Today’s lesson, food in Nicaragua arrives much faster than it does in Costa Rica, transportation is much slower.
The plan for today was that we were suppose to bus down to San Jorge and get on the 10 am ferry for Ometeppe, which would give us 5-6 hours there before we have to catch the last return ferry.
What is that saying…´the best laid plans of mice and men…´
We started the morning off quite nicely with breakfast at Patio del Malinchee, which consisted of the larges fruit platter I have been served to date. It was a thing of dreams, filled with star fruit, papaya, pineapple, watermelon, mammon chino (a white sweet fruit with a spiky red exterior), and a fruit that looked like a beet slice but was sweet and had black seeds. And a side of toast with mango marmalade on the side. Freshly squeezed orange juice and green tea on the side. *sigh* I will forever be spoiled by the fruit selection here, every bite was amazing.
Pedro, the resident dog at the hotel kept us company and showed off his tricks, including handshakes and patting your leg when he wanted food. Even though we showed him that we were all eating fruit, which he didn’t like, he was persistent, telling us that he could smell the toast that we were hiding. Hiro, of course, needed little convincing and Mari broke down soon afterwards.
After breakfast we dashed and arrived on time to catch the 8 am bus heading for Rivas. Right form the get go the experience was different from riding the buses here in Costa Rica. While Coast Rican buses resemble Go Transit or TTC type buses, apparently converted school buses and mini-bus/vans are all the rage in Nicaragua. The second difference is that while in Costa Rica you may get the occasionally vender boarding the bus on longer later trips, generally the ride you are left alone.
In Nicaragua, things are done a little differently and we had a constant stream of vendors boarding and getting off the bus, I am convinced the trip takes as long as it does solely for this reason. The highlight of the trip was when we stopped outside of a stadium and 3 people selling snacks and one man carrying a briefcase boarded the bus.
The three people with food started walking up and down the aisles, trying to get individuals to buy the regular fare of peanuts, bagged drinks and toffee. The man with the briefcase, however, stayed at the front of the bus. In a loud voice he called our attention telling us that he had some great deals and that we were lucky enough to be on the receiving end of them. He then proceeded to provide award winning infomercial style descriptions of a Casio calculator, a packet of paper, and dollar store quality assortment of office supplies. I was impressed at the spiel he was able to put together, but even more so when he walked down the aisle managing to care one sample of each item (ant there were 11 in total) in his hands at all times.
And then we arrived in Rivas, and even before we pulled into the bus station we had taxi drivers climbing in the back of the bus trying to convince anyone that looked like a tourist that they had the best deals to San Jorge, or San Juan del Sur, and they should definitely go with them.
Thanks to my appearance (read skin colour) I was overlooked in their first sweep, Mari and Hiro were not so lucky and were targeted out right. To the point that when we stopped one driver had grabbed a hold of Mari´s arm across the back of 3 other seats and was trying to pull her with him as we got off the bus. Mari, being nice didn’t want to be rude to him, and was simply asking him to wait because she couldn’t climb over the people who were ahead of her, even if he did rip her arm out of the socket.
The taxi driver, however, seemed to think that breaking contact for a minute would mean she was lost to him forever and would not let go. Luckily, I am less worried about being rude in these situations and was ahead of Mari. So I told him in a less than polite voice that he needed to let go of her and move out of the way or not only were we not going to hire him, but that I would walk right through him and essentially push him off the bus.
The taxi driver let go and with a shocked, ´but I’m just trying to help,´ said what loosely translates to ´but they need help, I am going to take them to San Jorge.´ He tried to move forward again, but with me and the rest of the crowd moving forward, he was forced to let go.
A local woman beside me whispered that the $4 each he was asking us was triple the regular cost and that we should be careful, before she too was lost in the crowd pouring out the bus.
Once off the bus, I immediately planted myself in front of Mari and Hiro and told them what the lady had said, we didn’t have time to really discuss the matter, or think, because we were instantly descended upon by 4 or 5 taxi drivers shouting numbers and asking us where we were going. I wanted to consult my lonely planet, I knew their prices were too high, but how high, I wasn’t sure. But despite us asking for a minute and trying to walk away, the swarm simply followed us.
I am not generally a claustrophobic person, except when it comes to people and I had an overwhelming urge to scream at our little swarm. I took a deep breath instead. Mari and Hiro were looking just as hassled and uncertain as I felt. And we did need to make that 10 am ferry.
Most were asking $4 each, one guy offered $3, so I turned to him, and said that we would hire him, but were only paying $7 for the lot of us. He agreed, I looked at Mari and Hiro, to make sure they were ok with this, they said they were and we headed for his car.
We made it to San Jorge, which thankfully turned out to be enough of a distance that we didn’t feel totally cheated out of our $7 (although I did find out that according to lonely planet it is more of a $4 trip). When we got to the dock, however, we found out that the ferry was waiting for some cargo today and was going to be delayed, and so would not be leaving until 11:30 am.
Furthermore, the ferry that would get us back from the island in time to catch the last bus back to Granada left at 3 pm. Our taxi driver said he would meet us here when that ferry arrived to give us a ride back for our bus, and that if we wanted to catch the next ferry he could drive us back to Granada for $25.
So we bought bottles of water and boarded the ferry to wait as I calculated the time we would have on Ometeppe and realized that there was no way we would have any real time to go hiking or see the Petroglyphs, given our new time table of 3 hours.
The ferry did not leave at 11:30 am…it did not leave at 11:35 am…at 11:40 am when they were loading the bit of , something, onboard someone’s hands slipped and item fell into the water and promptly sank down to the bottom. At 11:45 am, we heard a small splash and based on the discussion realized that someone had dived in after whatever had been dropped in the water. At 11:53 am, the apparently valuable something as retrieved and cheers from the crew resounded.
At 12:05 pm the ferry started its journey over Lake Nicaragua towards the island made up of two volcanoes, Ometeppe.
The ferry ride was nice, I’ve always loved being around water, and the breeze and the views were great, despite the muddy colour of the lake. On the boat, we were in the company of a group of American tourists, as well as the couple from Europe I had overheard talking at the border the day before. They were interesting to watch too.
A typical young tourist group, starting from their taking up twice the space the required, running around snapping pictures of the scenery and of themselves in the scenery. I have to give the girls credit for coming up with some interesting poses, including one where one girl nearly fell over the rail.
On the same deck with us, there was also a guy, who I believe to be a local, who watched the group of American´s out of the corner of his eye, and never once changed positions for the whole hour ride. There was also another, slightly older, maybe 30s, attractive European (I think) tourist. He had the look of someone who is use to travelling on his own, and was perfectly happy people watching and thinking to himself. He laughed at the antics of the larger group, and at one point came to ask me if he could look at my lonely planet (he was excited to find out I spoke Spanish, his Spanish was better than his English) because his guidebook didn’t have an adequate map of the island.
The island, even from a distance looked like an untouched tropical paradise, just as all the descriptions said, and when we pulled into port we noted that even the largest town on the island was little more than a village. It was not 1:00 pm.
In the end we hired a guide/driver who took us to a museum of native art, an amazing view point for the larger volcano, and a tropical beach restaurant for lunch. Activities that would have been more fun if I didn’t know that we were missing out on the real life Petroglyphs on the other side of the island, as well as the 2 hour hike that would take us halfway up the volcano.
We did get to see the island though, and it turned out to be just as untouched as we thought, the people were nice, the locations beautiful and the life described to us was happy and simple. Most people who lived on the island loved it and never moved away.
I also learned that the same arrow points and axe heads and ads heads that we painfully studied in second year archaeology from Natives living in Coastal British Columbia, were characteristic of the artefacts uncovered in Ometeppe. The small petroglyph carvings, on the other hand, were styled uncannily like the Nazca Lines in Peru. The museum curator told us that a lot of long distance trading was going on in these parts, no kidding.
We reached the dock at 3:02 pm. And in an unprecedented show of punctuality, watched as our ferry took off without us.
We wandered around to the town for a while, before heading to the dock to wait for the next ferry at 4:30 pm. There was a group of men ranging from the ages of 17 to 32, diving and canon balling off the dock into the water.
I walked to the edge of the dock to get a picture of the sun over the water and was spotted by one of the divers, who grinned, waved at me and asked me if I wanted to take a picture with him and then struck a pose that would have shown off some muscles, if he had been more defined. I laughed and walked away quickly saying, saying thanks, but maybe another time. He yelled after me that maybe I would like to go have a drink with him instead. I pretended not to hear him.
The next time I ran into him, was on the ferry, when him and his friends decided to up their excitement and dive off the railings of the ferry (two guys form the very top) into the water as the ferry drove off. It could have a pretty cool sight, if most of them hadn’t over rotated on their dives and gone in with rather large splashes. Thankfully, 5 little heads bobbed out of the water not too long afterwards, telling us that they had in fact not been sucked under the propeller.
The ride back was kinda like an old movie. We had music from the fifties playing and the timing was perfect that we were took off just before sunset began and docked just after. It made up for the time we didn’t get to spend at the island.
Two hours, and twenty five dollars later we were back at our hotel, showered changed and on the hunt for a restaurant for dinner. It took us about 20 minutes on the main street to find a restaurant that wasn’t completely empty. It was only 8:00 pm, and yet we still only passed by maybe 5 people on the street, and three guys stumbling out of the bar already drunk. This seemed, so strange, because although it was a Tuesday, it wasn’t all that late, Granada was suppose to be a fairly safe town, we were on the main street, and furthermore it was a fairly large tourist town.
All in all, the day had turned out not quite the way we had planned, but pleasant all the same.
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