End of the Paper Beginning of the Vacation

Well, I can't believe it, but it's actually coming to an end, so now a brief (yeah right) recap of the last few weeks.

I think I left off midway through La Prensa. I really did not enjoy my first week that much, but then once I got into a rhythm, I really liked it. One of the more interesting things I did was cover a press conference with Daniel Ortega, the president of Nicaragua, and former rebel leader and enemy of America. I also covered some of the conflict going on in La Chureca, Managua's dump. Basically what the issue is is that the community that lives and works there in the dump, about 1500 people, make their living by sorting through the trash looking for recyclables. Or things to sell. It's like really intense dumpster diving, but the result of even more desperate situations than the thrifties that do it in the states. The problem now is that the government employees that collect the trash all through the city have been sorting through the trash and taking all the good stuff. This led the community to block the trucks from coming in. So this was in the paper almost every day. The closest thing that ever resembled a 'human interest piece' at La Prensa. The trucks eventually were diverted to other dumps in towns nearby Managua, I'm sure much to the delight of the communities that live at those dumps. One day I went to the dump and photographed the protesting, another day I went to take pictures of the school in the dump started by a Dutch guy (though the story turned into another story about politics and didn't mention the school, so my photos didn't really work). Another day the residents marched through the streets (making stops in front of both newspapers and other media outlets) and made their way to the Mayor's office and banged on the gates. After the crowd was dispersed, the journalists were let in to speak with the vice mayor. The mayor's quarters were plush with a nice swimming pool and outdoor restaurant to serve all the people involved with the mayor. The contrast between the filthy dump workers and those just inside the gate the churequeros were pounding on was ridiculous. I am not sure what they saw peeping through the seams in the gate made them jealous, or if they just wanted fair access to trash. On another occasion I went out of town to watch the dump trucks come and dump garbage all the way from Managua.

On another day of work I got to go out of town to Rivas (we left at 6 AM) to cover a religous festival. A mixture of street fair and church services. Some were entering the church on their knees, and everyone lit candles and received blessings. It was a stretch for me, being the whitest guy around, and getting right in people's faces with my camera while they made their religious pilgrimage. Good experience though. After that, we went over to San Jorge, a popular beach on Lake Nicaragua. Locals were having picnics and drinking beers while fishermen came in with their catches. One guy hanging with the fishermen had a pretty sizable boa around it's neck, probably 5 or 6 feet and much thicker than Bob. He let me hold it for a while, and tried to sell it to me. He offered it for $30, then quickly lowered it to $20. I probably could have gotten it for 10, but I think getting it back would have been tough. Then I realized they are not pets here, and me buying it would mean me cooking and eating it...Interesting, but I think I have too much of a connection to snakes to eat them.

On my second weekend at La Prensa, I was able to get the days off so I could go to Isla de Ometepe. I have mentioned this before. It's the island on Lake Managua made out of two volcanos, one of which erupted in October. This was my first exposure to the touristy side of Nicaragua, and it was very strange. Getting off the ferry in the main village (still quite small) everything was colorful, there were many restaurants with pricier food, foreign-owned guesthouses and jewelry shops. I waited around for a bus and took it about 30 minutes to a beach of which the name has escaped me. Basically, it was a 15 minute walk from where the bus dropped me and the walk there put me back in the rural Nicaragua vibe. Cows languidly made their way down the road with the larger volcano, Concepcion, looming right over them. I had seen the volcanos from the boat on the way in, but nothing compared to being right under them, staring up at all of its volcanoey glory. As I walked with my back to Concepcion, I frequently had to stop, turn around, and just stare at it for a couple more minutes. I really didn't do much here except for relax with the little time I had. I met a couple of interesting Brits, watched the sunset with them and just hung out for a bit. The next morning I went for a walk to a nearby lagoon where I heard some sort of monkey (howler perhaps?) making a real ruckus. And that's about it for Ometepe really. I stopped in San Jorge, the beach on the lake, on the way back as it was the Sunday at the beginning of Semana Santa, basically a week long religious celebration just before Easter. I joined some locals for a couple beers and took one of the last buses back to Managua.

I was delighted to find out at the beginning of my third week at La Prensa, that Semana Santa is taken so seriously, that most of the staff had the whole week off and everyone had Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunda off. Therefore there were no papers for 4 days. This boggled my mind, but I did not complain one bit. It was sad to leave though, especially because I didn't get to say goodbye to all the photographers that had the whole week off. They were a great bunch of people.

And here, my time in Nicaragua takes a drastic turn for the awesome. Blake (friend from Seattle who had been traveling in Costa Rica and Panama for about a month) and his friend Maddie came up and met up with me in Managua on Tuesday of Semana Santa. On Wednesday we tried to go clubbing, but it didn't work. We went to the "Zona Rosa" which is probably the deadest Zona Rosa in Central America and Mexico. We sat at a bar sipping beers for like an hour or two. And we were the only people in the entire place the whole time. We debated the casino nearby or the 'other' club that charged a $5 cover. We opted to head home.

The next day I took them to some Markets to find certain things. First we went to Mercado Oriental, described by boss at La Prensa as a cancer that won't stop growing. The most dangerous market in the city, and the largest (rumored) in Central America. Word on the street is that you can get an AK-47 there for $50. But that's not what we wanted. We wanted mortars. The huge bombs that shoot out of the tubes and make a simple bang, far surpassing the radness of M-80's. Unfortunately Semana Santa had closed much of the market, including mortar dealers. Then we tried to find some iguana, but this was unfindable as well. We wandered a bit more and found ourselves in a piece of market that seemed suspiciously dead. As we wondered why everything was specifically shut down, Maddie started to buy plantain chips from a guy walking buy. She gave him a C$20 for a C$2 bag, and he said he didn't want to get change because it is the dangerous area of the market. He told us to follow him. This means that a) he is a nice guy looking out for us and himself or b) he is proving his point of the danger, and taking us into a dark corner of the market where is friend would rob us. Luckily it was the former. And as we walked through the deserted area of the market (he explained that nobody could sell stuff in this area because they would just get robbed) I felt for the first time a sense of uneasiness in Managua. The people that passed us gave us looks that warned that we were on their turf. Their abundance of tattoos and heavy chains didn't help reassure me either. He eventually led us to safety where we got our change and chips, and even a bus to the next market. I knew that you could buy iguana at Mercado Huembe, so I was excited about this. The plan was to either keep it as a pet (I had been looking into the paper work on bringing one home) or keeping it for a few days and then eating it for an easter feast. To our disappointment, this market was even more dead and iguana-freeer.

Katie came in from Seattle that night which was fun. We went to a local dive and drank liters of beer while the locals utilized the jukebox to play a ridiculous mix of traditional latin music and cheesy American music (i.e. the Final Countdown) singing loudly to all of them. They were good people. Then we saw a sign with the name of a soup I had never heard of. Blake guessed that the carved iguana might mean that it is iguana soup. I asked, and he was right. However, they only make it on Saturdays. We would be long gone by then. So the church continued.

Friday morning we went out to Pochomil, the closest beach to Managua. The day consisted of swimming with hundreds of local vacationers, eating ice cream, eating Katie's cheezy plantains while she wasn't looking, eating Maddie's leftover huge fish, drinking bags of water, listening to roaming live musicians, listening to blasting reggaeton out of cheap speakers, and general jubilation. Then the stress came. The final ingredient for the recipe of ridiculous, Christina, was arriving in Managua at 6:30, and it was already 4:00. We had a 1.5 or 2 hour bus ride back to the city to get her and the line for the bus was at least 100 meters long. We were not getting on...but wait. There is no such thing as a full Nicaraguan bus, so while some of the line got on, most of them waited for the next bus so they could actually get a seat on the bus. So we had to stand, but at least we could make it in time. This was the beginning of my realization that the more people involved in the traveling, the more stress there is. Until then I had been entirely on my own, and on my own schedule. I was responsible for my well-being and that was it. Now things get exponentially more complicated. But that's the fun of it right? So we got in Managua with just enough time for me to go get my laundry (which had only been soaked in water, not cleaned or dried) and for Katie to go pick up Christina at the airport. The plan was for all of us to meet at the bus station with just enough time to catch the last collectivo van to Leon. We all arrived at the same time, but the problem was that the vans don't leave unless they are full or they get the cost of what it would be if it was full. There was only one woman waiting in addition to us. So we discussed our options and all decided to pony up the $8 or so to get going with this. And thus starts the party van. We bought some cokes in bags and busted out our Ron Plata, Nicaragua's budget rum. And we had drinks all the way to Leon. I will leave this entry on this note, because the rest of the trip just gets ridonculous.