Isla de Ometepe, pt 3 (Finca Magdalena)

We explored the road on horseback yesterday. The hotel arranged for a guide, Alberto, to take us up to Finca Magdalena, an organic shade-grown coffee farm. On the finca another guide, Elmer, showed us monkeys, petroglyphs, beehives, coffee plants, and the finca's coffee processing machinery (operational only in summertime, and very rudimentary - most of the work is still done by hand).

Horse bridle made of... electrical extension cord

Finca Magdalena

Nahuatl petroglyphs at Finca Magdalena

Elmer leads us through the finca

It was an amazing experience. But after clop-clopping all the way back to our hotel (a trip that took over an hour each way) I realized that we had completely forgotten to taste the finca's honey and coffee. (Doh!)

Elmer

Alberto

We spent the rest of the day swimming in Lago Nicaragua. At this time of year the water is high, so there is very little beach, and the water is only about three feet deep for dozens of meters out. It made a perfect swimming spot for Elliot, and we were the only people for probably 500 meters in either direction.

Beach across the road from Casa Istiam

Isla de Ometepe, pt 2

Ometepe's two volcanoes: Concepcion and Maderas

Volan Concepcion

Arriving into Ometepe is a magical experience. From the boat we could see Concepcion, the larger (and more active) of Ometepes two volcanoes, rising up to meet us. Concepcion is possibly the most beautiful mountain I have ever seen, green with violent gashes running down her side, and spectacular cloud formations around her peak.

Dock at Moyogalpa, Isla de Ometepe

We spent the first night at Charco Verde, a hotel/restaurant on an ecological reserve. At dinner, we met a couple from Oakland: Linda, a doula, and Don, a documentary filmmaker (go figure). Don owns property on the west coast of Nicaragua, and they were taking a small vacation before heading back to California. The next morning we hiked with them through the Charco Verde reserve, looking for the howler monkeys we kept hearing. (No luck, unfortunately.) We paddled in a kayak (with Elliot, in a lifejacket, hanging off the side), then shared a cab with Don and Linda over to Playa Santo Domingo.

Laguna Charco Verde

Linda and Don

En route to Playa Santo Domingo

The paved part of the road

It's supposed to be low season here, but all of the Eco-lodge b-and-b's I called were full. So instead we stayed at Casa Istiam, a modest little hotel just past where the paved road ends. Amazingly, this road (unpaved except for the occasional steep incline) continues on around Volcan Maderas, with communities along the way. The villages are serviced by the most intrepid buses, which navigate the boulders and hillocks of the horse track every hour or so. (Most of America's Blue Bird school buses, after retiring, go on to live out a second life somewhere in Central America.)

Casa Istiam

Ometepe's main road

View from Casa Istiam of Volcan Concepcion

Isla de Ometepe, pt 1

I seem to have gotten my travelers groove back on. Nik is here now, so I'm no longer responsible for Elliot 100% of the time, which helps a lot.

On Thursday we got to the airport in plenty of time to meet Nik's flight. But suddenly Elliot developed a stomach ache that left him writhing and screaming. Surprisingly, no one at the Managua airport (including Luis, our driver) seemed to find this alarming - and since this wasn't the first time E had suffered intestinal distress with similar histrionics I was pretty certain he just had a gas bubble. Eventually a trip to the bathroom solved that problem, Nik made his way out through customs, and we were back on the road.

Government Ferry "El Che Guevara" was under repair

After a whirlwind repack in Granada, we headed out to San Jorge to catch the 2:30 ferry for Ometepe. We got there at 2:31, thinking we had made it - Luis assured us that nothing ran on time in Nicaragua - but a dock official came to meet us and said we'd be on the 3:30 "lancha" (private boats that run in between the regular ferries). Everyone - everyone - had advised us against taking a lancha, because of their dangerous propensity for listing (and, presumably, occasionally sinking). So I was a bit concerned.

Luis, our driver

Luis' car - definitely one of the nicer vehicles on the road...

The official assured me that this lancha, the "Estrella", held 150 people and was just as safe as the ferry. He turned out to be right - the Estrella (unlike some other scary-looking vessels we saw) had two decks and proved to be quite seaworthy. But evidently the lanchas (unlike the ferries) run on Nicaraguan time. Ours left almost an hour late - which gave me (and Elliot) plenty of time to take pictures on the dock.

The Estrella

 

More typical 'lancha'

Waiting for the Rain

After getting back to Granada (where Elliot and I took a very long and much-needed soapy shower), we walked around the city in a kind of daze. After ten days here, the charm of the new has worn off, and I feel lonely. The Mexican students have left town and I couldn't find Carrie at her office. We tried to find the hammock factory but couldn't find it. The air was thick and heavy, and massive rainclouds gave the city a twilight gloom at 4pm, but the rain wouldn't come. It was like the whole city was in the same torpor, waiting for a change.

The rain, of course, eventually did come, after we'd returned home: all at once, in a massive downpour, with spectacular lightning and thunder. I was glad to be in Dona Fatimas tile-floored courtyard, and I wondered how Lucrecia and Marcial were managing.

Tomorrow, Nik arrives, and we will make our way to Isla Ometepe. I have heard so many great things about it - but I am withholding judgment. I'm tired of feeling disappointed. It will be nice to see something new, though - and supposedly they are building an airport on Ometepe, so this may be my last chance to experience the peacefulness of the island that everyone raves about.

San Juan del Oriente - in Marcial's Studio

Los Pueblos Blancos

Lucrecia and Elliot at the Catarina lookout

Gloria's brother had to work - but they found us another driver, and Lucrecia came with us on our tour of the Pueblos Blancos. The driver was unusually taciturn, but the moto-taxi ride was fun, and probably the coolest part of our tour was getting to visit the home/studio of Marcial the potter. Lucrecia had met him through her church work, and she made the driver stop at his house because she knew we were interested in pottery. Marcial showed us how he collects clay, filters it, kneads it with his feet (we got to help), then throws it on the wheel. He also showed us the wood-fired kiln where he fires the pots once they're finished and painted.

Elliot takes over from Marcial

 

Elliot, to my dismay, was starting to melt down at this point, but he did at least seem to enjoy it when Marcial put him up on the wheel and let him try his hand at making a pot. (All Elliot managed to make was a small mountain of clay that resembled the devils tower from Close Encounters - but I think he now at least has a better appreciation for the skill it takes to make a piece of ceramic pottery!) What was most remarkable to me was how much joy Marcial seemed to get from his work. For him, pottery is an act of religious faith, a way to feel connected to God. (Even though Marcial is Catholic and not Evangelical, Lucrecia was particularly admiring of this quality.)

Elliot, driver, and Marcial

Marcial and his wife

Marcial learned to make pottery - using the traditional indigenous methods - as part of a state-funded program in the late-70s in San Juan del Oriente, which helped to revive the tradition and the town's reputation as a center for handicrafts. Marcial and his family make 50 pieces every 2 weeks, which they sell to dealers who sell them in the markets. It wasn't clear they had any other form of income; their home had a tin roof and only a dirt floor. There was no way I was going to leave after he'd spent so much time with us, without buying one of his lovely pieces - each of which cost $5. (I later saw similar pieces for sale in a Granada gift shop for $15). I ended up buying a small, beautiful vase with a turtle on it.

View from the moto-taxi (side-of-the-road laundry)

Elliot in the moto-taxi drivers seat

Our driver then took us to a place to eat in Catarina that served very tasty food, and drinks made with ice supposedly made with bottled water. But a visit to their bathroom (located behind the kitchen) would have made even the most seasoned health inspector blanche: there was a dirt floor, a toilet with no door, no water in the toilet tank (and, alarmingly, a cement on-the-floor seat located adjacent to the toilet), and at least one dog and one cat keeping the cooks company. Yet lunch for three of us cost just over $20(US). The moto taxi tour (about 4 hours) cost $11 -while  gas here costs almost $6/gallon. Marcial and his family make about $100/week. After two weeks here, I still cannot wrap my brain around this economy.

A Night in Diriomito

Gloria and Arlen, who couldn't understand why I was so shocked by the size of their avocado.

Downtown Diriomito

We spent last night with Lucrecia, at her home in Diriomito. We found her through her daughters, Arlen and Gloria, who work with Carrie as Spanish teachers in Granada. Lucrecia offered to put us up for the night, and arranged for a driver to take us on a tour the next day in his moto-taxi (a made-in-India motorized pedicab). The family, as Carrie had promised, were really lovely: articulate (Gloria and Arlen are both university educated), friendly, gracious, and generous with what little they had.

Lucrecia's house

Lucrecia

Near Lucrecia's house in Diriomito, along the Laguna Apoyo crater

Lucrecia's water tank (left) and bathroom (right)

I was fairly well prepared for Lucrecia's house - Carrie had warned me that it was modest, and had an outhouse but no toilet - but the sheer extent of the poverty here seems to have snuck up on me. Everyone here is poor. Everyone. The few really nice places you catch glimpses of through the gates in Granada's streets, the homes of the well-to-do, remind me more than anything of simple middle class homes in Germany. The only true wealth I have seen is in the Isletas - the private islands held by the top few families in the country - and in the hotels designed for (and used exclusively by) foreigners.

Lucrecia's family has plumbing to their kitchen tap, but the water only runs one day in ten - if they're lucky. Until recently, they had no water at all, and in the summer they would sometimes have to bathe in the Laguna. (The Laguna, while visible across the street, is a 2km walk - and is also technically an ecological reserve.) So the family saved up for the construction materials (which are very expensive here), and finally built a water tank that catches water from the roof. They use this water to bathe and wash with - but as they have no purification system, they still drink bottled water. They are very proud of their catchment system; with all the rain we've had, it is currently full, and it was obvious that they felt really lucky to have plenty of water.

Behind Lucrecia's is an outhouse (of the smelly, cement-seat-on-the-ground variety). The shower is a tin shanty in the backyard, but somehow they manage to emerge from it looking clean and lovely. (I decided not to try it out.) Elliot and I slept in a surprisingly comfortable bed under two mosquito nets in her guest bedroom. (Lucrecia's net had holes in it, along with what looked disturbingly like mouse droppings.) There are no ceilings in her house - just the bare roof above.

Ironically, while I have always been a renter and have little hope of ever owning land, Lucrecia owns her property, which includes three houses for her extended family. Her father bought it 45 years ago for about $350. About five years ago the road through Diriomito got paved - and now Lucrecia's homestead is worth about $70,000.

The family turned out to be evangelical Christians - which suddenly brought back memories of my trip to Guatemala, where my first host family was evangelical. They are very serious about their religion, and don't dance or drink or "commit adultery," which did make it a wee bit hard to connect with Lucrecia's family on certain subjects. (Lucrecia's oldest daughter, for example, works for a US based religious NGO in Managua, that sends her all over the country doing "sex education" - which means  teaching youth the importance of abstaining until marriage. Think Nancy Reagan, Nicaragua style.)

How the Other 70% Lives...

Yesterday was a mad scramble to get everything ready for Nik, Lesley, Adam and Sarah's arrival, including a visit to two potential alternative host families in Granada. After visiting their houses, I made an emergency phone call to Lesley to decide on where to stay. Our choices: incredibly nice people with stifling hot homes with no ceiling fans, raw cement bathrooms, barbed wire fences, and in two locations, a block apart - or all together in relative luxury, but without much personal connection to the host family. In deference to our heat-sensitive families, we decided to go with the luxury ceiling fan option - but I still feel kind of bad about it.

Potential bedroom in Granada homestay #1

Lovely potential homestay mom #1

Potential Homestay #2

Potential bedroom in Homestay #2

Totally awesome potential host family #2

Then Elliot and I went off on an adventure to see how the other 70% of Nicaragua lives. And after 24 hours in the Pueblos Blancos, those hot cement houses in Granada actually started looking pretty nice.