Guardian Angel

7-24-08

Well, quite a bit has happened since I wrote last! Week three of school passed fairly uneventfully. I spent my afternoons doing homework, hanging around with Steve and Todd, and on Wednesday I went to another baseball game with (among others) a girl I had met named Divea. She’s originally from India, and is here in Nicaragua for 4 weeks essentially on a free ride; she’s a Spanish teacher from the Chicago area, and in exchange for being a chaperone for her students on the plane here and then on the plane home she gets to stay in Granada, living expenses paid! Pretty sweet deal!

Saturday the 19th was the 29th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution. The Sandinistas were allied with the Soviet Union, and over threw the Somoza dictatorship—a man and his two sons whose stints in power are sort of melded into one era of suffering for the people and extreme wealth for the Somoza family—in 1979 after a long struggle. The Sandinista era seems to have been marked by the same downfalls of other communist countries; they began with good ideals, but the execution was lacking. At some later date, at the request of various human rights organizations, they held open, fair elections, convinced that they would win. They were instead vehemently booted out of office in favor of a problematic democracy with which the Nicas are still struggling. The Sandinistas have now re-formed into a legitimate party with the initials FSLN of which the current president, Daniel Ortega, is a member. He sounds just like most other politicians; he talks the talk, but doesn’t get much done. This is in part because of the Nicaraguan bureaucracy, but largely because of his (and his party’s) sympathy with Castro and Chavez for which our government (and Japan’s, and probably a few others) applies a lot of pressure making change almost impossible.

Steve and I decided that we would head over to Managua (the capitol) to see the celebrations of the anniversary. It was quite the rally—presidents and other officials from countries like Ecuador, Argentina, Cuba, Peru, Venezuela, Panama, Honduras, Guatemala and others were in attendance on an elaborately set up stage. Notably, Hugo Chavez himself was there in addition to the wife and daughter of Che Guevara. Unfortunately, the Plaza de la Revolution is very large, and there were 20,000(?) 30,000 (?) people around us who also wanted to get closer to the stage, so I didn’t really see any of these people up close, but I was in proximity! Also, the speeches didn’t really start until about 6:30pm, after Steve and I had already left. What we did get to see was the parade in of the party members with red and black flags, t-shirts, face-paint, etc., (which went on forever!) and we heard many songs of the revolution. It was wild to think that many of the people there were alive during the revolution, and especially to see (visibly in some cases) that they had participated in the fighting. It is something wholly other to be at a political event commemorating a still very real and present revolution than to attend something like our 4th of July. There was an aspect of the picnic/party atmosphere—families were there, and especially at first everyone was dancing and singing (and drinking) and waving flags—but at some point (probably as the drunks began to get bored with the long introductions of all of the dignitaries in attendance) the mood shifted. Fights broke out, and a rather more militant celebratory attitude began to be felt near the surface. Steve and I picked that as the right moment to get out of there! We arrived back in Granada without incident—though before we left we did witness a man being chased and then beaten by about 15 people for who-knows-what reason—and decided to meet for a drink after each returning to our respective homestays.

Over beers we talked about how much safer we felt in Granada, and how, though Managua may be interesting for political reasons, we didn’t really think it was worth any more than a day trip. We were both relieved to have returned to Granada without anything happening, and after hearing that Chavez’s speech consisted mostly of “imperialist” USA bashing, we were glad that we left when we did! Steve being from Ireland, we are probably two of the whitest people in general, let alone in Nicaragua!

After our drink, we walked back towards our houses. Steve lives about 2 blocks west and 2 blocks north of my house, and despite the fact that I almost never walk alone at night I decided to walk by myself in the rain back to my house from Steve’s. This was absolutely the single most idiotic decision I have ever made while traveling. I rounded the first corner, and noticed a drunk on the other side of the street, walking back towards town, but didn’t think anything of it. I turned the second corner and realized that he was following me. I shifted my 1.5 liter water bottle to my right hand, as a precaution, and then I heard him run up behind me. I swung, and I think I hit him in the head, but I’m not sure. Some other force took over, and I started screaming. The phrase “screaming bloody murder” would appropriately describe what I was doing. The man made a grab for the strap of my little purse, and got a handful of my long-sleeve shirt also, in which he ripped a great big hole. Now here’s the lucky part: when he yanked on my bag, the strap came totally dis-attached from the bag, and he ended up with just some shirt and the strap in his hand. That other force somehow enabled me to (I think) hit him with my umbrella, while screaming, and (and this is the part that baffles me when I think about it) step forward to get my bag from the ground. I think the would-be thief ran off, and I ran the last block and a half to my house, past the people who had come to their doors, but had not come out to help. Once in my room, I was hysterical. It was the proverbial nightmare, the man assaulting from behind, and two thoughts ran through my head: how could I have been so stupid as to walk home, in the dark, alone? and I was so lucky. I am so thankful that nothing worse happened—and I thank whatever force protected me that night.

When I had calmed down enough to think about sleeping, I realized that my over-active imagination would never allow me to rest, running through all of the things that might have been. I looked for my iPod, as a form of distraction, and couldn’t find it. It wasn’t in my room. This on top of everything! I watched bad tv, dozing slightly until 5 or 6 am when I was finally able to sleep a little. Then I got up and told Sarah and Katia what had happened. They both chided me multiple times for my bad decision, and I fully deserve to be chided… I’m usually so paranoid about that kind of thing, but for some reason I had a lapse, and I paid for it. So much for mine and Steve’s conversation about safety in Granada! (though to be fair, what happened could have happened in any city in the world. Granada really is quite safe, especially as Central American cities go.)

Katia was mortified that my iPod was missing, and assured me over and over that nothing like this had happened before and that she would make it right. I spent Sunday alternately crying and feeling exhausted, driving around to look for my iPod with Katia. The upshot was this: at some point, either when I had forgotten to lock my room (which I did do a few times) or when Sarah was changing sheets or doing laundry, Katia’s 14 year old nephew snuck into my room and stole my iPod, headphones and computer connector cord. He hid it in his ceiling, and his justification was apparently that he wanted to listen to music. That little shit!! What creeped me out was that my iPod was never just sitting on the desk; it (along with the cords) was in a little pocket in my backpack, so that kid must have gone in and rummaged through my stuff to find it. I don’t think he could ever have seen me with it as I hadn’t listened to it since I had it out on the bus from Costa Rica. My computer was out on the floor, and I had about $200 in cordobas in the room, but all he took was the iPod. He plugged it in to his computer, erasing all of my music (thankfully not a problem as my entire library is saved on my computer and I simply restored it) and changed a bunch of settings. He pulled off part of my sticker/iPod cover, and I think his hiding place in the ceiling got a bunch of sticky shit all over the back. Katia told me that this was not his first offence and that he will likely be headed for correctional school.

Again, I feel as though I am protected (though warned!) by some force; I have my iPod, and I am not going to leave Katia’s house. Despite what happened, I do trust her, and Sarah, and I do feel safe in Granada. Needless to say, I won’t be walking ANYWHERE alone after 6 pm. If I hadn’t been attacked—strange as it is to say—I don’t know when I would have realized that my iPod was gone. It might have been too late. I am glad that I have decided to stay, but man, I will be so ready to get on that plane back to the states when the time comes!

Monday felt long, and the agitation over the weekend made my mild cold much worse, but by the end of the say (after talking to my mom, dad and sisters) I felt much better. In spite of everything, I felt the most comfortable speaking Spanish on Monday that I have felt the whole trip! I think something has shifted—it’s getting easier by the day both to speak and to understand people.

On Tuesday, Steve and I hiked out to the Laguna de Apoyo, the now idyllic remains of a once enormous volcano between Granada and Masaya (I could see it from the Mirador in Catarina). The hike out was pretty mellow, through some farming communities and lovely fields on a small dirt road with the occasional arroyo making a big ditch in the middle. When we got to the Laguna, the path dropped steeply down to the water. It was bath water temperature, just slightly salty, and a clear, deep blue that was disconcerting to swim over—my book says that the deepest measured point in the Laguna is the deepest point in all of Central America! We didn’t stay long, both because of the gathering rain clouds and because we didn’t want to still be walking after dark, and got totally soaked in the ensuing downpour. This, too, did not help my cold! It was a great trip though, despite the soggy ending…

Wednesday was another baseball night, this time a double header! Granada lost the first game 1-4 to Matagalpa, but rallied for the second, which ended with the same score, only reversed. Despite conflicting reports, I think I’ve finally figured out where we are in the series: somewhere in the semi-finals, with varying reports on when the finals might start or end. I will most certainly go to another game next week before I pack up to leave Granada! It’s become a very fun Wednesday night outing with my teacher Olga (she’s the most fun!), Pati (the school secretary/gofer/errand boy), Steve and various other students.

I’ve written this in my hotel room in Mérida, on the Isla Ometepe, but now it’s time for bed, so the story of how I got here will have to wait until tomorrow! It’s all one big adventure, this thing called life, and while traveling it seems that it’s best to just surrender to it sometimes….

7-25-04

So here I am in Mérida. On Wednesday morning, I found out that two of the other girls at the school were planning to come to Isla Ometepe also, and happened to be staying at the same hostel that I am. They are living in the same house as Divea, and were planning to travel with her. One of the girls, Lindy, essentially decided (without my saying anything) that I should travel with them, but she (luckily…) didn’t get in touch with me early enough and I ended up not seeing them until I arrived last night.

So, Thursday morning, I took two hours of class, and then went down to the bottom of the market street to board a bus for Rivas. The only seat still open next to a window happened to be the tire seat (Central America seems to be the graveyard of school buses—most of the public transport is on old busses with broken seats and windows), and so I spent the hour and a half ride with my knees up. My sits bones were aching! However, we arrived in Rivas without incident. I hopped off the bus and asked two of the many other tourists if they were going to the port, San Jorge, and if they wanted to share a taxi. Luckily, I had emailed with the manager of the hotel and she told me how much to expect to pay for that taxi—the crowd of taxistas were intent on ripping off all of the confused tourists—and we moved a bit away from the crowd. One of the locals who had ridden on the bus must have heard the taxista trying to get the three of us (me and the other two tourists) to pay 40 cordobas per person, or heard me saying that it was too expensive, and so he asked us if we would like to go around the corner to where he knew there were taxis for 15 cordobas per person. He seemed like a nice guy and after talking to him for a minute we walked with him. We all got in the car (he was going to the port too), and arrived there shortly. The other two tourists went there own way, but I continued talking to the guy. He told me that there was the ferry, or I could take a “lancha” (a smaller boat) for less. It seemed like a lot of people were paying for tickets on the lancha, and so I decided to do it.

Within a few minutes we boarded, and were down in the bottom of the boat—another home for old, broken school bus seats!—and waiting to get going. It seems that I made the right decision; as we were setting out (a little late), the ferry was only just arriving, so if I had chosen that option I would certainly have missed my bus from the port city, Moyogalpa. Nonetheless, the lancha was quite the boating experience—my feet got splashed for the whole first (and much wavier) part of the ride, attesting to the holes in the sides of the boat. It seemed sea-worthy, but very much patched together. Initially the sides of the boat were open and I could see out, but when we got out a little further, the water started splashing in, so they pulled tarps over the windows to keep the water out. Usually, I really like boats, and I don’t get motion sickness that often, but immediately when they “closed” the window, I started to feel sick. The waves were pretty intense at that point in the journey, and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it! Eventually I pulled the tarp up just enough so that I could see out, and I started to feel better. After a little over an hour we arrived in the port, and I got up, out and over into the bus for Mérida.

I thought I was going to have to stand for the journey, but then I saw my friend from the taxi and the lancha, and he made room for me on his bench. He told me that the bus would have to go from Moyogalpa all the way over to the other port, Altagracia, before re-tracing its path to head south for Mérida. Such, it seems, is the way of things! I wasn’t much fazed—I had planned Thursday as a travel day, and thought I wouldn’t be getting to Mérida before dinner time. On the way to Altagracia lots of people got on and off the bus, making it go quite slow, but I ended up talking to my friend and also the man in the seat in front of us about language and learning languages, the increasing importance of Spanish in the US, Nicaraguan politics, things to do in Mérida, festivals in Moyogalpa, and finally—and rather strangely—sushi which then led to Chinese food, and the Chinese practice of eating dogs and cats. They were very friendly men, and I felt triumphant about my speaking abilities: not perfect, but I think I did really well. It’s getting a little easier….

Both men got off in Altagracia, along with about half of the local passengers on the bus, leaving various tourists along with fewer locals. The scenery on the bus ride was stunning—cloudy fields lit with gold evening light, and a few lovely moments on the isthmus where I could see Volcán Concepción (the bigger one) out one side of the bus and Volcán Madera out the other. Somewhere fairly close to Mérida it started raining, and everyone tried to put up their windows—it was like a cartoon, with people trying over and over to put the window up, and every time having the window slide back down. By that point in the trip the bus was empty enough that everyone ended up on their seats towards the middle of the bus, trying to avoid the water. Luckily the rain had stopped by the time I got to my hotel, Hacienda Mérida.

I knew from the description in my book and from the website that this place was likely to be a young, hip backpacker destination, but it’s a little ridiculous. If you like that sort of thing, it’s really a paradise—there are people (mostly under 30, it seems) from all around the world, hammocks strung up all around the common area, internet access (despite being very far from most things!) and they ring a bell for the dinner and breakfast buffets where everyone comes out and sits down together at the many tables for their meals. It’s got a similar atmosphere to a hostel where I stayed in Nice, France—the old villa of Antoine Saint-Exupery (author of “The Little Prince”) which now houses almost everyone under 25 who goes to Nice.

All of that is very well and good, but it’s more overwhelming than I had imagined. I was planning on using this weekend to have some privacy (in my homestay, I have two windows that look out on the patio in my house, and there are almost always people out there who can pretty easily see into my room), spend some time relaxing and most importantly to so some writing and editing of my poems. The atmosphere is not exactly conducive to those activities (except the relaxing part), and my plans have also been a bit scrunched by the other girls from Granada who are here. Anyhow, I’m going to make what I can from it—this afternoon I’m going to spend editing poems, and then they’re leaving tomorrow, so no big deal!

This morning the four of us (Lindy, her friend—whose name I can’t remember—, Divea and I) went to hike up to the San Ramon Waterfall, supposedly about 2 hours walk from the hostel. I had planned this hike as one of my activities for my weekend, and the others said they would be going this morning and invited me along, so we set out. Had I done the hike solo (as planned) I would have been up at the waterfall fairly easily within the two hours, but Lindy and her friend are just about the slowest walkers I have ever seen. Divea and I would go ahead, but then have to stand around and wait for 10 minutes every couple of turns in the road for them to catch up. The hike was along the road for about 3 km, then into the Volcán Maderas reserve, on a smaller road for about 2 km, and then the last 1 km (or possibly a bit more) was on a trail. It was gorgeous! We got several lovely views of the lake—despite the overcast weather, which actually made hiking much more comfortable—and saw lots of exotic insects, birds and plants. It was all going along peachy (though very slowly, with Divea and I still walking ahead and then waiting) until about where the small road turned into a path, and it came out that the other girls had only brought one bottle of water for the three of them! Lindy and her friend said that they had had no idea that the waterfall would be this far (and this much up hill), which is ridiculous. Where else could the waterfall have been but up the side of the volcano? To have a waterfall, you need some cliffs for the water to fall off of….

They kept trucking on—by then it was mid-morning, and I could have already been up and back down—until we got to a part of the trail where—we found out later—there had been a huge mudslide from all the way up at the waterfall probably half a mile back down the side of the hill. This slide happened only about a month ago, and it’s quite a landscape now—the volume of land that moved is really amazing. The trail kept going forward, though it crisscrossed the stream, and was more foot prints than trail, as much, and we could see that we were getting quite close to the waterfall, but the other three were scared of the mud, lack of trail, etc. and dehydrated (I had shared some of my water, but two bottles is not enough for four people either). I was actually enjoying myself; you had to clamber in and out of the stream—really not much water, less than a foot deep in places where you could stand in it—up and over rocks, and though it was clear that destruction had reigned there very recently, the rocks were stable in the drying mud, and you only sunk a little (less than an inch) where the mud was soft. It became clear that the other girls wanted to go back even though we could see the waterfall, and so, after I convinced them that I would head up to the waterfall alone and then meet up with them later, they started back down the trail.

After some more clambering I got to the fall—it’s not very much water, but it’s falling from so high up! Very stunning, especially to think about where that mass of land that careened down the hill came from. At the base of the fall I found another group who had a guide—it turned out that there was a bit (really not much) of a path that they had used which was probably marginally easier than the way I had come up. They were in sandals! And seemed to have had no problems, though to be fair those sorts of things are less scary for those with fears with a guide. I put on my suit, and stood under the cold! water for a few minutes, felt the spray, took a few photos, and then packed up to head home. Since I had delayed so much with the other girls, it was already after noon, and I was feeling pretty hungry, so I wasn’t that motivated to hang around!

So, we had left the entrance to the park around 9:45, and I got up to the fall itself at about 12:20. I left the fall at about 12:45 and was back down by 1:15! Going down is faster, but the trail was certainly not THAT steep. Man! I so wish I had decided to go alone!! The girls were waiting in the restaurant at the entrance to the park, where they had bought some water, and they made me feel like some kind of crazy dare-devil (which, though I am adventurous, I certainly am not in this case—there were other people going up there, and it was safe), saying how worried they were about me, and how glad they were that I was safe…. I appreciate the sentiment, but really, their fears were all out of proportion. It annoyed me that they were so concerned about my jaunt up the river bed, and I didn’t want to listen to them talk about it all the way back down the road, so I headed off walking (they had ordered food also, and were going to eat in the restaurant) back to the Hacienda. All in all, even with the annoyances caused by my unprepared and over-faced companions, it was a really fun outing! When I got back, I took a blissful shower, had some lunch, and came back to my room to write. I’m really pleased that the other girls are leaving tomorrow, and I won’t feel obligated to go on any more outings with them…

Tomorrow and Sunday I’m hoping to go kayaking and horseback riding—I’m not sure in which order, but one activity per day. Then I’ll be making the long trek back to Granada on Monday for my last four days of class. I think I’ll probably pay the extra cordobas to take the nicer Ferry back across to San Jorge, especially since busses go to Granada every hour or so, and I won’t be in a rush!!