I’ve always loved traveling and make a point to take advantage of time off from work to get away to some place new. As Spring Break approached, I had my eyes set on Cuba. As an American, Cuba is not only a Caribbean island destination; it’s also a mysterious forbidden zone. While most Americans know that U.S. (ridiculously outdated) policy forbids Americans to travel to Cuba directly, many Americans fail to realize that the rest of the world visits Cuba all the time. And many Americans do so by way of other countries. Several of my American friends here have been there for vacations and have loved it. (I won’t mention their names as there is supposedly a ten thousand dollar fine from the U.S. government.) I believe it is only a matter of time before the Castro regime is a thing of the past and Cuba will become a popular Caribbean tourist destination for Americans, perhaps the most popular. But, I would like to get there before that happens, to see for myself what life is like there. The people I know who have been have had very good things to say about it, despite the obvious limitations of its current government. It was definitely my first choice for this vacation.
Unfortunately, Ale did not share my desire to spend Spring Break in Cuba. But not because she doesn’t think it would be fun. One of her good friends loves all things Cuban and visits frequently. The problem was that she thinks visiting Cuba would be
too much fun. Being pregnant, she said she couldn’t bare the thought of having to take it easy there, missing out on the mojitos and late night clubbing, going to bed early while I wandered the streets filled with hot Cuban women for hire. I tried to tell her that we could make a nice time of taking easy days on the beach and spending our evenings eating fresh seafood listening to live Cuban music, but she said she didn’t feel like being seen in a bathing suit in her bloated condition. I reminded her about the “pregnant glow” concept and assured her no one in his right mind would judge a pregnant woman in a bathing suit. But, she wouldn’t hear it. So, Cuba was a no-go.
The other option I was promoting was Guatemala. Semana Santa (Easter Holy Week) in Antigua Guatemala is an experience you can find nowhere else. The colored Alfombras (“carpet” art on the streets made of grains, flowers, leaves and colored sawdust) and the many Easter passion processionals complete with floats, bands and “Roman soldiers” are some of the most elaborate in Latin America. I’ve been to Guatemala twice, once during Semana Santa, and loved it so much that I wanted to show it to Ale. We also had some friends, Kristen and Jordan, going there that week and I figured we could meet up with them for part of the time. But, Ale wasn’t interested. She kept complaining, “but you’ve already been there.” Additionally, the rest of my plan included a boat ride down the river to the Caribbean-Black town of Livingston, requiring significant time on a Guatemalan bus on Guatemalan roads. In her pregnant state, she wasn’t game for hot, crowded busses on bumpy roads. And just like that, Guatemala was kaput.
Her counter-offer, an all inclusive eco-resort in Panama looked OK; but for me, being in the same hotel all week seemed limiting. And the prices for the eco-activities associated with the resort seemed really expensive. And besides all that, I was worried the temperatures would be too severe. I had spent a Spring Break in Costa Rica just north of Panama once and it had been murderously hot. Painfully hot. Cry-out-loud-it’s-so-hot hot. So I couldn’t get on board with her idea either. We briefly discussed a variety of other options but could not come to any consensus. It wasn’t like we were arguing or anything; we just could not come to a meeting of the minds.
So with only a week before the break, we were still undecided. Everyone at work was telling me of their travel plans and asking me about mine. “Don’t know yet,” I would tell them as they shot me a look of surprise. As I lay in bed surfing the internet for info and ideas that week, I came across the blog of someone who had traveled extensively in Central America. He spoke about a country that was safer and cheaper than Guatemala these days, and filled with undiscovered potential: Nicaragua. I surfed some more, looked at some photos and did some quick reading; and as Ale slept next to me without a clue, I booked two tickets to Nicaragua and was done with it. Problem solved. Vacation booked. Sure it was impulsive; sure it was risky; but I figured Nicaragua was off the beaten path enough as to have the allure of the exotic and new. You know, adventure and discovery. Sometimes going with your gut can really pay off. And sometimes, well… not so much.
I decided not to tell Ale where we were going until we were at the airport. And get this—when I said, “OK where do you think we are going?”—she lights up, smiles and says hopefully, “Cuba!??” I was like, OMG! I could have booked us to Cuba and she would have been fine with it. But, deep inside I already knew that. Why didn’t I just book it? When I told her “Nicaragua” she was… well, let’s just say she was not overjoyed. She was more like, perplexed. “Ahhhh, hmmmm, yeah…Ni-ca-ra-gua, Okaaayyy...” Ugh.
Which leads me to the first lesson I (re)learned about my wife: Ale sometimes doesn’t really know what she’s talking about. Which means to say, sometimes she doesn’t really mean what she says. I know this. Sometimes she likes to be contrary. Sometimes she’s just not thinking things through. So, I need to get past that and somehow get her to let go of her contention when I sort of know that we are probably closer on an issue than it seems. Or, in this case, I probably should have just grabbed the bull by the horns and chosen Cuba, which I pretty much knew, in the end, she would have enjoyed. But, nope, she had originally said no to Cuba, so I respected that, and now we were heading to Nicaragua.
Minutes after this revelation, I (re)learned my next lesson from this trip, which had to do with baggage: If you have a connecting flight, especially if your layover time is short, it is best NOT to check your luggage. I already knew such an obvious thing, but I was not really in my right mind when I made the decision to check our largest piece of carry-on luggage. First of all, I was still reeling from the realization that if I had booked tickets to Cuba, Ale would have been happy with that. Plus, for some reason she was adamant about checking the bag. As some of you married men out there may understand, whenever possible, it’s best to let your wife have her way. This philosophy makes life really enjoyable. However, there are times you should put your foot down and not let your wife have her way. Like, when she wants to check your bag and you have a 50 minute changeover in an airport in El Salvador and you’re transferring between Mexican and Central American airlines. Wow. As I type that it sounds really stupid that I listened to her and checked that bag. But, as I said, I was in a slight state of shock after realizing we could have been on our way to Cuba, and consequently was simply following my husbandly instincts to let Ale have her way.
As you have probably already guessed, things did not work out well with this particular piece of luggage, which arrived in Nicaragua sometime after the two of us. So, we ended up having to stay in Managua one night longer than I had planned, which is to say, one night more than zero nights. What I had read about Nicaragua made it clear that Managua was nothing to get excited about. I can now confirm this for you. The city became the capital relatively recently in 1852 as a compromise between the forever competing/alternating capital colonial cities of Leon and Granada. So, Managua doesn’t have any colonial “old city.” And what commercial downtown area it once had was completely destroyed, along with most of the city, by a massive earthquake in 1972. Not too long after that came the Sandinista Revolution, followed by the Contra Civil War. As a result, the city has only recently begun to be built back up. In Mexico, many moderate to major cities have lovely colonial downtown areas, which are surrounded on the outskirts by the not-so-pretty areas of lesser money, lesser architecture, lesser paint, lesser clean streets, etc. The further you move into the outskirts, the crappier it gets. Managua is just all crappy outskirts.
Nonetheless, if we wanted our luggage we had to stay for the night. We found ourselves a decent enough place and settled in, ordering some Pollo Campero, a popular chain in Central America that Ale was excited to get, having had it previously in a trip to El Salvador. Pretty good stuff, I must admit. We made some phone calls to ensure someone at the airline were thinking about our baggage and I also used the “down time in Managua” to research hotels and towns in order to set up our itinerary for the week. I had not had much time to do so before the trip because our friends Bob, Yoonhee and Sunshine had arrived in town just days after I had bought the plane tickets. By the time I went to sleep in Managua I had mapped out a rough itinerary for the week. Which leads me to yet another lesson I (re)learned on this trip, it’s best to do thorough and extensive research before you go on your trip to: a) make sure it’s a trip worth taking, and b) avoid having to do such research while you’re actually on the trip. (I have a good friend, Tina, who lived in Nicaragua for two years doing a stint with the Peace Corps. Unfortunately, at the time I was planning our trip, she and I were locked in an ongoing pseudo ideological struggle for the future of a secret organization to which we both currently belong. So, stupidly, did not take the advantage of my opportunity to pick her brain ahead of time about Nicaragua.)
It was lucky for us (and the LACSA airline people at the Augusto Sandino airport, trust me) that our baggage was there in the morning. I’m quite certain Ale would have freaked out otherwise. Despite being raised in Mexico, her tolerance for incompetence is lower than mine. So we grabbed our bag and were off to Leon on what appeared to be a relatively new highway along the edge of Lake Managua, one of two enormous lakes in Nicaragua. Leon is actually the second incarnation of itself. The first Leon, built in 1524 right on the shore of the lake, was destroyed by a volcanic eruption a hundred years later. The current Leon was built about further west toward the Pacific Coast and is famous for being the liberal university town of the country. As we drove along, I was impressed by the size of the lake and the Volcano towering above it. As we moved inland I was further impressed. It was amazing how utterly dry and barren most of the landscape was. This was not the luscious Central American jungles I have seen in Belize, Costa Rica and Guatemala. This looked more like the Kalahari during a drought. Not pretty. So far, this country sure was impressive, in a sad way.
Then we arrived at the outskirts of Leon about an hour and a half later, where I was further impressed with how unimpressive it all appeared. The city is filled with one-way streets which made it difficult to navigate, and after a confusing bit of being turned around, we ended up at a dead end filled with run down houses, giant pot-holes and litter in the streets, and dirty faced children standing around looking at us with the expression of stray dogs. It reminded me of the neighborhoods Ale and I had seen in the recent gang videos we had watched about the Central American gang, MS13. Friggin’ great. Plus, it was really, really hot. So, this dead-end was not a great moment on our trip. Why exactly--I am asking myself—did I decide to come to barren, dusty, hot-as-balls and poor-as-hell Nicaragua? The thought of being on the beaches of Cuba, drinking rum drinks, with the ocean breeze blowing through my hair, while I looked at obscenely sexy and barely covered Cuban women walking up and down the beaches was enough to melt my brain.
“Ya know, HONEY…not for nothin’, but if you had not been so obstinate on us going to Cuba we could have been there right now instead being stuck here in this shithole!”
“What are you talking about?!! YOU bought the tickets to this god forsaken place, though I have no idea why! So don’t blame this on ME!!!”
This basic exchange went on for a few more minutes in various forms until Ale stopped talking to me.
But, another lesson was about to be (re)learned; when touring another country, it is often darkest before the dawn. And though strange places may seem terrible under stress, they usually aren’t as bad as they may first seem. Soon, I managed to find my way into the nicer area of town. And we located one of the hotels I had wanted to check out, The Austria. It was pretty nice, with a well groomed central garden, but it lacked a pool, a feature that was clearly going to be mandatory in this heat. So, I headed over to another hotel that had been highly rated on the Trip Advisor site, La Perla. As soon as we pulled up we became excited. Things were looking up. It was a ridiculously beautifully restored hacienda, a posh little boutique hotel with a dozen rooms. It had vacancy and a pool, and was only ten dollars more, at 70 bucks a night. Now, I know this isn’t exactly “cheap” in terms of shoestring travel budgets, but it was a great deal for a hotel of this quality. We checked ourselves in, cranked the air conditioning in our antique-like furnished hotel room and headed out for the small pool. (Suddenly, Ale had no problem wearing a bathing suit while pregnant—even in the presence of other guests at the pool. Go figure.) I made use of both the room mini-bar and hotel poolside bar service over the next few hours while dipping myself in and out of the pool, reading and catching a buzz. Ah, yes, finally, vacation time. As the sun began to set a few hours later, it was time for a little detour to Naptown.
After we awoke, we strolled around town, which seemed much nicer now. Leon is actually a cute town with a lot of potential. The people seemed nice enough and everyone was out enjoying time with their families in the cool evening air. Revolutionary murals on the walls, as well as graffiti proclaiming, “Bush genocide, enemigo de humanidad,” reminded you of its status as the birthplace of the Sandinista revolutionary movement. Sure, overall the place could use a facelift, but considering what the country has been through, it’s remarkable that it’s as pleasant a town as it is. Leon is filled with an abundance of beautiful colonial churches, though many are in dire need of restoration. The central cathedral is enormous, and supposedly the largest in central and South America. The story goes that the plans for both the cathedral of Leon Nicaragua and Lima Peru were sent over on the same ship from Spain. Along the way the two drawings were mixed up—was someone paid off?—and Leon ended up with a monstrosity while Lima today has a relatively moderate cathedral. Eventually, our stroll led us to a beautiful little restaurant, with a very nice central courtyard, featuring Mediterranean food. The food was delicious, but what got me excited was the Jack Daniels, which went for about three dollars a piece. This was great news for someone like me who has the unfortunate luck to have as my favorite drink a brand that tends to be ridiculously expensive in all the countries all over the world.
The next day, we enjoyed the tasty breakfast included with the hotel price and then I sat in the shade with a beer and surfed the internet reading more about Nicaraguan beaches. It was then that I met Jim, the owner of La Perla, one of many Americans finding success in Latin America. He had spent years working as an engineer, then in various businesses, then moved himself down south of the border to work “for fun.” He and his partner had done the hotel together, remodeling the historic hacienda from near collapse into the gem I was now enjoying. (It was never clear to me if “partner,” which he said frequently, meant strictly business or not. This large, husky, Midwestern guy did not trip my normally astute “gaydar.” But, as good as my gaydar is, it’s not full-proof. I’ve been in enough gay bars to know there are many exceptional gay men who can look and act like anyone from Archie Bunker to Charlton Heston to Mickey Rourke.) He took great pride in talking about the hotel and in giving me a tour of the casino he was having built across the street. It was clear he was pinning his future hopes on things improving in Leon and Nicaragua. He was proud of the many people he was employing and the work he was doing with the local chamber of commerce. As you can imagine, he was not thrilled with the recent “election” of Daniel Ortega from the socialist Sandinista party, and he was waiting to see how this new administration will treat foreign investors, especially Americans.
Interestingly enough, Daniel Ortega had been a sort of hero of mine after he became famous for leading a popular revolution against a U.S. supported Somoza dictatorship in 1979. The Somoza dynasty (along with their U.S. business partners) had been ravaging and exploiting the country and the people for some 50 years. After winning the revolution, Ortega became president. Initially, he seemed a relatively moderate “communist” and accepted the hand of friendship and diplomatic recognition from President Jimmy Carter, whose “moral foreign policy” found legitimacy in the Sandinistas revolutionary cause. Unfortunately, cold warrior Ronald Reagan came to power soon afterwards and cut all ties with those “commie bastards.” First in Nicaragua—the argument went—then up through Guatemala and Mexico would come the march of the hammer and sickle, straight from Moscow to the United States of America. Forget that the reason “socialism” appealed to the poor people of this country was not because they were card-carrying Marxists versed in Leninist theories of revolution, but because the “capitalist system” they had been familiar with had long abused them unmercifully, and without democratic redress. I often think that if Carter’s approach had been maintained, and relations had been allowed to normalize and develop, we might have created a functional relationship that respected the common people of Nicaragua which would have also generated a moderating influence on the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. After all, Norway and Sweden are essentially “socialist countries,” and we have good relations with them.
But, that was not to be; and Reagan was soon supplying weapons, supplies and military advice to those in Nicaragua looking to overturn the revolution and the Sandinistas. The “Contras,” as they were called, were the remnants of the former dictator’s National Guard, and defenders of the upper business classes. The CIA trained Contras were so brutal, dirty and destabilizing that the U.S. Congress rejected Reagan’s requests and outlawed any U.S. support. Not to be stifled, Reagan’s subordinates (allegedly without his knowledge) continued funding the Contras by illegally selling weapons to Iran, the sworn enemy of the U.S. (Truth can truly be stranger than fiction.) The Contras used that money to create a painful insurgency that impeded the literacy, health care and agrarian reform efforts of the new government. The Contras also managed to murder American Benjamin Linder, who had taken his engineering degree to Nicaragua to build hydroelectric dams in rural areas. These dams provided lights for evening literacy classes and refrigeration for vaccines. These projects also made the new socialist government look like they were doing a good job for the people of Nicaragua, so in the minds of the Contras and the Reagan administration, they had to be stopped. You know, in the name of freedom and the American Way and anti-communism and all that shit. Ben Linder is still a recognized hero in Nicaragua. In Leon I came across a café that bears his name. (It was closed for Holy Friday, so I didn’t get to sample the wares.)
Under pressure from the U.S. and other Nicaraguan groups critical of the Sandinistas censorship of the press and draconian measures taken during the Contra War, Ortega did something truly amazing for a communist revolutionary leader—he held free and fair elections and stepped down when he lost. It was the U.S. supported Violeta Chamorro, a former Sandinista supporter and the wife of a newspaper editor murdered by the last ruling Somoza, who represented the opposition coalition and assumed the presidency. She then did some remarkable things herself, keeping some former Sandinistas in her administration, continuing with many of the Sandinista social programs, and collecting and destroying all the weapons in the country, burying them all in cement in “Peace Park.” This last act is one reason that Nicaragua is less dangerous than Guatemala, where the weapons from their similar civil strife during the 80’s still abound. Unfortunately for Chamorro, once the Cold War ended in the early nineties, the U.S. had no reason to support her against the communist threat. Aid to Nicaragua was cut and the still wounded and struggling nation soon became the poorest country in the hemisphere, behind Haiti—which is saying a lot. With Nicaragua in dire straits again, the Sandinistas enjoyed a resurgence of popular support and Ortega recently won the presidency again—though the results of the election are widely disputed. Other than the ubiquitous fact that ugly pink billboards of him are currently plastered all over the country, claiming his election is a fulfillment of a promise from God (how un-Marxist!), it is unclear what his return to power will mean for Nicaragua. Foreign investors and entrepreneurs like Jim are holding their collective breath, that’s for sure.
One thing I learned from Jim during our talk was that there was a road, currently under repair with a 10 million dollar U.S. grant, that headed due west to a little beach town called Poneloya. He clearly did not think there was much to the town now, but hoped the road would foster development there, including a beach club spin-off from his hotel. Some of the travel guides described it quite favorably—“sleepy little fishing town with natural beaches”—so Ale and I hoped in the car in hopes of enjoying the sand and surf for the afternoon.
First of all, “under construction” is an understatement. This road was as new and rough a road as you can imagine. It was basically a swath of recently cleared land. Heavy equipment lined the road. Remarkably, Jim would tell me later that this road, even in its completely raw state, was better than the remnant of the previously existing one. Ale was not thrilled with the bumpy ride, and I was later quite pissed off when a splash of some sort of oil/tar, something black and greasy, was sprayed all over the side and hood of my white rental car. I mean, sprayed ALL OVER the side and hood of my white rental car. For the next few days, we received stares and looks of pity and disgust for this mess. Some folks, when walking by our car in traffic, would wipe a finger across the splatter in curiosity to their own chagrin when they realized they were stuck with the oily gunk on their hands. Suckers!
The “beach town” was a joke by any standard. And I’m not being a Jersey Shore snob when I say this. I’ve been to poor beach towns in Ecuador, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Mexico, so I can say this place was in a particularly sad state. Since it was a holiday, there were some people there. We went to the one area of the beach that seemed to be a public spot, only to be further disappointed. The beach itself was actually quite nice. But, there were a series of booth like cabanas there, mostly made of plastic plastered with beer advertisements with dirty tables set up. I didn’t see anything that looked like real food, but there were plenty of drinks to be had. The beach consisted of the typical volcanic sand I’ve encountered in Guatemala and Costa Rica. It is not (usually) as fine and soft as white sand, and it can get twice as hot. Since there were no umbrellas for rent, and no palapas (thatched shade) set up on the beach, we knew it would be uncofomfortable to sit in the sun for more than a few minutes. Unfortunately, the only shade to be found was in the make-shift beach bars which were accompanied by deafening reggaeton music. And while I like some Mariachi, and LOVE Cuban salsa and Colombian cumbia, that raunchy obnoxious reggaeton gets on my nerves quickly. So we moved on, driving through the little strip, past some houses half abandoned, some so-so and a few very nice, until we spotted a passable looking restaurant where we stopped and had some decent seafood. All I could think about was what incredible potential this place had, just like Leon. When the new road from Leon is completed hopefully there will be some serious effort at concerted and thoughtful development. Hopefully it can be done in a way that offers some opportunity and fairness to the desperately poor of the country, whose presence is everywhere.
The next day, after faithfully lounging by the pool with my pregnant wife, Ale encouraged me to check out some options for eco-tourism. There was a place advertizing tours a block away, selling trips onto the lake and hikes up the nearby volcanoes. You can zip line down some volcanoes and even “surf” down the ashes of others. Pretty cool stuff. But, I took my time getting there and showed up ten minutes after the last tour left. Bummer. The young guy who owned the shop was also a an American who shared the same guarded optimism about business prospects in Nicaragua with Jim at the Leon Hotel.
After breakfast and a swim the next morning, I took a walking tour of the city, snapping a boat load of pictures. I checked out a couple of other nice, but more modest, hotels and found prices from $25 dollars (with a fan) to $45 (with air conditioning). Afterwards, we packed up our retarded-looking black speckled car and headed southwest to the beach part of our trip. After seeing the state of the beach near Leon, we uncharacteristically considered a well regarded all inclusive beach resort we had read about online. Unfortunately, enough other people considered it this holiday week to fill the entire hotel. So, where to go? We decided to skip any other “sleepy fishing towns” described in the guides—afraid we’d find more duds than gems—and headed straight for one of the best known beach towns in the country, San Juan del Sur. This once “sleepy fishing town” has been put on the map in the past ten years by cruise ships which have made San Juan del Sur a day stop on the way up the west coast. The town has also received notice brought by Matthew McConaughey who visits the town for its well regarded surf. We had located some decent looking hotels online, but they too were all booked up, it being Semana Santa. Still, we decided to take our chances and headed there anyway. I could have been in Cuba this week, and, by God, I was going to have some quality beach time!
There were two routes to San Juan. The first took the new highway back the way we came around the lake and through Managua. The other, more direct route cut straight across the western plains of the country. Naturally, I preferred the straight line. However, shortly after turning off the main road there were some highwaymen there, blocking the road with a rope, ready to jack us up. Luckily, they were only about seven years old and armed with a smile and a shovel. You see, the road was in such poor shape that these kids would “fix” it by filling in the pot holes and then charging passersby a toll for compensation. There was little to no work actually being done on the road, but the kids were really cute (and poor) so we paid up and took their picture. As we sat there, looking at the dilapidated road, I pondered whether to move forward (NO) or head back on the newer road we knew was intact (YES). There were the occasional other cars heading down this way (DID YOU NOTICE THEY ARE ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY LARGE SUV’S?) so I decided it must be passable. I asked Ale, Do you mind if we take the more direct and yet un-driven road ahead? “Sure, Bebe,” she said, “take which ever way you want.” And we moved on.
I don’t know how long it was before I fully accepted that this was a giant mistake. I suppose it was after we had gone far enough that I felt turning around was not an option. The little kids collecting a toll? That was cute the first 20 times. And while I was able to simply ignore them and drive on by without any consequence, I began to wonder how easy it would be for some nefariously minded folks, armed with more than a smile and an old shovel, to cause us serious harm. The further we drove, the worse the road became, and the less of any kind of civilization we saw. I began to feel like a slow moving target. But, given Ale’s increasingly foul mood, I thought it best not to bring this up. Before too long, she had begun complaining about the constant slowing, stopping, zigging and zagging required to avoid the ever present potholes, bumps and rocks in our path. There were actually times when driving on the shoulder was preferable to the washed out road. Earlier that morning, she had mentioned that she feared she might be getting the cold Bob and family had brought from Philadelphia, since she had a sore throat and headache coming on. Oh, and did I mention she was 5 months pregnant? It was hot and dusty and barren, and she was miserable. “Why did you have to take this way, menso?! (dummy) This is no kind of road for a sick, pregnant woman!” She was right, but what could I say, I had asked her and she had given me the green light. I should have used my head and not base my decision on her response. For the second time on this trip I was being given the silent treatment by my wife. And for the second time I was learning, once again, that there are times my wife doesn’t really know or mean what she is saying. All I could do was keep moving and pray the totally fucked up road in front of me ended soon. Thank God for the radio station I found, which played a great selection of 70’s and 80’s soft rock. Phil Collins never sounded so good.
As I looked out at the barren landscape of Nicaragua, I thought about the conversations at the environmental and political groups I was involved in during my college years. I had heard about the environmental horrors happening in Nicaragua caused by the slashing and burning forested lands in order to create grazing land for cattle. It was difficult to reconcile the dry, desolate countryside I was observing (while avoiding car swallowing pot holes) with the fact that Nicaragua was the number one supplier of foreign beef to American fast food chains like McDonald’s and Burger King during the 1970’s. If I had seen with my own eyes how devastating the long term results of this short sited policy would be, I would have probably been arrested (even more than I was during those years) for some civil disobedience antics at Ronald McDonald’s.
Beef exports!? Are you serious?! The few cows I saw along the road looked as if they had just escaped some Holocaust concentration camp for cattle. This bleak place couldn’t support ten cows, much less commercial cattle ranching. At least, not anymore. So, whose bright idea was it to raise cattle in Nicaragua and destroy the countryside? Well, suffice to say it was the people who had a monopoly on the meat processing and distribution for Nicaraguan beef. You guessed it, none other than the Somoza family, who owned the largest slaughter house in Nicaragua and six meat packing plants in Miami. Not only that, they contributed to the deforestation by making deals with American lumber companies, wherein their family was paid millions for the rights to harvest Nicaraguan timber without any legal obligation to reforest. Yeah, Anastasio Somoza (Sr. and Jr.) were ginormous assholes. (Like father, like son.) And these brutal dictators were hand picked, installed and supported by the U.S. government. Somoza is the guy about whom FDR supposedly said, “Yeah, he’s a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our son-of-a-bitch.” Gee, Thanks America! And people wonder why the Nicaraguan revolutionaries were attracted to communist ideals? I don’t.
So, on and on I drove the barely intact road, dotted with the saddest hovels you can imagine. I drove even slower now, with Ale asleep, and pondered how the U.S. has loomed over central America the way the huge volcanoes I was seeing towered over the Nicaraguan countryside. And thankfully, like a visit to the dentist, the road from hell eventually came to a welcome end; and after a couple more hours we found ourselves approaching the town San Juan del Sur. Finally, I was going to get myself some quality beach time!
Yeah, right... Maybe in some other blog (like one about a trip to Cuba) there would be a description of my happy times chillin’ on the beach. But, this is about the worst vacation ever, and Miguelito was not going to spend one minute of bliss with his toes in the sand. Not one.
The first order of business was getting a hotel. We had about an hour of daylight left. The town is small, nestled at the foot of some hills and around the mouth of a small, well defined bay. The streets were filled with cars and people, some already drunk. (The people, not the cars.) After getting the “no room at the inn” treatment from four or five places, I couldn’t help but identify with Joseph of old, feeling like a schmuck for coming into town during the Passover holiday season without a reservation, and with a pregnant wife in tow. One guy, trying to be helpful, recommended a place “just out of town.” After winding over the hills for a mile or two, we found ourselves in a posada across the street from a large graveyard, sporting a dirty unswimmable pool and a large parrot screeching something in Spanish every 20 seconds. And like all the other places in town, they were charging twice as much as the beautiful hotel we had just left in Leon. So we thanked the man for his ridiculous offer and headed back into town where we somehow managed to find a room a block away from the beach.
The hotel was OK. The rooms were basic and drab, but it had a TV and an air conditioner, so it would do. We decided to rest in the cool air and watch some TV and/or nap until dinner. Sounds logical right? But, no, this is the worst vacation ever, so of course there was some jackass below our window in the parking lot beside the hotel with his hatchback open cranking his 80’s metal out of his subwoofers, drinking beer and playing air guitar by himself. Loser. I know enough about Latin American culture to know complaining about such a thing is useless. It’s a good thing that I didn’t have a rifle with me or I’d be writing this from a Nicaraguan jail. So I turned up the TV and air full blast and we did our best to relax for a while.
The main strip of San Juan runs along the curve of the beach with hotels, shops and restaurants. It was filled with pedestrians and street vendors. It reminded us a bit of Puerto Escondido. At the far end of the strip—away from the hotel, thank God—were a couple of portable inflatable nightclubs set up on the beach pumping out “poochie-poochie” music (as Ale calls it). After a stroll and some people watching we settled on an open air restaurant on the beach, where we enjoyed a delicious meal, some drinks, a table serenade and an unexpected fireworks display. On the way back to the hotel, there was a parade down the main strip, consisting mostly of alcohol sponsored floats topped with scantily clad young girls. It was lively and festive and perhaps, I thought, this was all going to work out OK. Tomorrow we would head to the beach were I could read and swim and relax. Ale headed back to the hotel early and I found my way to a little surfer bar, The Iguana, where I had some drinks and watched a surf video on TV. It was literally a movie about San Juan del Sur and how it’s fame as a surfing spot has transformed it from a “sleepy little fishing town” into a vacation destination of some repute. There’s no surfing to be done in the main bay, which like Puerto Escondido is without any waves and filled with boats. However, apparently both north and south of the town there are some of the best surfing nooks and crannies in the western hemisphere. The guys in the videos talked about how in the old days, they had to walk hours to get to these spots, but now there are four wheel drive vehicles that will shuttle you back and forth. I must admit, the surfing I saw on the video was some of the most impressive I’ve ever seen. Really incredible stuff. I did not spot Mathew McConaughey, who I understand also patronizes this bar when he’s in town.
While watching the youngsters in the Iguana get drunk, I was thinking: tomorrow we’ll get up and head to the beach. We’ll rent a palapa, or an umbrella, stick our toes in the sand and enjoy the ocean breeze. This vacation is going to work out fine. It all seemed so within reach. But when we arrived to the beach the next morning, it was obvious we had made some huge assumptions. The beach in San Juan is the ugliest beach I have ever seen. In fact, I hesitate to call it a beach. At least Peneloya beach near Leon had sand—rough, black and hot, though it was. This “beach” consisted of mud, covered everywhere with large rocks ranging from 1 to 4 inches in diameter. There were no palapas and no umbrellas. There was no one set up on the beach in day-at-the-beach fashion, only people standing and walking and some, mostly clothed, jumping in and out of the shallow, calm, dirty looking water. You MUST be fucking kidding me. I tried desperately not to think about Havana and what could have been...
Given this disappointment, and the lackluster and overpriced hotel we were in, we decided to get some brunch and leave a day early for Granada, the last stop on our tour. We found the perfect spot to eat and get on the internet at the Espresso cafe. A new and trendy place filled with tourists that represented perhaps the best of what Nicaragua can become. The several British girls working behind the counter made me suspect that, admittedly, it too, was foreign owned. (Obviously, local owned is better, but foreign investors can help by creating jobs and modeling good business practices.) While there, we met an interesting German couple. These two older women had shipped a motorcycle from Germany to Alaska and were half way through their year long trip down the Pan American highway. They talked about how much they loved the beauty of the American Northwest and the style and personality of San Francisco. They said they enjoyed much of Mexico, and the jungles and ruins of Guatemala, but they were not too impressed with Nicaragua. (I feel you, man.) They also shared with us their difficulties adjusting to Latin American culture. If you think it’s tough for Americans to deal with some of these special ways—imagine the same for a German! It was quite funny and sad to hear her relay a story of frustration concerning their failed attempt to mail some postcards home from a post office in Mexico City, such a seemingly simple task completely FUBAR’ed by apathetic incompetence. The woman admitted she had a meltdown on the spot and burst into tears. I wondered how they were going to fare for six more months of this. Hopefully they won’t give up before they arrive in Chile and Argentina, which I understand are more European in many ways than the rest of Latin America.
I understand their frustration. I deal with it all the time. In fact, I dealt with it immediately after hearing their story. Upon returning to the hotel, I asked if there was anyone around who would/could wash the black, greasy spatter off my white car. I was tired of being looked at like I was an idiot. Two separate people working behind the desk assured me there was no one around who could help me with my request. However, when I went out to the car to load up our things, the attendant there was wandering around with a hose wetting down the parking lot, presumably to keep the dust down. He was more than happy to wash my car for a couple of bucks. So without pondering too long on why the hotel workers had offered me such obviously wrong information, we drove on to Granada. Unfortunately, I had lost the signal for the cool radio station the day before and could not get much more than several stations of Christian music. Sure, the music was sort of sappy, but I couldn’t tell what they were saying so it was better than nothing for me. Ale, on the other hand couldn’t take it. She had woken up to it the day before on the way to San Juan, with her first words, “Why are you listening to this shit!?” Despite my best efforts, including asking the women—an old lady, daughter and granddaughter—to whom we gave a lift for a while, I was never able to relocate the station. (It’s likely these poor Nicaraguan ladies did not listen to 70’s soft rock in English.) It didn’t matter though, because Grenada was only about an hour away, and our luck was about to change for the better.
As disappointed as I was entering Leon, I was just as ecstatic entering Granada, which shines with newer paint, groomed parks and gorgeous architecture. The central plaza is lined with a series of hotels that rival (but don’t top) La Perla. Horse drawn carriages line the square ready to take you on a tour of this magical colonial town. I was excited beyond control. THIS is what I meant when I was thinking earlier in the week about what the city of Leon could become if it lived up to its potential. I suppose this was to be expected. I had read that in the long rivalry between Leon and Granada over the location of the capital and government, Granada had been the town of the conservatives, whereas Leon had been the town of the liberal intellectuals. It’s no wonder then, the Sandinista Revolution began in the university town of Leon, or that the first Somoza was assassinated there. Granada sits on the edge of Lake Nicaragua, which, unlike Leon, has access to the Caribbean—and thus to Europe—by way of the Rio San Juan, which separates Nicaragua from Costa Rica. Granada is a resilient city. Access to the seas made it a rich town. It also made it a target for English pirates who periodically sailed up the river, crossed the lake and sacked the city. It was also completely burned to the ground in 1857 by William Walker. Walker was an American swashbuckler who came to Nicaragua at the request of the Liberals of Leon in order to aid them in their fight with the Conservatives of Granada. He and his mercenaries defeated the Conservatives, and then refused to leave. Walker finagled his way into the presidency for a brief time before being overthrown by an uncharacteristically united Leon/Granada front. Upon his retreat, before being captured and executed, he destroyed Granada, even going so far as to erect a grave marker reading, “Here Lies Granada.” Looking around Granada today, you’d never know it.
Ale and I checked into the very nice Hotel Colonial, just off the main square, immediately got ourselves poolside at one of the two available pools. And once in the pool, I quickly got myself bar-side at the swim up bar. After two days of rocky roads, barren landscape and shitty “beaches,” we were back to full-on “vacation relaxation.” We chatted up a retired American couple who were living in Costa Rica. Due to the slow, bureaucratic process of achieving residency there, were forced to leave the country every six months for a week. Mandatory vacations! After our time at the pool we headed out to find the restaurant the couple had recommended to us. Along the way, we discovered a well lit cobblestoned strip of restaurants, bars and shops. It was clear that this city was making a conscious effort at earning tourists’ favor. The restaurant they had recommended was closed, so we ate at a steak place before having drinks outside at another bar, watching the local street kids perform break dancing and other physical feats, as well as some Semana Santa processions.
The next morning, we had brunch in the nifty café right next to the hotel, where we did some reading and internet surfing in the indoor/outdoor area in the back. The place had a sort of hippie-community vibe. Adjoining it was a used book store and there were various rooms with hammocks and areas for private conversation or studying. Flyers on the wall advertized poetry readings (Nicaraguans are famous for their love of poetry) and “blind massage.” (I guess I can see how getting a massage from a blind guy might be cool, but it also struck me as a bit creepy.) After Ale went back to the hotel I managed to get myself into a game of ping-pong with some guys that were playing at a table there. I haven’t played ping-pong in quite some time, and am usually better than average players. However, these dudes obviously played every day and simply destroyed me. I think I scored 2 points the first game and 6 the next, and it was clear they were just toying with me. I was thinking that maybe I should be playing the blind guys I saw sitting around the café, apparently waiting for clients. I might have continued with my efforts to shake the rust off my game and make it competitive, but I was already soaked with sweat. Even though it was in the shade, at it was barely noon, it was blazing hot. So I went next door to join Ale at the pool for the afternoon. There was a tour agency next to the hotel advertizing trips to the mountains, the volcanoes and onto the lake and it’s many islands, but I was over all that and ready to chill with my wife for the remainder of the trip.
And that is exactly what we did for the next two days. More pool time, more food and drink, more reading, more strolls around Granada. I enjoyed my time chatting with a mother and daughter working in a hotdog place about politics. They, being from Granada, were not fans of Ortega and the Sandinistas. All in all it was lovely. And, perhaps, just lovely enough to make the entire crazy week worthwhile. But, then again…probably not. Why not? Because the craziness wasn’t over yet.
Since the connection in El Salvador had caused us problems, I was happy that our flight home was a direct flight to Mexico City. Or so we thought. As we approached the DF, we were flying above massive cloud formations. They were white on top, but I could only imagine what was going on below. Soon the pilot came on to tell us we were flying to Queretaro to circle for a while in the sky due to severe weather. When the weather didn’t break soon enough, we were told we would be landing in Guadalajara to wait things out. Great. But, it gets better. Meaning, it gets worse. After sitting in the plane on the tarmac for 45 minutes, and hearing that we may be there for hours, people started to get restless. “We need to get off this plane!” people began telling the stewardess. “Sorry,” she replied, like Sonny in A Bronx Tale, “now yous can’t leave.” You see, they had brilliantly decided to land our plane in the domestic terminal of the airport. So, because we were an international flight, they couldn’t process us through immigration. Some people on the plane were actually meant to fly to Guadalajara, with a stop in Mexico City, so they were naturally eager to get off the plane and get on with their business. “Give us us free!” people cried like the captured African in Amistad. “Nope, you are all going to have to stay here, fly back to Mexico City and try to find another flight back to Guadalajara.” It was insanity. It’s a good thing the German dykes weren’t with us, they would have gone NAZI on their asses.
Thankfully, after a near mutiny by the passengers, they set up a make-shift immigration and luggage receiving area and processed us through. Those destined for Guadalajara were allowed to move on. The rest of us were shuttled to a terminal where we had to go through check-in again before boarding the plane. After a three and a half hour delay that lasted longer than the original flight from Nicaragua, we were finally back in the air heading home. Well, not so fast. Once again, as we approached the DF, the pilot came on to tell us the weather was a still a problem and we would have to head to Queretaro again to circle for a while longer. It seemed the worst vacation ever just would not end! I couldn’t believe that they had sent us back in the air before things had cleared up. But, I was keeping my cool. I had gotten a good look at our pilots in Guadalajara and they both looked under twenty five years old. I told myself it was better to circle around in the sky a little longer than to REALLY make this the worst vacation ever and die in a fiery high speed explosion. Mercifully, we only circled for about twenty minutes before heading back to Mexico and finally landing. But, it wasn’t quite over. Unbelievably, they landed our plane in the international section this time, even though we had already been processed into the country. When a woman asked us for our immigration forms (which we had handed over in Guadalajara) and then told us we had to fill out new ones, Ale almost strangled the woman. It was all so very Mexican.
So, let’s recap the lessons I (re)learned from this trip. Well, first, I (re)learned that sometimes I need to apply what I know about my wife and ignore what she is actually saying to me. Would she have had a great time in Cuba? Probably, and I should have known that. And I also (re)learned something about travel too. Should you plan a vacation to an unknown destination without doing thorough research? Probably not. (But, if you never take a shot at getting off the beaten path you’ll never have the amazing discovery of some unexpected wonder.) Certainly, I (re)learned that you should not check baggage small enough to carry on a plane. And I definitely (re)learned that touring requires flexibility and a positive attitude. I also (re)learned that Nicaragua, like many Latin American countries, has suffered enormously from the shitty policies of its northern big brother. Finally, I (re)learned that the world is an interesting and varied place, full of wonderful differences and captivating histories. I love being out in it.
Would I recommend Nicaragua for a vacation—not exactly. If you are into traveling cheap, and willing to do the hostel tour and climb some huge volcanoes, then maybe it’s worth a visit. If you are into surfing hidden coves with monster waves, definitely. If you’re looking for silky white beaches with beach town amenities, definitely not. I can only hope that Nicaragua will continue to grow and develop in a way that is good for the majority of the people. And perhaps in ten years, it will be a place with more to offer. Maybe I’ll head back someday and find out. But, then again, I think I’ll go to Cuba instead.
You can view a whole bunch of pictures from this trip in a slideshow format at:
