Nicaragua!

I never imagined I'd enter the country of Nicaragua but apparently it's a fairly common tour for those visiting Costa Rica.  We had heard the trip was awesome, not to be missed.  The day started out real early.  We were supposed to be picked up by our tour guide, Norman in a van at 6:30.  Norman is very prompt and it's good to get to the border as early as possible because of hold-ups, inspections etc.  As 6:50 rolled around we radioed Mike, the manager of Recreo to make sure we weren't forgotten. (There were others being picked up for the trip as well.)  About a minute after we called Mike, the van showed.  It wasn't until later in the day that we would realize the reason for the tardiness, and it wasn't Norman.

As we climbed into the van all the others had been picked up already.  The group included a group of five women perhaps in their 30's to 40's who I swear thought they were on Sex and the City.  They definitely were not dressed at all similar to how I had been dressing in Costa Rica for our eco-travel experience.  I don't even think any of them had sneakers on, just flimsy looking sandals that any podiatrist would have admonished them for wearing.  One of the girls was holding a People Magazine.  As Vic walked towards the back of the van with me he murmured, "typical."

We stopped for breakfast soon after leaving El Jobo and then we were on our way to the border.  A fairly short while later we knew we were close to the border.  There was a three-mile long line of big rig trucks backed up on the Pan-American Highway waiting to be inspected.  Our van got into the left lane (as all other cars did) to bypass the trucks.  Norman explained that these truckers would be waiting a minimum of a few hours but up to a couple of days before they could cross the border with their goods.  The border was pretty surreal.  We were dropped off by our van, driven by Javier (Norman's father) at immigration.  It was like a make-shift marketplace with many annoying people trying to sell you their wares.  Enter one building, get passport stamped.  Use the bathroom.

At this point we literally had to WALK across the border having our passports inspected and stamped again by the Nicaraguan police.  It was like something out of a travel documentary.  The reason we couldn't cross in the van was because of many taxes and fees and wait time for an inspection.  After we had our passports stamped we continued on a dirt path to another van that was waiting for us on the Nicaragua side of the border.  We changed some money and were off again.  As we drove away from the border, we had to slow for a group of Nicaraguan soldiers doing a drill.  I snapped a photo through the window in the van.  I swear it looked liked a picture in my social studies text book from the 80's. 

Our first stop was on the banks of Lake Nicaragua.  This is the second largest lake in Latin America (Lake Titicaca bordering Peru and Bolivia is the largest).  Although the lake is freshwater, bull sharks from the Caribbean have somehow adapted and have been seen living in this lake.  The Lake is connected to the Caribbean via the San Juan River.  This is how Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba founded Nicaragua.

One of the most important cities in Nicaragua is Granada, founded by Cordoba (who by the way the currency is named for) in 1524.  Granada is often referred to as the oldest European settlement in the Americas.  I wouldn't exactly call the city beautiful, but it was certainly interesting.  You can see a lot of evidence of the Spanish Colonial style, albeit weathered.  We climbed to the top of the oldest church in the city, La Merced and took in some wonderful views of the city including several more churches and a volcano in the distance.  We then visited an area called Central Park lined with venders hawking various things from dolls to jewelry to cashews to sunglasses.  We didn't shop for anything here because the BIG market was to come.  We got back onto the van that Norman had told us to return to in about 20 minutes.  We waited for one girl, the one with the People magazine to return.  While we did we listened to her friends talk about how she's always late and sometimes just disappears.  One girl told of a trip to Egypt where the girl literally left a bar with some guy not to return until the next day.  Egypt!  This was only one of several stories like this.  Great, this is going to be an interesting day.  She returned a little while later having been retrieved by one of the friends.  She had left the park and went down some random street to haggle over some jewelry.  No apologies from the girl and we were back on the road. It started to become quite clear that it was her world and we were just living in it. 

Next stop, a boat ride on Lake Nicaragua to find the monkeys.  We got ourselves onto the boat that was waiting for us, but we had to wait yet again for the People magazine girl.  She had actually gotten back on the van and CHANGED HER CLOTHES!  This was starting to get unbelievable!  And her friends don't seem to mind.  It was pretty cool out on the lake, looking at volcanoes in the distance and several of the over 350 islands.  Some of these islands are privately owned with beautiful homes built on them.  One island in particular they call "Monkey Island".  A veterinarian placed several monkeys on this island and he monitors them.  This is where I hoped to hold a monkey as I had seen in pictures of this same trip.  Unfortunately they didn't come onto the boat but I did get some great close up photos.  I also got to feed one by hand.  Turns out they like Oreo cookies and Norman had brought along several for the trip.  I held out the Oreo to the monkey I think named Panchito.  He grabbed the cookie from my hand, our fingers touching.  Just like a person, he opened the cookie and licked out the cream!  Then he discarded the cookie!  Vic snapped the camera at just the right time and got a pic of me feeding Panchito.  Another one of the Sex and the City girls "London Tipton" as we liked to refer to her (those of you with small children know who I'm talking about, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody is one of the only kids shows I can tolerate), sounded and looked just like the dumb-witted character.  In the beginning of the trip I thought perhaps the looks and voice were the only similarities to London.  It became quickly apparent that the comparisons wouldn't end there.  She asked Norman how large the lake was.  He replied "over 5000 square miles."  To this "LT" as I will now call her responded, "wow, that's like the ocean!"  I could hardly contain myself.  I had to turn away to look at Vic and stifle my laughter. 

After our boat excursion, we headed to Masaya Volcano.  As we drove up to a higher elevation you could see black rock on either side of the road and sure enough it was what I thought.  There was an enormous amount of volcanic rock from the lava flow from an eruption in 1772.  This was cool in itself but I never imagined what I was about to see.  After we parked, from behind a rock wall we actually looked INTO the crater of the active volcano.  Sulfur dioxide gas rose out of the abyss.  We then climbed up a ton of steps to an even higher point on the volcano.  This gave a slightly different vantage point of the crater but also caused everyone to begin coughing.  Actually the coughing began on the hike up.  Those gases are powerful!

After a decent lunch of steak, plantains, rice and beans, we headed into the market in Masaya.  The crafts and other Latin American inspired items were myriad.  We haggled and bought several interesting things for our new house including a wooden leaf-like platter thingy, a carved wooden box and a ceramic, vibrantly hand-painted dome to house a votive candle.  We also bought a few other items such as key chains (I have a ridiculous key chain collection), a purse and wooden box in the shape of a monkey for Little Jess, and a t-shirt for Vic.  After the hour that we were allotted at the market we headed back to the van.  We knew this could be a problem for People magazine girl and we were right.  Her friends trickled into the van one by one in a relatively decent, non-offensively late amount of time but where was their 'friend' who doesn't give a crap for anyone but herself?  This was going to be bad.  20 minutes go by, 30 minutes...Norman went out to find her.  Another 15 minutes went by before he was able to get her back to the van.  During this time Vic and I could barley contain our anger and we didn't give a shit.  We started showing her friends just how pissed we were with snide comments here and there.  At one point "LT" was talking with another girl about their plane ride down to Costa Rica and I blurted out, "how'd you make your flight??" to which she responded they took separate flights.  45 minutes after our due back time at the van (with which we could have continued shopping ourselves) People magazine girl entered, again without apology.  The smoke coming out of our ears felt like it rivaled the gases of Masaya Volcano.  It was a long, hot day and we had to be back at the border by a certain time.

As we drove towards the border in relative silence, several of us fell asleep.  "LT" came out of her stupor and asked "did we cross the border yet?"  to which her friends replied, "um no, don't you remember getting out of the van and walking across??"  Oh good lord.  Another great line that Mike told us about later from the girls, "The Nicaraguan border is nothing like the Pennsylvania/New York border."  God help us.

Also on the way back, Norman played a little trivia game with us to make the trip back more fun.  After each answer, he awarded each of us with a hand-crafted personalized maraca with our names on them.  Very cool, Norman. Thank you!

Finally, we were back at our villa after a long and eventful day.  Oh and remember how I said the van was 20 minutes late in picking us up in the morning?  Yeah, well I guess now you can figure out why.  All that said though, what a great day.  Another experience I never imagined I would have!  And Norman, our guide was wonderful too.  He had a lot of patience for the girls and gave us an unforgettable day!