Nicaragua Trip Day One

During the first two weeks of September (actually in between the local and regional spelling bees) I took a trip to Nicaragua with fellow Peace Corps volunteers Barton, Brian, and Andrew. Barton and Brian are in my TEFL project and Andrew is in the business assistance project, but was also among the 46 Americans that got on board a plane to San José, Costa Rica on October 3, 2010. This trip would have been my biggest vacation during my time in Costa Rica-had an earthquake and volcano eruption not shortened it-but I'll get to that later. While Peace Corps gives us a generous amount of vacation days, unlike when I was in China, I don't have a lot of extra money to take advantage of this. Of course, I've spent more than I should have on trips in the last five years of my life-but that money's spent. So, this trip to Nicaragua was the big one of my two years here in Costa Rica-and it was a blast. Andrew, Barton, and Brian are awesome guys to travel with and Nicaragua is a beautiful country with a  very interesting and event filled history. 

We rode up on the bus with TransNica. It was a comfortable ride, the bus wallah was helpful, they charged us an extra $3 to get into Nicaragua-but also took care of getting our passports stamped and did so quickly-a service I'm willing to pay for.  Of note at the border was that we were able to buy a SIM card and put minutes on Barton's phone-in a matter of maybe 5 minutes (we had to figure out which carrier would work with his brand). So, Nicaragua is added to the list (Thailand, Hong Kong) of amazing countries where you can get going on a cell phone just like that! We had a 30-40 minute delay because there was a political riot/truck with speakers/barbecue in the middle of the road. Maybe all three were related-we never knew. But, we arrived in Managua, taxied to the hostel, grabbed dinner at a mall food court, and headed to bed-looking to take advantage of the next morning.  

So, two paragraphs in and we're finally to day one. We got up early and set out to see what Managua had to offer. Most of the guidebooks advise skipping it, but it is the capital city-so I figured we could give it a half day. The new cathedral's gates were all locked (it was a Saturday morning). All maps indicated we should have seen a giant statue dedicated to Rubén Darío, a famous poet, but all we saw was a big rotunda that looked like it used to have a statue. Besides those two hitches, the rest of the day was a great success. We saw the old cathedral-which was either burned or ignored-but appears to be in a restoration process. We toured the national museum, which was a kind of natural history and art museum combination. We visited the silhouette statue of Agosto Sandino-up on a hill with great views of the city. We ran into an American guy on the street that chatted us up a bit (more on this later), had a nice walk through parts of downtown Managua, determined that in Managua people sleep in on Saturday mornings (the city was eerily empty until about 11 as we walked back to our hostel). 

(me with 2,000+ year old statue and mural at the national museum)

We then took a taxi to a bus station in order to take a bus to Estelí, a small town in northern Nicaragua. Only it wasn't really a bus station. Instead it was just a big open area, full of puddles, food vendors, bus touts, and street kids peddling candy. Luckily, I'd seen this set up a few times before-and in a language I didn't speak. So, we ignored the bus touts grabbing us and trying to put us on buses we didn't need to get on, and asked where to buy tickets. Soon enough we were on our way to Estelí. Being in the front of the bus, we had an opportunity to observe something I'd never seen before. On the bus in front of us, a man climbed out the back door onto the small platform on the back of the bus (an old American school bus). He then proceeded to unzip his pants and pee off the platform. He appeared to have been an expert, as he knew how to turn so as to not urinate all over himself. We arrived in Estelí, safe and dry, found our hostel, and grabbed a delicious dinner at a little family run joint. We bought half a chicken, plus salad, rice, beans, and Cokes-and got out of there for like $4 a person. Nicaragua is awesome!

Remember you can see more pictures by clicking on the My Photos-Picasa Photo Gallery link to the right.