nothing. He neglected to mention that we were going to go from 50 Meters to 1,500 Meters, or almost 4,000 feet in elevation, and then we would have to go all the way back down. He also neglected to mention that halfway up it becomes a true could forest, and everything we touched would be covered in mud. So for 5 muddy hours we scrambled up the muddiest, wettest, rockiest, and steepest trail that I have had the pleasure of climbing while in Central America. Apparently in the evolution of Nicaraguan intelligence, they never discovered the great architectural feat of switchbacks. And so for 5 hours it was 2 feet forward, one of which would slip and one foot back... There are no pictures from this portion of the ascent because I was covered in mud and did not want to risk a muddy camera to add to my worries.



Mario had warned us that there would be no views from the top because it remains perpetually shrouded in clouds, which was fine, and as it turns out the last 1,000 feet or so reminded me of the lush cloud forests of Monteverde, Costa Rica, with green life everywhere on everything.



The lake at the top turned out to be more of a mud pit with water out in the middle, and to get to the water would require getting waist deep in mud. I was fully prepared to dive in until Mario said that underlying layers of water tended to suck you down like quicksand and I could die. I reconsidered. 3 more muddy and rocky hours later, we were back at the bottom, and got to see some monkeys back at the Finca, after we had just spent 8 hours looking for them on the mountain.


That night, exhausted and dirty, I decided I wanted a little more creature comforts than the barn at Finca Magdalena had offered, and so Andrea and I both decided to head down the road to the piece of land that bridged the two islands together. There was a small pretty beach called Playa Santa Domingo, and a cheap hotel of the same name where we both got rooms with private shower, hot water, and our own fans: it was heaven. The beach also had a perpetual 20 mph wind that blew constantly throughout the night, making it difficult to read on the beach, play volley ball, but perfect for cooling off from a hot day of hiking.





The next morning I was up with the sun to catch the first bus down the road, back to Moyogalpa where I had been two day prior, to catch a notoriously dangerous lanca across the lake to Rivas Nicaragua, where I was going to catch a bus up to Granada, one of Nicaragua most beautiful colonial towns.



For all the Sewanee folk out there who got to go Spring Party Weekend this past week, this is why I couldn't come, so I hope you understand.

M3