up a steep hill

We rented a car near the middle of our second week in Nicaragua and went driving in the northern highlands. Lured by idyllic rhapsodies of an unmarred travelers paradise, and fed up with being spoon-fed a tourist experience (i.e. a surf camp), we set out on the uncrowded, surprisingly well-maintained Nica highways (well-maintained apart from the absence of any road signs--that is).

In one small town off the main highway on the road to Jalapa near the Honduras border and in the heart of coffee and tobacco production for the north, we made a mandatory detour up one of the steepest dirt roads I can ever recall driving up in a car. On our way back through a day or so later, we stopped for lunch (deep fried chicken, plantains, gallo-pinto) and watched as a public bus driver decided how to best negotiate the wall of a hill. In the end, he had his full payload of passengers disembark and walk up the hill. What was funny was how commonplace a thing this was to those passengers. No big deal. It certainly wouldn't have flown here. I liked it.

The Land, it's for Sale...

Nicaragua is caught between two systems. The Sandinistas are communist. But the government who was just voted out were more of a capatalist bent. So while they were in power, a LOT of foreign interest moved in. Perhaps the biggest indicator of foriegn interests in Nicaragua is the real-estate situation there. Almost all of the 'desirable' real-estate has been bought by large, foreign developers. It's mostly going to go to retirees who can't afford property in their home countries; the US and Canada chief among them. Given the apparent ineptitude of the current government, the unlikeliness of grass-roots wealth distribution, and the country's bent for radical political shifts, it's no wonder that many foreign business owners we talked to are expecting a shakeup.

Let me put it to you like this. Around 25% of the country was killed in the revolutions. And while the situation has improved, somewhat, the people have yet to see a proper return on that human investment. Imagine if you felt like 1/4 of the people you knew were killed so that rich foreigners could move onto your prime land. I'd be pissed.

In Granada

AKs

The only other third world country I have much experience in other than Nicaragua is India. So I often found myself comparing the two countries. India seemed to me more chaotic, but less sinister. And maybe it's because there is an ever-present show of military-strength force in Nicaragua. On the one side you have the Sandinistas and on the other you have more unofficial, but maybe just as strong, Security Guards for the banks, various hotels, private estates... etc. Some of the Security Guards carry tasers that look big enough to put down small horse. Many of them carry enforcer shotguns. All of them seemed have batons. The Sandinistas all carry AK-47s. I once heard these are the most reliable weapons made. Many of the AKs I saw had plastic magazines which really reduce the weight.
These weapons in plain view are ever present. I never got used to it.

"Beuna"

"Nicaragua is a country of blatant contradictions." I remember thinking that a lot while we were there. In retrospect and with perspective of being home in Canada, I'm not sure Nicaragua is more contradictory than anywhere else. It's all relative, after all. And in the rose-coloured hindsight of adverse experience, it's not the awful parts that stay clear. The awful parts ferment into rich comedy and respectful awe and no longer seem as traumatic as before. And the good parts? They get exaggerated and relished. We can live for years in a good memory, we can even edit the memory to make it more habitable. And we do! Whether we like it or not we do.

One of the simple pleasures of Nicaraguan life is the expectation of a greeting when passing someone on a lonely street, when entering a shared cab (almost all cab rides end up shared), when entering a shop, when catching someone's eye. Nicaraguan's like to shorten things and drop consonants. So "Buenos dias" becomes "Buena Dia", which becomes "Buena" or Beunas". (It took me almost 5 weeks there to figure that out--my Spanish is not very good and Nica's aren't exactly the most forgiving teachers.) I miss Nicaragua when I walk by someone here on an almost empty street. It's not that a greeting is out of place here, it's that no greeting at all is considered perfectly normal. We run around our lives, each of us living out almost the same lives, but very self-concious about admitting it to each other or ourselves. Best not to acknowledge our own people--if to do so might threaten our fragile individuality. It's a truism that we often hate those qualities in others that we most hate in ourselves. Could this paradox come from my desperate assertion that I am so different from you? Could it be that I am not as unique as I imagine? And could it be a useful (and humbling) admission that I am the same as you, and that maybe we should be friends--simply because we live on the same street or in the same apartment building?

Maybe it's because of the fight that Nicaraguan's have endured, but they're in it together. There's a beauty in having so little when it means that most of one's wealth lies in caring for the other. One way Nicas cultivate this wealth is with a simple and beautiful: Buena.

Post Sightseeing Activity Numero Uno

Playing cards, drinking rum, and smoking cigars. If you don't think this combo is for you, don't go to Nicaragua. It's post sightseeing activity numero uno.  This is out side our hotel room in Leon.

You've got to have crutches in Nicaragua. Many Nicaraguan's gamble at the slot machines. Many drink until they fall down. Many eat deep-fried plantains until they grow large... Nicaragua could actually rival the USA for obesity rates. There is a lot of fried food. And everyone eats it. We found it tragic that a country with so much access to fresh amazing food could have so little of a food culture.

But those cigars and that rum... all is forgiven.

Chronology Abandoned

I've decided there's really no point in trying to be chronological about this. So I've got a bit of a jump happening here. This was shot from the roof of the Cathedral in Leon--through my sunglasses. Leon is about 40,000 people and the 'hub of intellectual thought' in Nicaragua. The Cathedral was meant to be built in Lima but a Nicaragua-loving Spaniard pulled the switch-a-roo with Leon's plans and this giant Cathedral got built in this little town.