Nicaragua Part 2

Ah where was I. Leaving modern Tikal I think. Been awhile. Drinking really kills the writing process. Anyway I missed Ariana in the morning. She came to Managua, but I had not bothered checking my e-mail, because she had told me she would not make it and so I had plowed straight on to Granada. The bus man kept poking me and pointing out things I should see along the way. I had already seen the lake and I don't have buttons on my arms to make my eyes zoom in, so I was not going to see it any better. Grenada itself is a really pretty colonial town. I think its the best of the colonial towns in Central America, but Guanajuato would still piss all over it. It reminds me of a Central American Charleston (like Campeche) with a sprinkling of Florence. Its a little too clean cut (too perfectly manicured), but it has a few rougher edges around town (and not really rough like Leon). People say Leon has more character than Grenada. I think thats bollocks. Yeah Grenada is a little more touristy on the locals front, but its nowhere near as bad as Antigua and Leon has only tourists in the middle and shady neighbourhoods round the outside of it. There is also one park in Grenada which contains old relic ruins that looks like a kind of Druidic monastery thats collapsed. That place is awesome and deserves to push Grenada ahead of Leon alone.

When I arrived into town I headed for the bearded monkey but bumped into David (Costa Rican guy) and a German girl he was travelling with and they whisked me off somewhere else. She had had her passport and everything stolen by a drive by mugging in Managua. Lonely Planet should be sued for advising people to stay in that shithole of a neighbourhood. They had to go off and sort stuff out and the hostel turned out to be not that friendly a place. I had to put all my clothes in the wash so was walking around in just my swimming trunks again. Afterwards I wandered around town and saw the lake. The general conclusion on Nicragua is that it is a nice place, but there is fuck all to do in the day anywhere. You just walk around bored looking at pretty things and then go and drink on cheap beer in the evening. Its ok, but now I am in Costa Rica I realise that I was getting dangerously bored by Nicaragua and needed a shot in the arm. Its like one of those black holes of boredom. As I never get depressed, extreme bordom is the worst thing that happens to me and I was dangerously close. The washing came back and was quite expensive as well. I need to shed some of my pointless clothes and slim down the wardrobe and also replace those accursed shorts that lose everything I own like some clothing black hole. That evening I just grabbed a couple of beers, saw that Spurs drew with Sunderland although the internet broke right as the equaliser went in. Started reading Scarlet Letter and turfed in for the night.

In the morning I got up and went and got a haircut. There is so little to do that even the mundane day to day stuff takes a special importance in breaking up complete tedium. I phoned my bank and found out they were still complete tossers. They had lost my letter and still failed to change my address. I can't pick up the bills and so they fined me. Cocks. I got the fine reinstated and my dad resent the letters so will ring them in Panama City and check they have done what I have instucted them to do at last. Still at least they don't charge me for wirhdrawals. The pound is still in the toilet as well. 1.4 at the moment. I gave Franny a ring as I had said I would and was good to hear a familiar voice (even if he did not recognise mine! But then people say I have lost my English accent) and that pepped me up when I went back to the hotel. Then met Jo (an English girl working on a construction project for a school nearby) for lunch and we had a decent time. Heading back to the hostel I got chatting with a random bunch of people and we drank long into the night. The usual Nicaraguan pasttime. There was a Swiss guy who was randomly wandering all over the continent, an old American sailor who had spent time in a Mexican prison for carrying 13 sudafeds (not sure how thats spelt). He had got in a fight and the police arrested him on trumped up charges and dumped him in a prison in Baja California for 7 years. He was the sole gringo and had to knock out the biggest guy in there to get some respect and then became the black market supplier for the other inmates. He is writing a book on it and should be good. He claims he prayed to an angel for release and the judge and prosecutor started having nightmares about what they had done and released him after half a year. There was another Yankee guy who had studied medicine in Tijuana where my friend had studied. He was working as a freelance medical translator and had just bought a house on the lake front. Really good debator, especially for a socialist and I enjoyed the conversations. He had a house party for the saturday but sadly I was moving out of town before I could get a chance to go. There were two really fit Israeli girls there as well and they joined us for a bit. Almost every Israeli I have met in Central America has been pretty fit, so it might be worth swinging through there on my Middle Eastern tour.

In the morning I was awoken and passed through some local girls milling in the courtyard to head down to the beach town of San Juan Del Sur. On the bus to Rivas I had met the Canadian girl from Leon again and we chatted for the journey. Most people were pushing onto Isla de Ometepe (I had planned to go there and El Castillo, but strong winds meant boats were unreliable and I never made it there. A lot of people say it was nice but nothing special). San Juan Del Sur is a pretty little beach town and I had finally decided I could face sand again after being stranded out in the Caribbean for a while. The first place tried to charge me $20 for the night. Damn gringos have a hold of this town. I eventually got a private room for $7. Its a town in a bay with a really gorgeous beach in an arch underneath some cliffs. I walked all around the beach and got accosted by some random guy. I thought he was one of the Israeli guys but it turns out he was just a bum after some money. Again there was nothing much to do and all the really good beaches south are hard to get to because all the hillside in that direction has been taken over by property developers and turned into private land. A bit like San Miguel de Allende. In my hostel was a sexy but very odd woman from Barcelona so we hung out for a while. There was also a girl from Colorado and an Austrian girl that were sharing a room. In the evening I went out for drinks with a local American girl called Sara and we talked about Nicaragua and the town in general. Was a good evening and then I turfed in.

In the morning I pottered around town. At one point I was using the internet and I lost my phone. Fuck. Those damn shorts again. Bugger. I rushed around and could not find it anywhere, but I bumped into Dom from Honduras and we grabbed breakfast. I got back to the hotel and found my phone. Stupid man. I had left it on the side. The hotel had no water for the 2 days I was there and so all of the toilets were full of pooh. My sister would have loved it. Also the taxi drivers in town are always asking if you want a taxi. This town is the size of a pea. How could you possibly need a taxi. I think you can tell again that there is not much to actually do but wandering and looking. I went with the two girls down to the beach, but the wind was so strong we were being sandpapered by the flying sand on the beach. When we eventually found a spot we were buried by sand within about 10 minutes. Was quite funny, but not the most comfortable of beachside experiences. When the wind is not there I reckon the beach would be really nice there. The three of us headed back and I fell asleep in the day like an old man and we spent the evening just chatting and sitting in rocking chairs out on the front porch. At this point I concocted the idea of doing a southern festivals tour in the US when I finish in Argentina. Maybe see Mardi Gras, SWSX, New Orleans Jazz Fest and whatever other ones we can come up with. Hmm there were seemingly no ferries to the island so I abandoned the idea of going to Olmetepe and decided to push for Costa Rica in the morning.

I told the Coloradan girl I was going to skip going cycling with her (The Austrian had left at 5am that morning) and got a bus to the border. During this trip into Costa Rica I made friends with an Australian couple and a Kiwi that had lived in London for a few years, as well as three guys from Finland. We formed a cool little group as we were the only seven not heading for Costa Rica's beaches but up into Monteverde and the cloud forests instead. We got charged double for the border as we paid full price for two half journeys and when we got to the border we were ushered onto a bus with a $10 charge for Monteverde. We refused to pay until after we had cleared customs because we knew that Costa Rica and Panama sometimes turn people away for not having onward tickets. Also we found out the bus was actually going to San Jose and was going to drop us in the middle of nowhere. So we forced them down to $6 for this blatant thievery. This was not a good start for Costa Rica, but these guys seemed to be the exception. We crossed the border with no problems and went through 3 police checks (two stupid tourists had not got entrance stamps at the border. Ah I hope they enjoy their $300 fines) and we were off into Costa Rica.