Leon (Nicaragua) - Kings of...

LEON (NICARAGUA)
12 February - 14 February 2017

There is nothing quite like the blind panic you feel when you’ve been woken up by the town evacuation alarm and you make it out onto the desolate streets, heart racing, barefoot, your mind processing information, and only to finding an public square staring you straight in the face. That was one of the wake-up calls that we encountered in Leon. Travelling through an active volcanic region I thought that my concealed and restrained fears had come back to well and truly bite us in our ‘bravado’. For a split second my head could only think, “Oh f***’. Then I saw a person. Looking around, I saw more people. They were walking and acting normally, unperturbed, in control. Absolutely no fear or anxiety visible. We watched the scene for a little while longer whilst our beating hearts settled into a comfortable canter. So, no evacuation scheduled for today? What the hell was that then? Asking around at the hostel we were staying at we were told that the siren goes off twice a day. Once at 7am, so the children of the town know that it’s time to go to school, and another at midday to signal lunch.

BLOODY HELL – Leon, there’s just to go be a better way, for all and sunder.

Leon as a town is not Granada. It’s grittier, dirtier, and Castilian architectural roots. It’s said that Leon is ‘artier’ than Granada, and if that’s just in relation to the murals that adorn its city walls, then ok, that’s correct. As a city though, it didn’t have enough for me to get behind it. It felt desolate, abandoned, a little wild west. You wouldn’t bat an eyelid and tumbleweeds gliding down the road. In all honesty though, we weren’t in Leon for any real cultural reason.

Some years ago I wrote an entry into this blog (April 15, 2011) https://hdbc2.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-next-10-squared.html , in it I nominated Sandboarding Cerro Negro in Nicaragua as No.5 on my list of ‘You want to do what now!?!’. Well, sometimes even the fanciful comes true. Leon is the ‘base camp’ utilised for attack the volcano with sand boards. Of course these days is not the ‘far-out’, random, off-the beaten track activity that it was some 10 yrs ago. These days it’s sort of like a factory. There’s many tourist agencies offering entry to the park, sand boards, equipment and guides – a lot of which you don’t really need but in handy in any case. So we booked ourselves onto an afternoon excursion and we were off to conquer the volcano!

Cerro Negro - near Leon - Nicaragua

Cerro Negro - Nicaragua

Cerro Negro - Nicaragua

The reality of getting to the park, accessing the volcano and getting to the top is a lot easier than the Youtube videos made it out be. In my mind Cerro Negro was in a far flung corner of the earth, took days to climb and what you purchased in hard earned elevation was the gratification you received in being able to sand board down. Wasn’t that a mighty misconception! We were able to quite easily take catch a van to the National Park, took a comfortable 5 min stroll from the car park to the base of the volcano and managed to walk to the summit in 30 mins. That’s the truth of the matter. This was no epic feat by any stretch of the imagination….but…to say that the volcano was dormant is itself a lie. This thing is active, amongst the most active in Nicaragua. There are smoking vents visible right up the climb and digging a centimetre or so below the surface really warms your fingers up in a hurry.

Cerro Negro - Nicaragua

Cerro Negro - Nicaragua

Cerro Negro - Nicaragua

Battle axes ready! Cerro Negro - Nicaragua

Cerro Negro - Nicaragua

At an elevation of 750 mtrs the walk up isn’t particularly strenuous but it does provide you with some rather good views. The ability to sand board the volcano is derived from the soil composition, tiny grains of black volcanic rock that make the back side of the volcano more than useful substitute for sand which in turn allows you to ‘carve it up’, in theory. I say in theory because on a guided tour there’s a very homogenised & deliberate manner that they will allow you to attack the slope. First, all guided sand-boarding is seated. Then there’s an awful methodology of sand-board management you adhere to because ‘hey’ you’re not the professional. The issue with adhering to the method in the madness is what it does to your descent

Descending the black mountains should be ALL about speed. Daily records are posted by some hostels with records holders commonly getting hitting 90+kph. This is what we imagined to be doing.

Sitting at the top of the volcano, on the precipice, there was a rush of adrenaline. All we needed to do now was cast ourselves into the abyss, use our feet as brakes and let the board fly!

WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT!!!!

The guide we had advised us to stick our feet in front of the board. What this did was immediately and miserably slow down the board and all momentum the moment we hit a bump as our feet immediately dug into the soil. In hindsight, just resting our feet on the board for the ride would have been the magic bullet but in this ‘live’ version it inhibited the action so much that I felt like a pensioner that had been let loose on a Sunday walk. It was pathetic. It was so pathetic that when I reached the base of the volcano my disappointment was readily visible and the guide, seeing that I was feeling a little bummed, attempted to console me by saying;

 ‘I think you reached around 30kph, maybe’.

‘Maybe huh? Maybe it was 20kph, or maybe I reached the speed limit for piss weak brother!??’

The encapsulation of 'safe sex' - Cerro Negro - Nicaragua

Time to ride - Cerro Negro - Nicaragua

Inga actually did quite a good job

I in fact did a crap job!

It took me a few minutes but I calmed myself down to realise that the achievement was in the conquering of the volcano.

Inga appeared to adapt to the ride better than I did and really picked up the pace towards the bottom of the hill. Not 90kph but not anything close to the speed….the paltry, miserable speed, that I allowed myself.

Anyway, with the wrap up tour to Cerro Negro so too our stay in Leon wrapped up. A nice town with some interesting elements but not really worth an extended visit.

Granada (Nicaragua) - Pastels in the shade

GRANADA (NICARAGUA)
10 February - 12 February 2017

We were happy to leave Ometepe. Nothing against the island itself, it could have been extremely pleasant but for the tools at El Jardin de la Vida.

Disembarking from the ferry at San Jorge we were immediately ushered onto the Chicken Bus  express to Granada.  The fervour of the ushering I’m sure caught all the gringos off-guard, and again, in accordance with our own prior experience, we should have known that the local engagement to get us on a ‘soon to be departing’ vehicle was a small scam. Not an overwhelming scam, just a minor one. Still, moderately annoying to us when we discovered how it worked.

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

Somewhere outside of Granada, approximately 5-6kms from the actual centre of town, appeared that same style of fervour, in this incarnation it was the need for an ‘immediate evacuation’. From the front of the bus we heard ‘Granada, Granada, vamos, vamos’. It was a call made specifically for the sake of all the Gringos once again, but what can you do, you can only believe in what you hear. OK, time to move we thought. So on a relatively empty highway there we were, bags off loaded amongst a throng of awaiting tuk-tuk drivers….huh, where did they come from? Why were they waiting for us?  It didn’t take long for us to discover that we were not in fact in Granada and these tuk-tuk drivers were waiting for us…the collective ‘us’ being the Gringo travellers that didn’t know any better and that now needed to pay for a tuk-tuk into the city centre. Ahh, another day, another scam in Central America. Welcome to the art of being worked.

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

Arriving in Granada however immediately elevated the city to ‘surprise packet’ status. It’s actually a real treat when you come across places of unexpected beauty or attraction. With its Moorish and Andalusian style architecture, colourful facades, and Spanish colonial feel, this city immediately had an appeal of charm, interest and fun. It wasn’t long after dropping our bags at our lodging that we went off to discover a city that was sprightly and energetic. Bars full of vivacious and perky punters, interest restaurants and a couple of cigar dens offered automatic engagement.

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

In terms of an offering that was the Granada that we witnessed. A small but interesting town that has gone through a type of renaissance on the back of interest from travellers. As the visitors have moved in more money has been spent on the restoration of some quite impressive old colonial buildings, many of which have been painted in pastel colours, making for a vibrant and colourful destination. Outside of Granada there are things to do like hikes, ‘volcano discovery’, outdoor style adventures. Of these we actually chose to see an active volcano, which is what brought us to the Masaya caldera.

The complex volcano is composed of nested set of calderas and craters, the largest of which is the Las Sierras shield volcano and caldera, with one of the sub-vents being the Masaya volcano.

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

Granada - Nicaragua

On the way to the Masaya volcano - Nicaragua

Masaya volcano - Nicaragua

Masaya volcano - Nicaragua

An interesting sight without being outstanding, it was interesting looking into the bowels of the earth and wondering what the hell truly goes on down there. Is this really a fair and true representation of all things ‘core’ to earth? Are we eternally going to be in ‘chill’ mode. A quick investigation tells you then by the time that our inner core ‘fully chills’ that our magnetic field will actually be lost and we’ll become susceptible to such things as the harmful particles that the sun throws at us. Food for thought huh?

In any case, back to Granada, a town that’s made for those who enjoy a casual stroll, a drink in the sun and absorbing what it has to offer. Definitely a stop worth a few days if you’re on the Central American trail.

Ometepe (Nicaragua) - Stuff your 'El Jardin' right back to freakin' Portland

Ometepe (Nicaragua)
07 February - 10 February 2017

It's always the dropouts of life, or the trippy, hippie population of the can't deal with everyday challenges, lets look for rainbows, sparkles and places to crap in the open air fame that goad me. Their pimpernickel skulls are so orchestrated to doing the alternative thing or doing things on their own terms that reality escapes them. I mean really, who the f*** charges $600 for a six day retreat that's crafted around cooking a pig and making a sauce to go with it? That's it by the way, smoking a pig, cooking it and then maybe eating it....what the actual f***?!?

Welcome to El Jardin de la Vida  on the Nicaraguan island of Ometepe where the art of slow living morphs into careful,deliberate retardation of all your faculties, but hey, more on the endearing qualities of El Jardin a little later in the show, lets talk about the island of Ometepe first.

Leaving San Juan del Sur around mid-morning we caught a public bus to Rivas with a driver who must have been suffering a huge bout of the Nicaraguan blues as our journey was accompanied by the blaring sounds of early 80's love songs. His mamma must have hurt him real bad.

Landing in Rivas we acquired a tuk-tuk to take us down to the port of San Jorge, a small place that sidled up to the lovely waters of Lake Nicaragua (also known as Lago Cocibolca). Our destination for the next few days was right in front of our eyes. Looking across the greyish-blue wind beaten waters of the lake stood Volcan Concepcion and its little brother Volcan Maderas, both standing imperiously and mysteriously off in the distance.

San Jorge - looking across to Ometepe - Nicaragua

Ometepe - Nicaragua

The ferry crossing from San Jorge to Moyogalpa - not nearly as bad as the way I look here

Lake Nicaragua - Nicaragua

The island of Ometepe is formed by two volcanoes and rises impressively out of Lake Nicaragua. Maderas in particular is known for its lake crater and diverse rainforest environment, a unique place in itself as it's one of the rare places on the Pacific side of Nicaragua where its possible to get the humidity at the right levels to form this type of rich bio-diverse ecosystem. Not that we were arriving solely for Maderas, in fact, we were only arriving in order to say that we'd set foot on Ometepe and experienced it.

Ometepe is nice enough. Tranquil, abundantly green and presided over by the occasionally cantankerous Volcan Concepcion. I can see from aside what could draw a person to a place like this but personally I'd need a sunset view, some cool afternoon breezes licking off the lake and perhaps a tequila old fashioned to keep me in the Ometepe game for any extended period of time. Never the less, making the crossing from San Jorge to the main town of Moyogalpa had us most of the way to where we wanted to be, we just need to cut clear across the Ometepe isthumus, get to the town of Balgue and then push past that another 2.5kms to the front gate.

Lake Nicaragua - Nicaragua

Volcan Concepcion - Ometepe - Nicaragua

Volcan Concepcion - Ometepe - Nicaragua

Moyogalpa - Ometepe - Nicaragua

We arrived at the front gates of El Jardin in the early evening and walked into the communal area where the hippy collective was just commencing their 'chow down' under the yellowish hue of generator driven lights. Some of the inhabitants were swinging in hammocks and others might have been playing mahjong for all I know. It didn't bother me too much, we're accustomed to situations such as these and don't mind the occasional pop-in to the transcendent existence of these enlightened human beings.

The Mother Hen, AKA, Rachel 'P' and the co-founder of El Jardin, was the Hitler-esque figure head of the operation. I didn't see anything in her that I could recognise as being engaging, personable or inviting. Perhaps she is the perfect foil to Trevor's hipster drive. In any case, with her cold directions we were offered a meal and had the details of our lodgings explained to us, and admittedly, for one of the most remote parts of Nicaragua it was pretty good. So, no complaints at all on the accommodation front.

The next day Inga and I tossed up the idea of hiking up to the top of Volcan Madera but without a guide we decided to take an alternate option and hired a pair of bikes from El Jardin.  This decision is the initiation of what turned out to be both a loquacious and brainless argument with the owners later that afternoon but to get to the point of what happened we need to discuss the day.

El Jardin of my pathetic existence - Punta Gorda - Ometepe - Nicaragua

So the bikes. They appeared to be ‘normal mountain bikes’. They could have been made in the US, could have been made in China but were advised only later that they were built and designed in Nicaragua. Now this fact in itself shouldn’t be synonymous with bad quality, nor should it automatically set the fire of anxiety and suspicion in your mind that somehow the bikes were inadequate for their expecting range of desire use. Not that we were going to be taking the bikes on mountain trails but, we had decided to circumnavigate Volcan Maderas , and mentioned this to the owners before departing that day.

Heading out of El Jardin I immediately noticed that my bike had issues with gears and some concerns with the brakes, nothing dramatic, just little niggles that like in most places you make do with and learn to triage as you get use to the bike and the terrain.

The route out of Balgue, heading anti-clockwise to Santa Cruz and then further afield was fine. The day was pleasant and the views were fairly impressive. Our prime destination for the day was to be the waterfalls at San Ramon which we managed to get to after a few hours of work along the undulating dirt tracks, which in some sports required us to get off the bikes and push. No issues from us though, both Inga and are to exercise and we just accepted this is part of our standard routine of challenges that we quite often sign-up for, either deliberately or unwittingly.

Inga pushing one of the Nicaraguan bikes up a hill - close to Punta el Congo - Ometepe - Nicaragua

Close to Punta el Congo - Ometepe - Nicaragua

The walk up to La Cascada de San Ramon - Ometepe - Nicaragua

La Cascada de San Ramon was actually a welcome relief from the grind of being on the bikes for a prolonged period of time and absorbing the ever strengthening Nicaraguan sun.

The pool at the base of the waterfall was cold, inviting, refreshing and an acute form of bliss that would have had us stay longer if we weren’t on the direct opposite side of the island that we’d commenced.

It was here that we made the decision to continue with our circumnavigation of the island, it also marked the point in time where the degradation of human and machine was intrinsically connected to each other’s fortune. For every kilometre we pushed on we discovered a more rugged, more challenging stretch of road, (in actual fact,a dirt track) that would rise and fall on a whim and whose surface appeared to increase with the numbers of errant rocks exponentially for every few hundred metres added.

La Cascada de San Ramon - Ometepe - Nicaragua

La Cascada de San Ramon - Ometepe - Nicaragua

In all honesty that's what I think of tea also - Ometepe style tea - Nicaragua

Somehow our bikes, that should have been ‘normal mountain bikes’, able to take on average terrain, started to shudder. Now, we didn’t throw these bikes around, we didn’t ask for heavy laden truck to drive over their frames, we utilised them for the purpose of their construct, but, with each turn of the pedal, these bikes literally started to fall apart. Chains slipped off chain rings, pedals decided to come of their axles, the handle bars came loose (…nay…they came off), these bikes were literally de-materialising before our eyes. It was incredible. It was as if they had both decided just to give up the ghost.

At the stage where I needed to give up the idea of actually riding was the point in time where we were about 2-3kms out of San Pedro, which placed us 10kms from Balgue and about 8kms from the front door of El Jardin.  Literally, there was nothing we could do to assist our situation at this point, and the HELP, which were were graciously advised on our return should have been abundant, (in fact, the citizens of Ometepe should have been spilling from their huts to assist us apparently), was literally nowhere to be seen. We did get some laughter and wry smiles as we passed the odd person by but nothing even close to any offering of help manifested.

Let me tell you now, pushing bikes after a day out in the sun, up and down some God forsaken dirt track in the butt-hole of Nicaragua does not make for a particularly affable, congenial couple. That’s not to say that we are instigators of angst, it’s just saying that the situation we were in had beaten our spirits for the day.

A few kilometres closer to our accommodation and Inga still had the capacity to ride her bike enough to make it a short way without stopping. I asked her to get in front of me and head back to El Jardin in order to explain the situation.

I arrived perhaps 45 mins after her. Now, what I expected from the good ‘ole folks at El Jardin was a little sympathy for the type of day we had and in reality, some accountability for what were very crappy bikes and for a route that we should have received a heads up on. What we got, first of all, from Madame Hitler,was an attack on our integrity & rationality.

Now, what I add below is factual, based on both the events and my recollection of the idiotic argument that took place at that time.

I believe the argument started like this – ‘You should know the roads in Nicaragua and you should know what Nicaraguan bikes are like, what did you expect to happen?’

Me: Well, I expected the bikes to work in all honesty.

Then the attack from her went onto why we didn’t ask the general populous for help? 

HELLO people! You live on this island, there’s not exactly a burgeoning population around here that are ready made bike mechanics, nor did those that did present themselves jump out to give us a hand.

Her argument, moving in and out of being accusatory and nonsensical then headed back to WHAT WE SHOULD HAVE REALISED, both about the roads and about the bikes.

The argument I made was this;

Not that it should matter but an ordinary bike should be able to handle the track we had taken, and to a greater point, we advised them of where we were going, so IF THEY BELIEVED THERE WAS A REAL PROBLEM THEN WHY WERE WE NOT ADVISED OR NOT PREVENTED FROM GOING TO PARTS THAT MAY BE TROUBLESOME FOR THEIR PRECIOUS WARES?

I made the argument that on their understanding of their environment they should have warned us, they in turn stated that ‘we have no right to stop you’… 

NO BUT CONSIDERING WE’RE HIRING YOUR VEHICLES THEN YOU CAN ADVISE WHAT AREAS WE SHOULD RIDE IN AND WHAT AREAS WE SHOULD AVOID – WHEN YOU HIRE A CAR THEY DO EXACTLY THE SAME THING –  to which Mrs Hitlers response was an incredulous NO THEY DON’T.  Well a Google search of terms for car rentals refers to so many terms and conditions regarding on this matter that her was response was simply ludicrous, but stuff it, just to be clear and to pick the FIRST cab off the rank in a Google search.

3.1 You and any Authorised Driver must not use the Vehicle: .... location or region reasonably specified by Hertz to you as an area or region which is prohibited.

From here the conversation denigrated into a demand that we pay for the damage to the bikes, which I was not willing to accept, not a cent. Then both of these dip sh*ts attempted to bargain us for our complicity in the situation. Once again, my response was stuff you.

Now at this point they threatened to contact the police and also stipulated that they would be holding our passports until we made payment. Aside from this being a style of false imprisonment and some ludicrous method of ransom, what element of STUFF YOU did you not understand!!!? In actual fact I probably should have dropped some harsher words there.

So let me tell it straight. To the wonderful owners of El Jardin of my pathetic life, you guys could have been moderately sympathetic rather than being the world class dicks that you showed yourselves to be. Unreasonable, unrealistic and as dumb as dog shit, you just needed to take out the frustrations of you shitty existence for some reason on us. Rachel, I don’t know who the hell you think you are and why the angst seeps from your pores but you need a good balling from your husband, and as for you Trevor. Man, you need to grow a pair!