Hello, once again. Not too many of these things left to write. The big news is I’m coming back May 9th – that is, this Saturday! But I’ll get to that later.
Since I’ve been back from Guatemala, I’ve been keeping fairly busy, but in all honesty it’s been a bit of an out-of-time experience. I think in my mind I was thinking of Guatemala as more or less the last significant thing I would do while down here, and while that carries a certain amount of truth, the fact is that in my always-inaccurate mental calendar, I sort of ignored the time period between the Guatemala trip and going back to the US. That having been said, the few weeks that have taken place between now and then were basically a progression from thinking “What am I still doing here?” to “Am I already leaving?” A lot has been going on, and I’m continually going back and forth between relishing my time here and looking towards going back.
Anyway, one of the first things I did after getting back from Guatemala was getting a haircut. Now, normally that’s obviously not significant news, but this was the first time I had cut it since late August. That’s eight months, which is a personal record. Most of the kids in the USAC program hardly recognized me before the double-take that every one of them did when seeing me after the fact. My host mom Eli said something to the effect of, “Wow….so that’s what you looked like when you got here in August? I had forgotten!” I’d like to note that my biological mother, who was one of the driving forces behind this epic cut, fully approves.
But on to more exciting things. A couple weeks ago a large amount of volunteers from USAC went to Vara Blanca, which was one of the communities hit hardest by January’s massive earthquake. There we spent the afternoon hanging out with children in the local school, which basically meant I played soccer for a few hours with seven- to twelve-year-olds. It was lots of fun, and I made a couple new friends who wanted to know all the names of my pretty blond gringa friends. After hours of soccer (others painted/colored with smaller children indoors, others played jump rope, etc) and a couple short breaks to catch our breaths or enjoy some juice and cookies, we bid farewell the kids.
That was on a Thursday. That same weekend, from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening, a group of six of us joined more than a hundred ticos from Universidad Nacional (where I am) and other colleges to go out to Vara Blanca and Poasito (another earthquake-hit community) to work for the volunteer project Un techo para mi país (“A Roof for my Country”). Techo is basically like a Habitat for Humanity-style organization based in various Latin American countries. It was started in Chile a few decades ago and has expanded to many other countries as far north as Guatemala, I think. Now, I have to say that this was probably one of the least organized projects I’ve ever been a part of, but it was certainly worth our time nonetheless.
The first work day (Saturday), Travis (a fellow USAC student) and I found little to do in the morning as our group was basically digging holes and taking measurements for our worksite. Eventually a small classroom would go up, but at the start it was basically a three or four person job. As such, we ended up abandoning our group – with permission from our group leader – and spending most of the day hauling lumber around on and off the trucks that were bringing materials to the various construction sites scattered about the communities where different groups were building houses and classrooms where needed. On Sunday Travis ended up painting/varnishing some houses that had been built months before, while I joined our group to get the classroom we had been assigned up. It was hard, hot work, but the ticos I was with were very friendly and the good company helped pass the day. We did not actually finish the structure (we got everything up but the roof panels, which was pretty ironic considering the name of the volunteer organization), but there are some permanent volunteers out there who assured us they would complete the thing in the next couple days.
The weather varied a great deal while we were out there, as it was fairly hot during the day (I got burned a bit on Sunday) and got pretty cold (by Costa Rica standards, anyway) during the evenings. Fortunately my host family let me borrow an array of items for the weekend to deal with the elements, including work boots and a sleeping bag. The food they served us was another adventure. Now, obviously a volunteer organization serving over a hundred people on an extremely low budget is not going to serve the world’s greatest food, and I didn’t really mind it all that much, but there were certainly plenty of complaints from others. Mostly from the ticos, but hey, who’s keeping score? Overall, though, it was a really rewarding experience. I felt as though spending a weekend helping the displaced was a small way in which I could give something back to a country that’s given me so much.
Classes are pretty much done. At the time of this was posted, I’ve finished all my tests and papers, and now I’m just waiting for grades to get in, and hopefully they’ll get back to Augie soon. Wasn’t too tough of a semester, but I am glad to be done with academics for a bit all the same. I signed up for a couple summer courses at Augie, so hopefully a capstone course will help me transition back into Augustana academic rigor. As far as learning Spanish in general, well….I’ve certainly learned a lot this year, but I’ve got more to do. There are just so many expressions and colloquialisms and regionalisms that take a much longer time and much more intense experience to nail down. No regrets, though. It just means I’ll have to come back some day! That won’t be happening anytime soon though…
Now, as far as me coming home on Saturday... Pretty much everybody I’ve talked to about this asks me basically one or more of the same questions with minor variations: “Are you ready to come home? Or do you want to stay longer? Do you miss your family back in the States? Are you going to miss your host family? Have you had an overall good experience? Do you think you’ll go back someday?”
The answer to all of those is a very big YES. Yes, I am more than ready to come home. I miss all my friends and family a great deal back home, and I’m very excited to see them once again. And yes, I do want to stay longer – I wish I could spend much more time here! But at the moment, I just want to see everyone at home again. Yes, I miss my family tons. Yes, I’m going to miss my host family the minute I get on the plane. Yes, my experience has been great and yes, because of that, I’ll probably be back some day. At least to visit my host family – Jessica, for example, has told me I’m invited to her wedding. I’m there!
This past Sunday, since it’s one of the few evenings that everybody’s at home at the same time, we celebrated both Luis’s birthday (May 5) and had a sort of symbolic goodbye party for me. My host family got me a card with very kind notes from all of them inside, and Eli, knowing I have spent this entire year here looking for a Costa Rica sweatshirt of some sort, bought me one. Now, it’s important to note that sweatshirts that simply say “Costa Rica” down here do not exist. Period. Trust me, I’ve looked, and so has Eli. Upon realizing this, she actually went out and had a sweatshirt custom made for me, a comfortable black one with “Costa Rica” stitched into it. She actually “borrowed” one of my sweatshirts I had left in the house while I was in Nicaragua. So nice! And I love it!
I’ll give you all some more closing thoughts in my next blog post, which will likely be the last in this blog. Until then, stay safe, God bless, and I’ll probably see you soon!!
Wednesday, May 6
Thursday, April 30
Guatemala - the happy ending...
I’m starting to get behind on these things, but I’ll wrap up Guatemala here.
Sunday, April 12
Even though this year was the first in my life that I had not been to a Good Friday service, I wasn’t about to miss Easter!! After another breakfast at the hostel I headed off to the Lutheran church to do a little bit of celebrating the resurrection. Yay! The Chapel was very tiny, probably with a capacity of a 40-50 person congregation tops. There were probably about 30 total, and I would say only about half were Latinos. The others were either gringos who were staying on the Lutheran campus or some foreigners who were living in Antigua more permanently and attended church there. Nevertheless, it was a Latino presiding and the service was in Spanish. The sermon was not too lengthy, and though pretty simple was good. The pastor managed to weave in the simple declaration “He is risen!!” into his sermon very fluidly, and never lost any energy when saying it over and over again. After the sermon they did communion, which was the first time I’ve had body and blood since leaving the U.S. – so good. Wine was served common cup style, which was a bit different, but hey, we had communion. Overall the service was very traditional and very Lutheran. Even musically – the service opened up with a Spanish rendition of “Beautiful Savior” and ended with a heartwarming “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” (also in Spanish). Before I headed back to the hostel, I sat down with one of the staffers at the center and asked him a bit about what kinds of things they do there. He said they are actually strongly affiliated to the Missouri Synod in the U.S., although he said the Wisconsin Synod is also starting to make a presence in Guatemala as well. After thanking him for the conversation and service I headed back to the hostel.
Ashley was not there when I got back (she had told me she was going to go to the internet café) so I did a little bit of preliminary packing before she returned. When she got back, we headed out into the city again to find the Sunday morning processional. We did eventually find it, and the mood (as expected) was totally different! That morning, instead of solemn looking characters followed by bands playing grim pieces we came across streets in which firecrackers (TONS of them, just the little [but LOUD] ones that go off on the ground) were exploding and people with horns and tambourines were literally dancing in the street. For the most part, people were no longer in costume; rather, most were in completely contemporary clothing, but still very much part of the ceremony nonetheless. One man who was actually still decked out in a convincingly biblical ensemble carried around a huge horn, blasting every once in awhile for all to hear. After doing so, he proclaimed in a loud voice everything that had happened in the past few days as if we were in the year in which Christ was actually crucified and raised. He talked about the death and resurrection at length, explaining it all to us as Jesus did to his disciples, tying it into Old Testament prophecy and going on to elaborate on what this meant for us. It was way cool. After his little speech, he blasted his horn a few more times and continued down the road. Behind him were more excited people marching the streets, including yet another platform for the morning’s celebration. Jesus, of course, was on it again, but for the first time he was without his cross, and rather was surrounded by Angels and dressed in a brilliant white garb, looking very Christ like and very majestic. He was in fact followed by a band again, but this time the music was completely different, reflecting the changed mood of the celebratory procession.
After watching the whole thing go by, we headed back to the market one more time for a last item I was thinking about buying. After this we went to the grocery store to get some food for the bus trip over the next few days. By the time we got done shopping and brought it all back to the hostel it was late afternoon. Before heading out for the night we talked to the hostel staff and arranged some private transportation the following morning to Guatemala City so we could get to our 5:30 bus to San Salvador on time. For that last evening in Antigua we picked up some more food from the fair nearby the church, went to Luna de Miel for one last crepe, and spent a few hours at the café we had been to Tuesday night where we listened to one of the highly energetic guitarists we had seen Friday night play and sing along with a bassist and saxophonist. We played some cards while enjoying the music, and finally headed back to the hostel.
Monday, April 13
We had a rough start to the day – our transportation was supposed to pick us up around 4 am so we could get to Guatemala City on time, and they were on time – but my alarm did not go off. Thankfully, the hostel’s security guard came up to our room and woke us up at about 4:10 telling us someone was waiting for us outside. In a flurry of drowsy panic (does that make sense?) we threw all of our stuff together and rushed down to hop into the car – missing the TicaBus to San Salvador would have been very, very bad. Thankfully, a combination of light traffic in the wee hours and a driver who didn’t seem to care much for speed limits allowed us to get there in plenty of time (despite 1] stopping at a gas station and 2] not knowing exactly where the TicaBus station was – a bit nerveracking!). Some great classic rock tunes on the way made it an enjoyable ride, though.
The TicaBus ride between Guatemala City and San Salvador is very short, and so we actually were in our hostel by 11:00 am. Despite being tired by the late evening and early morning, we didn’t want to spend the whole day in the hostel by any means and so we decided to explore the city a bit. San Salvador is a bit dangerous of a place (supposedly), but once again we felt perfectly safe. Better than Managua, anyway. We mostly just wandered aimlessly around downtown, seeing what we could with only general ideas about what we were looking at. We saw the national cathedral, the Palacio Nacional (national palace), and the city’s bustling market – which, by the way, had more illegal DVDs for sale than I had ever seen in my life.
After the downtown sights, we walked a long way to a museum called El museo de la palabra y la imagen (Museum of Word and Image). There we learned a bit about the history of El Salvador, the conflicts they had been through, the U.S. intervention that had taken place (we’re just everywhere, aren’t we?), and a bit about some important literary figures who had inspired a few decades of revolutionaries. The staff then invited us to watch one of the documentaries they had on DVD, and we elected one about the life of some revolutionaries before they managed to take the government out of the hands of some U.S.-backed right-wing fanatics (basically the El Salvador version of Sandinistas). They even served us some delicious complimentary mango while we watched the film – how many museums have you been to that give you free fruit? Salvadorians sure seemed like a friendly people from our experiences there.
After the museum we headed to the mall we had been to the week before for a couple more groceries we weren’t able to find in Antigua, then headed to the hostel and watched some TV before going to sleep.
Tuesday, April 14
We woke up on time, but even though we got to the TicaBus station in plenty of time we still managed to have some stress that morning. That is, I did. When I gave the lady at the desk my ticket for the trip that morning, she punched into the computer, looked up at me, and simply told me it appeared that my ticket had been canceled. Um, ok…well, I didn’t cancel it. Well, I’m sorry, you have no reservation this morning. Um, ok…can I still get on the bus? You’ll just have to wait to see if there’s space. Great. Thankfully, she managed to put me on an empty seat way at the back of the bus that was empty. At least I was going, but I wouldn’t be with Ashley that morning. She ended up sitting next to some friendly Salvadorian on his way to Nicaragua while I was in the back with a huge group of Mexicans who were heading to Honduras for some job. Oh well, now I know a guy from Mexico.
Tuesday was overall dull and slow. Lots of bus time. Managua (when we finally got there) was ridiculously hot again. Thankfully, we had plenty of córdobas left over from our trip to Nicaragua the month before, and so we treated ourselves to a nice meal at a Mexican restaurant we had previously visited in Managua, followed by a trip to the movie theater where we saw The Contract, a Morgan Freeman/John Cusack movie which apparently came out years ago. When we got back to the TicaBus hotel for the night, I checked in with the folks at the desk there to make sure I had a reservation for the following morning’s trip to San José. Nope. My reservation had apparently just disappeared. I’d just have to get to the desk a little early the next day to make sure I could get the first available seat.
Wednesday, April 15
Well, there was an available seat. Turned out to be the one I was originally supposed to sit in. Gee, I wonder why it was available? Oh, Latin America…sometimes I love you too much. Anyway, it was another long day with plenty of bus time. Ashley pretty much slept the entire time while I did all of the homework I told myself I would do while in Antigua (yeah, right). We had the opportunity to watch Spymate, which pains me to mention but I feel I must. Between the Nicaragua and Guatemala trips on TicaBus, Ashley and I have now seen this movie (or at least been exposed to it) three times, and it’s one of the dumbest movies ever made. It’s about a chimpanzee who is the world’s greatest spy. Seriously. In Spanish they call it James Mono (James Monkey). So, I just wanted to tell you about that – fascinating, right? Sorry.
Despite a long wait at the border, the bus made good time. By the time we got back to Heredia, we were just able to make our 4:00 cinema class, so instead of going home we went directly to the university with all our luggage. A couple hours later I was finally “home” again (there’s that word again – see my post from back in the first semester), and it was good to be here.
That having been said, I’m ready to be home. As I write this post I’ve got a week and a day, and I hope it goes well. Three of my classes are already over, but I’ll talk about that a bit in my next post. I hope you enjoyed all my rambling and raving about my trip to, from, and in Guatemala. It was certainly one of the coolest vacations I’ve ever had, and I certainly want to go back some day. I still have to do that Tikal thing sometime…
Until next time, thanks as always for the prayers and support. I will see you all soon!!!! Peace, and God bless!
Sunday, April 12
Even though this year was the first in my life that I had not been to a Good Friday service, I wasn’t about to miss Easter!! After another breakfast at the hostel I headed off to the Lutheran church to do a little bit of celebrating the resurrection. Yay! The Chapel was very tiny, probably with a capacity of a 40-50 person congregation tops. There were probably about 30 total, and I would say only about half were Latinos. The others were either gringos who were staying on the Lutheran campus or some foreigners who were living in Antigua more permanently and attended church there. Nevertheless, it was a Latino presiding and the service was in Spanish. The sermon was not too lengthy, and though pretty simple was good. The pastor managed to weave in the simple declaration “He is risen!!” into his sermon very fluidly, and never lost any energy when saying it over and over again. After the sermon they did communion, which was the first time I’ve had body and blood since leaving the U.S. – so good. Wine was served common cup style, which was a bit different, but hey, we had communion. Overall the service was very traditional and very Lutheran. Even musically – the service opened up with a Spanish rendition of “Beautiful Savior” and ended with a heartwarming “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” (also in Spanish). Before I headed back to the hostel, I sat down with one of the staffers at the center and asked him a bit about what kinds of things they do there. He said they are actually strongly affiliated to the Missouri Synod in the U.S., although he said the Wisconsin Synod is also starting to make a presence in Guatemala as well. After thanking him for the conversation and service I headed back to the hostel.
Ashley was not there when I got back (she had told me she was going to go to the internet café) so I did a little bit of preliminary packing before she returned. When she got back, we headed out into the city again to find the Sunday morning processional. We did eventually find it, and the mood (as expected) was totally different! That morning, instead of solemn looking characters followed by bands playing grim pieces we came across streets in which firecrackers (TONS of them, just the little [but LOUD] ones that go off on the ground) were exploding and people with horns and tambourines were literally dancing in the street. For the most part, people were no longer in costume; rather, most were in completely contemporary clothing, but still very much part of the ceremony nonetheless. One man who was actually still decked out in a convincingly biblical ensemble carried around a huge horn, blasting every once in awhile for all to hear. After doing so, he proclaimed in a loud voice everything that had happened in the past few days as if we were in the year in which Christ was actually crucified and raised. He talked about the death and resurrection at length, explaining it all to us as Jesus did to his disciples, tying it into Old Testament prophecy and going on to elaborate on what this meant for us. It was way cool. After his little speech, he blasted his horn a few more times and continued down the road. Behind him were more excited people marching the streets, including yet another platform for the morning’s celebration. Jesus, of course, was on it again, but for the first time he was without his cross, and rather was surrounded by Angels and dressed in a brilliant white garb, looking very Christ like and very majestic. He was in fact followed by a band again, but this time the music was completely different, reflecting the changed mood of the celebratory procession.
After watching the whole thing go by, we headed back to the market one more time for a last item I was thinking about buying. After this we went to the grocery store to get some food for the bus trip over the next few days. By the time we got done shopping and brought it all back to the hostel it was late afternoon. Before heading out for the night we talked to the hostel staff and arranged some private transportation the following morning to Guatemala City so we could get to our 5:30 bus to San Salvador on time. For that last evening in Antigua we picked up some more food from the fair nearby the church, went to Luna de Miel for one last crepe, and spent a few hours at the café we had been to Tuesday night where we listened to one of the highly energetic guitarists we had seen Friday night play and sing along with a bassist and saxophonist. We played some cards while enjoying the music, and finally headed back to the hostel.
Monday, April 13
We had a rough start to the day – our transportation was supposed to pick us up around 4 am so we could get to Guatemala City on time, and they were on time – but my alarm did not go off. Thankfully, the hostel’s security guard came up to our room and woke us up at about 4:10 telling us someone was waiting for us outside. In a flurry of drowsy panic (does that make sense?) we threw all of our stuff together and rushed down to hop into the car – missing the TicaBus to San Salvador would have been very, very bad. Thankfully, a combination of light traffic in the wee hours and a driver who didn’t seem to care much for speed limits allowed us to get there in plenty of time (despite 1] stopping at a gas station and 2] not knowing exactly where the TicaBus station was – a bit nerveracking!). Some great classic rock tunes on the way made it an enjoyable ride, though.
The TicaBus ride between Guatemala City and San Salvador is very short, and so we actually were in our hostel by 11:00 am. Despite being tired by the late evening and early morning, we didn’t want to spend the whole day in the hostel by any means and so we decided to explore the city a bit. San Salvador is a bit dangerous of a place (supposedly), but once again we felt perfectly safe. Better than Managua, anyway. We mostly just wandered aimlessly around downtown, seeing what we could with only general ideas about what we were looking at. We saw the national cathedral, the Palacio Nacional (national palace), and the city’s bustling market – which, by the way, had more illegal DVDs for sale than I had ever seen in my life.
After the downtown sights, we walked a long way to a museum called El museo de la palabra y la imagen (Museum of Word and Image). There we learned a bit about the history of El Salvador, the conflicts they had been through, the U.S. intervention that had taken place (we’re just everywhere, aren’t we?), and a bit about some important literary figures who had inspired a few decades of revolutionaries. The staff then invited us to watch one of the documentaries they had on DVD, and we elected one about the life of some revolutionaries before they managed to take the government out of the hands of some U.S.-backed right-wing fanatics (basically the El Salvador version of Sandinistas). They even served us some delicious complimentary mango while we watched the film – how many museums have you been to that give you free fruit? Salvadorians sure seemed like a friendly people from our experiences there.
After the museum we headed to the mall we had been to the week before for a couple more groceries we weren’t able to find in Antigua, then headed to the hostel and watched some TV before going to sleep.
Tuesday, April 14
We woke up on time, but even though we got to the TicaBus station in plenty of time we still managed to have some stress that morning. That is, I did. When I gave the lady at the desk my ticket for the trip that morning, she punched into the computer, looked up at me, and simply told me it appeared that my ticket had been canceled. Um, ok…well, I didn’t cancel it. Well, I’m sorry, you have no reservation this morning. Um, ok…can I still get on the bus? You’ll just have to wait to see if there’s space. Great. Thankfully, she managed to put me on an empty seat way at the back of the bus that was empty. At least I was going, but I wouldn’t be with Ashley that morning. She ended up sitting next to some friendly Salvadorian on his way to Nicaragua while I was in the back with a huge group of Mexicans who were heading to Honduras for some job. Oh well, now I know a guy from Mexico.
Tuesday was overall dull and slow. Lots of bus time. Managua (when we finally got there) was ridiculously hot again. Thankfully, we had plenty of córdobas left over from our trip to Nicaragua the month before, and so we treated ourselves to a nice meal at a Mexican restaurant we had previously visited in Managua, followed by a trip to the movie theater where we saw The Contract, a Morgan Freeman/John Cusack movie which apparently came out years ago. When we got back to the TicaBus hotel for the night, I checked in with the folks at the desk there to make sure I had a reservation for the following morning’s trip to San José. Nope. My reservation had apparently just disappeared. I’d just have to get to the desk a little early the next day to make sure I could get the first available seat.
Wednesday, April 15
Well, there was an available seat. Turned out to be the one I was originally supposed to sit in. Gee, I wonder why it was available? Oh, Latin America…sometimes I love you too much. Anyway, it was another long day with plenty of bus time. Ashley pretty much slept the entire time while I did all of the homework I told myself I would do while in Antigua (yeah, right). We had the opportunity to watch Spymate, which pains me to mention but I feel I must. Between the Nicaragua and Guatemala trips on TicaBus, Ashley and I have now seen this movie (or at least been exposed to it) three times, and it’s one of the dumbest movies ever made. It’s about a chimpanzee who is the world’s greatest spy. Seriously. In Spanish they call it James Mono (James Monkey). So, I just wanted to tell you about that – fascinating, right? Sorry.
Despite a long wait at the border, the bus made good time. By the time we got back to Heredia, we were just able to make our 4:00 cinema class, so instead of going home we went directly to the university with all our luggage. A couple hours later I was finally “home” again (there’s that word again – see my post from back in the first semester), and it was good to be here.
That having been said, I’m ready to be home. As I write this post I’ve got a week and a day, and I hope it goes well. Three of my classes are already over, but I’ll talk about that a bit in my next post. I hope you enjoyed all my rambling and raving about my trip to, from, and in Guatemala. It was certainly one of the coolest vacations I’ve ever had, and I certainly want to go back some day. I still have to do that Tikal thing sometime…
Until next time, thanks as always for the prayers and support. I will see you all soon!!!! Peace, and God bless!
Friday, April 24
Guatemala, part 3
Friday, April 10
True to our plans from the previous day, we crawled out of bed around 4:30 to see as many alfombras as we could, and I’m certainly glad we did! The Good Friday morning procession is one of the biggest events that go on here, and the locals really come up with some amazing stuff for it. It’s a good thing we did get up so early, because there was an absolutely incredible amount of alfombras to see, and pretty much all of them were worth a few pictures. We ended up taking literally hundreds of pictures of these things, as they were so beautiful. It was really difficult to capture the detail and beauty of them in a picture, but we sure tried! One interesting part of the morning in that respect was that when we started off it was obviously completely dark outside, making it difficult to get good shots, but as the morning progressed the sunlight helped us out more and more until we were done, making an interesting progression of picture quality and style as we would look through the pictures we had taken later that day.
After about an hour and a half or so of wandering the streets (and even then we didn’t see all the alfombras we could have!), we found the procession making its way through town. Or rather, it found us. The alfombras basically mark the path of the processions, and it turned out we were simply following it backwards until suddenly we saw a bunch of roman soldiers on horses – a good indication that we should probably get to the side of the road. We actually were pretty lucky, as the street we happened to be on when the procession went by was not very crowded, and we had a comfortable, slightly elevated part of the sidewalk on which to spend the next hour or so as the flamboyant mix of biblical characters and scenes went by. Some stupid tourists who felt they were above municipal regulation and disrespecting processional custom decided to take some pictures from the middle of the street, in and among those involved in the procession. This angered the 99% of us who knew better, but eventually these either dispersed or were ordered off by officials in the procession.
The procession started with a crew of Roman soldiers, some of them on horseback, others on foot carrying banners or signs with messages in Latin. Behind the front crew and walking among the second wave of soldiers were what appeared to be the chief priests, along with a long line of children in the popular purple and white robes that seemingly half the population of Antigua was wearing that week. The children were holding up banners with names of Biblical characters on them with various quotations of what appeared to be dialogue from scripture, but I didn’t recognize very many of them so I’m not sure.
Following these was a small group of miniature platforms (relatively speaking) with different depictions of Good Friday events. The first of these depicted Jesus praying in the garden, literally holding a cup he doesn’t seem too thrilled to be holding. Following this were two smaller ones, one depicting an old man on his knees in prayer (I think it was St. Francis, but I’m not sure), and the other was Jesus again, this time with a crown of thorns but more or less tranquil, not yet beaten nor with cross. This relatively tender image was immediately replaced by a couple of depictions one could have taken right out of Mel Gibson’s Passion movie – Jesus wearing nothing but loincloth and beaten severely, bleeding profusely.
After a short gap of some random chief priest figures and the continuous march of men in purple robes lining the streets, Pilate showed up, an actual guy instead of another float depiction, accompanied by a servant boy holding a small pitcher and basin for Pilate to wash up at his leisure. Pilate himself was carrying around an enormous scroll which appeared to be a formal declaration of some sort, but the indecipherable Latin scrawling did not specify its exact purpose. Following these two were a few more “live-action” figures, most of whom I couldn’t identify, but I believe one of them was Herod and another was most certainly Barabbas.
After these was yet another group of Roman soldiers, this time including the massive (at times unbearable) amounts of incense that are used during almost all of these processions. Then came the main platform – Jesus carrying his cross. This scene is actually repeated in almost all the processionals of the week, but having the plethora of other Good Friday scenes preceding this particular one seemed to make it more significant. Jesus, clothed in both his crown of thorns and a red robe that matched the blood spotting any exposed skin, was portrayed in midstride, shouldering an enormous cross and looking very weak and miserable indeed. As always, Jesus was followed by a small marching band playing a grim but boisterous tune. Bringing up the rear was Mary, another constant in the processions of the week. The virgin was sobbing, a small cloth in one hand and a golden dagger apparently piercing her heart of its own accord. Bringing up the absolute rear of the procession was a collection of other women whom I couldn’t name for sure, but all appeared appropriately grief-stricken and/or futilely trying to console Mary.
After the procession a mixture of vendors preying on spectators and sweepers who clean up what’s left of the beautiful alfombras crowded the street. By this time Ashley and I were extremely hungry and tired, and so we headed back to the hostel. On our way back we ran into another bunch of alfombras, one which was in the process of being made so we took another couple shots of the process. Breakfast at the hostel was a very welcomed meal, followed by an even more welcomed couple hours of sleep.
We got up again around 11:45 to head over to central park where a crucifixion reenactment was scheduled for noon. When we arrived, the two men who were crucified on either side of Jesus were already up outside the church that hugs the east end of the park, and we had to wait for Jesus to show up. We did not get to see much of the entire event as it was actually inside the church, but finally we (and the other hundreds of tourists who had gathered outside) witnessed a stream of men march out of the church carrying the body of Christ, now even more severely bruised and bloodied. After literally nailing the body to a cross, they attached ropes to the part of the cross where Jesus’ hands were and heaved the whole thing to a vertical position. Nearby loudspeakers blared an extremely dark and dramatic piece of music the moment Jesus was completely upright, and hundreds of cameras (including mine) clicked away to capture the scene.
After taking some pictures we went back to the hostel to rest again (we were still very tired). Ashley took a nap while I went out to look for – get this – a Lutheran church. The day before our hostel owner had told me there was a Lutheran church just a few blocks from where we were, so I decided I definitely needed to go look for that to see if there would be a Good Friday and/or Easter Sunday service I could attend. I did find the place – it was huge! The actual chapel there was tiny, but the location is like some sort of retreat center where church groups and other organizations often stay while in Antigua. Turns out they did not have a Good Friday service, but they did have one Easter morning. More on that when I write about Sunday.
For dinner we went to a French crepe restaurant we had seen the day before, a place called Luna de Miel (literally, “honey moon” in Spanish). The crepes were absolutely delicious, and we would end up returning twice more before leaving Antigua. Over coffee and good food we had some long and deep conversations about religion, politics, and other hot subjects which we both seemed to enjoy talking about. Resisting the temptation to get a second round of crepes, we finally headed out in search of live music once again. We finally ran into a tiny place called JP’s RumBar. The music was basically just two guys on guitar, one of whom we had seen our first night in Antigua at another restaurant. Although the guys were fantastic and the ambiance of the place was great, there were very few people there, and for a while Ashley and I were only two of four people enjoying the music (minus the staff). We thought about leaving but the guitarists were just too fun to leave – some musicians get in their element when they have a fair amount of people in front of them cheering them on, while others simply are swept away by the sheer joy of the music they’re making. These two were clearly in the latter category, and the mood was contagious. Around midnight we finally headed back to the hostel, anxious to get a full night’s sleep after a very eventful and very satisfying Antiguan Good Friday.
Saturday, April 11
We slept in a bit before having another good breakfast at the hostel. Saturday in Antigua is one of three official market days during the week, and since it lands nicely between Good Friday and Easter Sunday it’s the perfect opportunity for tourists to check out the goods available. Since Ashley and I had now seen a fair amount of the types of gifts and merchandise available, we headed over there too to find some things to fill our backpacks (and empty our wallets!).
A word about the things to buy in Guatemala. The country is known for its prevalent indigenous culture, and it shows in the items on sale in tourist areas. Everywhere you go, you are surrounded by an amazing kaleidoscope of goods in bright and brilliant colors. Everything is so colorful! Basically all of the shirts, bags, pillows, toys, and whatever else you might want to buy come in fabrics (many hand-stitched) that are absolutely beautiful and ridiculously vibrant. Ashley and I are both big fans of bright colors in large amounts and combinations, and as such we were both inclined to buy just about everything we saw. Being poor college students, this of course was not possible, but it did make choosing what we purchased pretty difficult. Every little shop we walked into was an explosion of color in various shades and designs, each item boasting an aesthetic liveliness that was difficult to ignore.
That having been said, and keeping in mind we’re poor college students, I wouldn’t want to give the impression that we didn’t get much. In fact, Ashley went a little crazy that morning and spent all of her remaining money and a good deal of mine (shortly thereafter we visited an ATM so we would be able to both settle debts…and eat). Much to my enjoyment, I had a couple of spirited conversations with vendors over the true value of some of the goods I wanted. After visiting the market both in the morning and early afternoon (split up by a lunch/ATM break), we headed back to the hostel where we planned out the rest of our time in Antigua, particularly in terms of getting food and other items for our return bus trip in a couple of days.
For dinner that night we went out a second time to Luna de Miel, where we had some excellent crepes yet again. That night we got into some even deeper conversations that lasted for hours, and even though we had planned on going out to find some more live music we eventually just decided to stay there. Every twenty minutes or so we ordered a coffee or something to justify our extended stay, but the staff didn’t seem to mind us. After figuring out the meaning of life, the nature of human relationship, and the idea of God vs god(s), among other things, we finally headed back to the hostel (we had been there for about four and a half hours at that point).
I’ll cut it there again for today. Hopefully I’ll be able to wrap up the last few days in just one more post. I’ve got some pictures up! Enjoy! Also, just for a more up-to-date notice about what I’m up to, I’ll be heading to Vara Blanca and Poasito this weekend, the areas where January’s massive earthquake hit the hardest, to build some temporary housing with other volunteers from both USAC and Ticos from our University. You’ll hear about it in a week or so! Until then, take care and God bless.
True to our plans from the previous day, we crawled out of bed around 4:30 to see as many alfombras as we could, and I’m certainly glad we did! The Good Friday morning procession is one of the biggest events that go on here, and the locals really come up with some amazing stuff for it. It’s a good thing we did get up so early, because there was an absolutely incredible amount of alfombras to see, and pretty much all of them were worth a few pictures. We ended up taking literally hundreds of pictures of these things, as they were so beautiful. It was really difficult to capture the detail and beauty of them in a picture, but we sure tried! One interesting part of the morning in that respect was that when we started off it was obviously completely dark outside, making it difficult to get good shots, but as the morning progressed the sunlight helped us out more and more until we were done, making an interesting progression of picture quality and style as we would look through the pictures we had taken later that day.
After about an hour and a half or so of wandering the streets (and even then we didn’t see all the alfombras we could have!), we found the procession making its way through town. Or rather, it found us. The alfombras basically mark the path of the processions, and it turned out we were simply following it backwards until suddenly we saw a bunch of roman soldiers on horses – a good indication that we should probably get to the side of the road. We actually were pretty lucky, as the street we happened to be on when the procession went by was not very crowded, and we had a comfortable, slightly elevated part of the sidewalk on which to spend the next hour or so as the flamboyant mix of biblical characters and scenes went by. Some stupid tourists who felt they were above municipal regulation and disrespecting processional custom decided to take some pictures from the middle of the street, in and among those involved in the procession. This angered the 99% of us who knew better, but eventually these either dispersed or were ordered off by officials in the procession.
The procession started with a crew of Roman soldiers, some of them on horseback, others on foot carrying banners or signs with messages in Latin. Behind the front crew and walking among the second wave of soldiers were what appeared to be the chief priests, along with a long line of children in the popular purple and white robes that seemingly half the population of Antigua was wearing that week. The children were holding up banners with names of Biblical characters on them with various quotations of what appeared to be dialogue from scripture, but I didn’t recognize very many of them so I’m not sure.
Following these was a small group of miniature platforms (relatively speaking) with different depictions of Good Friday events. The first of these depicted Jesus praying in the garden, literally holding a cup he doesn’t seem too thrilled to be holding. Following this were two smaller ones, one depicting an old man on his knees in prayer (I think it was St. Francis, but I’m not sure), and the other was Jesus again, this time with a crown of thorns but more or less tranquil, not yet beaten nor with cross. This relatively tender image was immediately replaced by a couple of depictions one could have taken right out of Mel Gibson’s Passion movie – Jesus wearing nothing but loincloth and beaten severely, bleeding profusely.
After a short gap of some random chief priest figures and the continuous march of men in purple robes lining the streets, Pilate showed up, an actual guy instead of another float depiction, accompanied by a servant boy holding a small pitcher and basin for Pilate to wash up at his leisure. Pilate himself was carrying around an enormous scroll which appeared to be a formal declaration of some sort, but the indecipherable Latin scrawling did not specify its exact purpose. Following these two were a few more “live-action” figures, most of whom I couldn’t identify, but I believe one of them was Herod and another was most certainly Barabbas.
After these was yet another group of Roman soldiers, this time including the massive (at times unbearable) amounts of incense that are used during almost all of these processions. Then came the main platform – Jesus carrying his cross. This scene is actually repeated in almost all the processionals of the week, but having the plethora of other Good Friday scenes preceding this particular one seemed to make it more significant. Jesus, clothed in both his crown of thorns and a red robe that matched the blood spotting any exposed skin, was portrayed in midstride, shouldering an enormous cross and looking very weak and miserable indeed. As always, Jesus was followed by a small marching band playing a grim but boisterous tune. Bringing up the rear was Mary, another constant in the processions of the week. The virgin was sobbing, a small cloth in one hand and a golden dagger apparently piercing her heart of its own accord. Bringing up the absolute rear of the procession was a collection of other women whom I couldn’t name for sure, but all appeared appropriately grief-stricken and/or futilely trying to console Mary.
After the procession a mixture of vendors preying on spectators and sweepers who clean up what’s left of the beautiful alfombras crowded the street. By this time Ashley and I were extremely hungry and tired, and so we headed back to the hostel. On our way back we ran into another bunch of alfombras, one which was in the process of being made so we took another couple shots of the process. Breakfast at the hostel was a very welcomed meal, followed by an even more welcomed couple hours of sleep.
We got up again around 11:45 to head over to central park where a crucifixion reenactment was scheduled for noon. When we arrived, the two men who were crucified on either side of Jesus were already up outside the church that hugs the east end of the park, and we had to wait for Jesus to show up. We did not get to see much of the entire event as it was actually inside the church, but finally we (and the other hundreds of tourists who had gathered outside) witnessed a stream of men march out of the church carrying the body of Christ, now even more severely bruised and bloodied. After literally nailing the body to a cross, they attached ropes to the part of the cross where Jesus’ hands were and heaved the whole thing to a vertical position. Nearby loudspeakers blared an extremely dark and dramatic piece of music the moment Jesus was completely upright, and hundreds of cameras (including mine) clicked away to capture the scene.
After taking some pictures we went back to the hostel to rest again (we were still very tired). Ashley took a nap while I went out to look for – get this – a Lutheran church. The day before our hostel owner had told me there was a Lutheran church just a few blocks from where we were, so I decided I definitely needed to go look for that to see if there would be a Good Friday and/or Easter Sunday service I could attend. I did find the place – it was huge! The actual chapel there was tiny, but the location is like some sort of retreat center where church groups and other organizations often stay while in Antigua. Turns out they did not have a Good Friday service, but they did have one Easter morning. More on that when I write about Sunday.
For dinner we went to a French crepe restaurant we had seen the day before, a place called Luna de Miel (literally, “honey moon” in Spanish). The crepes were absolutely delicious, and we would end up returning twice more before leaving Antigua. Over coffee and good food we had some long and deep conversations about religion, politics, and other hot subjects which we both seemed to enjoy talking about. Resisting the temptation to get a second round of crepes, we finally headed out in search of live music once again. We finally ran into a tiny place called JP’s RumBar. The music was basically just two guys on guitar, one of whom we had seen our first night in Antigua at another restaurant. Although the guys were fantastic and the ambiance of the place was great, there were very few people there, and for a while Ashley and I were only two of four people enjoying the music (minus the staff). We thought about leaving but the guitarists were just too fun to leave – some musicians get in their element when they have a fair amount of people in front of them cheering them on, while others simply are swept away by the sheer joy of the music they’re making. These two were clearly in the latter category, and the mood was contagious. Around midnight we finally headed back to the hostel, anxious to get a full night’s sleep after a very eventful and very satisfying Antiguan Good Friday.
Saturday, April 11
We slept in a bit before having another good breakfast at the hostel. Saturday in Antigua is one of three official market days during the week, and since it lands nicely between Good Friday and Easter Sunday it’s the perfect opportunity for tourists to check out the goods available. Since Ashley and I had now seen a fair amount of the types of gifts and merchandise available, we headed over there too to find some things to fill our backpacks (and empty our wallets!).
A word about the things to buy in Guatemala. The country is known for its prevalent indigenous culture, and it shows in the items on sale in tourist areas. Everywhere you go, you are surrounded by an amazing kaleidoscope of goods in bright and brilliant colors. Everything is so colorful! Basically all of the shirts, bags, pillows, toys, and whatever else you might want to buy come in fabrics (many hand-stitched) that are absolutely beautiful and ridiculously vibrant. Ashley and I are both big fans of bright colors in large amounts and combinations, and as such we were both inclined to buy just about everything we saw. Being poor college students, this of course was not possible, but it did make choosing what we purchased pretty difficult. Every little shop we walked into was an explosion of color in various shades and designs, each item boasting an aesthetic liveliness that was difficult to ignore.
That having been said, and keeping in mind we’re poor college students, I wouldn’t want to give the impression that we didn’t get much. In fact, Ashley went a little crazy that morning and spent all of her remaining money and a good deal of mine (shortly thereafter we visited an ATM so we would be able to both settle debts…and eat). Much to my enjoyment, I had a couple of spirited conversations with vendors over the true value of some of the goods I wanted. After visiting the market both in the morning and early afternoon (split up by a lunch/ATM break), we headed back to the hostel where we planned out the rest of our time in Antigua, particularly in terms of getting food and other items for our return bus trip in a couple of days.
For dinner that night we went out a second time to Luna de Miel, where we had some excellent crepes yet again. That night we got into some even deeper conversations that lasted for hours, and even though we had planned on going out to find some more live music we eventually just decided to stay there. Every twenty minutes or so we ordered a coffee or something to justify our extended stay, but the staff didn’t seem to mind us. After figuring out the meaning of life, the nature of human relationship, and the idea of God vs god(s), among other things, we finally headed back to the hostel (we had been there for about four and a half hours at that point).
I’ll cut it there again for today. Hopefully I’ll be able to wrap up the last few days in just one more post. I’ve got some pictures up! Enjoy! Also, just for a more up-to-date notice about what I’m up to, I’ll be heading to Vara Blanca and Poasito this weekend, the areas where January’s massive earthquake hit the hardest, to build some temporary housing with other volunteers from both USAC and Ticos from our University. You’ll hear about it in a week or so! Until then, take care and God bless.
Saturday, April 18
Guatemala part 2
Wednesday, April 8
We slept in for the first time in nearly a week, and it was delightful. Since we left early the day before, we had not yet had the opportunity to take advantage of our hostel’s free breakfast. It wasn’t the most exquisite thing I’ve ever had, but it was very good, and it was certainly nice to wake up and have someone make us a good (free) meal instead of munching on the snacks and sandwiches we had brought from Costa Rica.
We didn’t really have much of a game plan for the day, so after breakfast we took a look at Ash’s travel book to get some ideas. Supposedly there was a really old but well-kept colonial house nearby that we decided to check out, and after getting a bit lost on the way we finally found it. Unfortunately, it was closed. Keeping to our freestyle itinerary, we happened to look down the street and see what looked like a pretty impressive cathedral – “Whatever, let’s go over there!” It was, in fact, a very impressive cathedral, famous because buried there is a famous saint/monk whose name escapes me at the moment. Anyway, there were some very pretty gardens and statues leading up to the room in which this guy’s sepulcher is. No photos were allowed inside, but the architecture and displays were definitely pretty enough to remain in my memory for some time. On our way out, we passed by the lines of people waiting for their turn in the confessional booths – what a crowd! Wednesday was the last day to confess, apparently, and it looked like a good fifth of Antigua had showed up to take their turn before Easter rolled around.
Outside, we found an entrance to another part of the cathedral which was basically a huge area of ruins from parts of the church that are no longer kept. Since it was only a little over a dollar to get in, we did it, and I’m certainly glad we did. The area was huge, and very fun to explore. I’m not entirely sure what all the empty spaces were, but the mix of crumbling walls and semi-maintained flower gardens made for some pretty cool sights and pictures. Part of the ruins included a tiny museum mostly dedicated to the saint who was buried there, so we spent some time learning about him and looking at some things he had touched, worn, and that sort of thing.
After leaving the museum/ruins, we strolled around the cathedral’s plaza for a bit, where there were even more shops with more cool stuff to get (I bought a little something, but I can’t say what it is otherwise the recipient will know it’s for him). Ashley held off, but when there are so many pretty things at such relatively low prices it’s sometimes hard to resist! Turning our attention and our spending ideas towards lunch, we walked to a bread shop we had passed on our way to the colonial house and picked up some delicious banana bread to hold us over for dinner. While enjoying our light lunch and popping into various shops that caught our attention, we decided we wanted to head to Volcán Pacaya for one our day trips, so we dropped into numerous tour companies around town (there are TONS of them in Antigua, offering to bus you just about anywhere from down the street to Mexico) until we found a good price and signed up for the next day.
Having to figure out a few things going on back home, we hopped into an internet café in which I did some academic planning, summer job searching, but most importantly received some exciting news – I was offered a Peer Advisor position in East Hall at Augustana next year! So that made me pretty happy, because I was worried that a late application and being out of the country might hinder my chances. Anyway, afterwards we headed into a bookstore we’d been meaning to check out where I found a ton of books I would have loved to buy, but I unfortunately had neither the money to pay for them (books are expensive down here!) nor the physical space to bring them back to Costa Rica. I did make a short mental list, though, and I’ll have to do some searching when I get back to the U.S.
For dinner that evening, we found a great Italian restaurant whose prices were remarkably reasonable despite the restaurants location on one of the busiest streets in Antigua. Having put down some excellent bruschetta (how do you spell that?) and pasta, we walked just a few restaurants over where there was a fantastic salsa group playing live. Unfortunately, neither of us had much cash on hand, so when the place got a little more packed we felt a little awkward taking up a table having bought only one drink between the two of us. Nevertheless, we thoroughly enjoyed the music they played. Guatemalans, it seemed, are not as apt to dancing as Ticos, and that made the ambiance a little different. Granted, we were not in a dance club, but even I felt compelled to move a bit to the great music we had the pleasure of listening to. Around midnight or so we finally headed out to rest up for another outing.
April 9 – Maundy Thursday
Around 6:00 in the morning we were picked up by our tour company’s shuttle, which had already picked up 8 or so other tourists set to make the same hike. On the ride to the volcano, two things became clear to me; first, all the other tourists in the bus knew each other and two, they all were speaking French. Ashley, coincidentally, is nearly fluent in French, having both grown up with it in an immersion primary school and lived in France for some time. Consequently, she is passionate about all things French and jumps at the chance to do French-related things, in this case, making some new friends and practicing the tongue she hadn’t used much in so long. The French folks were more than happy to talk back with her – most of them did speak various amounts of English as well, but naturally they only resorted to that when speaking directly with me. While not extraordinarily bothered by all this, I was in fact lost for much of the day. *sigh* I’ve gotta learn French someday….
The hike itself was great. It was a little cold in the morning (which I was not dressed for), but eventually the sun decided to show up and grace us with a little heat and better views from the trail which began the day enshrouded in fog. One of the more interesting parts of our way up was a steep hillside which was not part of the official trail at all, but our tour guide had led us up a little higher so we could “ski” (the guide’s word) down to get back on track. We literally just skidded down hundreds of feet of volcanic hillside, skidding through loose rock and dust until the terrain leveled out a bit at the bottom. It’s a little difficult to describe the sensation, but I suppose skiing is about as close I can get.
After that little adventurous bit we walked further up the trail where we (along with the multitude of other tour groups that go there daily) were lucky to come across an impressive “river” of lava coming down the mountainside. It was incredible to see – it looked like a large chain of volcanic rock like the rest of the landscape we were walking around on, except it was spotted with glowing orange gaps and slowly moving down the incline. Sometimes, what looked like (and I suppose it was) solid rock simply melted into the rest of the mass as if it suddenly just lost its solidity. Another amazing aspect of that particular sight (which was a huge “duh” moment but was still striking) was the intense heat! We stood several meters (a good 20-25 feet, at least) away from the lava, but even at such distance it was difficult to bear. For safety reasons the guides earnestly encouraged us to take only a few pictures and then turn around to head back down to the “safe zone” (hillside instability, or something like that – “NOW you tell us,” I thought). After snapping my fair share of shots – more than “a few,” anyway – I regrouped with our guide and the French brigade to start making our way down back to the bus.
Back in town, we headed to Antigua’s supermarket to get some basic food for lunch along with some mangos we bought from street vendors. After eating Ashley decided to take a nap while I went out and did some more exploring and hopped in another internet café for a bit.
Thursday is when the serious Holy Week events start happening in Antigua, including the alfombras (carepts). As part of the processions that take place all week long, but particularly in the last few days, people create alfombras right in front of their house or business. They are not literally carpets, but rather decorative works of art made directly on the street using flowers, grasses, colored sands/sawdust, and absolutely whatever else one feels like using. The subject matter of the alfombra varies just as much as the creator’s choice of materials, but normally people give them religious themes, such as creating flower crosses or crucifixes, portraits of Christ, depictions of the Host, or other such images. As the alfombras are not at all regulated, some people choose to go different routes both in terms of image (one we saw simply had a colored backdrop with flower petals forming the word “HOLLAND”) and of materials (some put actual loaves of bread and goblets of wine on theirs, another included a model of St. Peter’s Basilica, and still others were made entirely out of fruit or vegetables).
Alfombras are only constructed on streets where the processionals will pass by. When they arrive, normally the front section of participants keeps to the sides of the street and avoids the alfombras entirely. When the floats/platforms come on the scene, though, they simply walk right over them, effectively trampling and destroying beautiful works of art that have only been in existence for a matter of hours. For me, this was perhaps the most curious aspect of the alfombra tradition, that after working so very hard and meticulously on these things, they are simply destroyed by the procession for which they were made. Topping it all off, after the entire procession has passed by it is always followed by dump trucks and other construction site-style vehicles along with a group of men with brooms, all of whom whose job it is to gather up what remains of the alfombras and quickly dispose of it. In other words, after both the procession and these guys have passed by, there is absolutely nothing left. Crazy.
By the time I got back to the hostel, the staff had started making one out on the street and invited me to help. Ashley promptly came down too to join us. Even though our little alfombra was hardly the biggest or most extravagant, it was very fun to help make one. Rather than sticking around to wait for the coming procession to swing by, Ashley and I grabbed a camera and headed out, taking literally hundreds of pictures of all the beautiful alfombras we could find. Our hostel owner told us that the best time to go find some amazing alfombras would be the following day, Friday, very early in the morning, and so we made plans to not get much sleep.
For dinner we went to a place closer to our hostel, but actually got stuck on the way. One thing you learn quickly about the processions is that the city literally stops for them. If you’re trying to cross a street but are cut off by a procession, you simply must wait until the whole thing goes by – it is prohibited to cut across them. That having been said, these things can last up to an hour or maybe more, so you just find yourself on one side of the street for a long time. Furthermore, people pack the sidewalks to watch these things (or perhaps, in some cases, to wait to cross the street), and sometimes they get so full one can’t even go up or down the street on the side he or she is already on. This happened to us in our search for dinner, but it wouldn’t be the only time.
After dinner we went to a place on the other side of town where supposedly there was supposedly some live Reggae music going on. Unfortunately, we arrived right as the band was finishing their last song. Not wanting to waste the cover charge we paid to get in, we stuck around and enjoyed the decent selection of reggae and similar music the place put on for the rest of the night, even though it was not live. After we tired of Bob Marley and people watching (which actually entertained us for a surprising amount of time!) we made our way back north towards our hostel. On our way there, we stopped by a large county fair-style assortment of food vendors going on outside one of the major churches in Antigua, La Merced. We had seen this set up for the past couple days, but hadn’t yet explored it at all. Picking up some cheap dessert-type food, we browsed the more substantive options and resolved to have at least a few meals here for both the experience and to save significant amounts of money. By the time we got back to the hostel it was nearly 1:00 am, which was just lovely as we would be getting up in a little over three hours to find some more great alfombras before the Good Friday morning processional, one of the grander spectacles of the week.
Hope you’re enjoying the updates. I realize this post only includes two days of travel, but it got a bit long for just two days and the awesomeness of an Antiguan Good Friday will take some serious descriptive initiative to do it justice. Check back soon!
We slept in for the first time in nearly a week, and it was delightful. Since we left early the day before, we had not yet had the opportunity to take advantage of our hostel’s free breakfast. It wasn’t the most exquisite thing I’ve ever had, but it was very good, and it was certainly nice to wake up and have someone make us a good (free) meal instead of munching on the snacks and sandwiches we had brought from Costa Rica.
We didn’t really have much of a game plan for the day, so after breakfast we took a look at Ash’s travel book to get some ideas. Supposedly there was a really old but well-kept colonial house nearby that we decided to check out, and after getting a bit lost on the way we finally found it. Unfortunately, it was closed. Keeping to our freestyle itinerary, we happened to look down the street and see what looked like a pretty impressive cathedral – “Whatever, let’s go over there!” It was, in fact, a very impressive cathedral, famous because buried there is a famous saint/monk whose name escapes me at the moment. Anyway, there were some very pretty gardens and statues leading up to the room in which this guy’s sepulcher is. No photos were allowed inside, but the architecture and displays were definitely pretty enough to remain in my memory for some time. On our way out, we passed by the lines of people waiting for their turn in the confessional booths – what a crowd! Wednesday was the last day to confess, apparently, and it looked like a good fifth of Antigua had showed up to take their turn before Easter rolled around.
Outside, we found an entrance to another part of the cathedral which was basically a huge area of ruins from parts of the church that are no longer kept. Since it was only a little over a dollar to get in, we did it, and I’m certainly glad we did. The area was huge, and very fun to explore. I’m not entirely sure what all the empty spaces were, but the mix of crumbling walls and semi-maintained flower gardens made for some pretty cool sights and pictures. Part of the ruins included a tiny museum mostly dedicated to the saint who was buried there, so we spent some time learning about him and looking at some things he had touched, worn, and that sort of thing.
After leaving the museum/ruins, we strolled around the cathedral’s plaza for a bit, where there were even more shops with more cool stuff to get (I bought a little something, but I can’t say what it is otherwise the recipient will know it’s for him). Ashley held off, but when there are so many pretty things at such relatively low prices it’s sometimes hard to resist! Turning our attention and our spending ideas towards lunch, we walked to a bread shop we had passed on our way to the colonial house and picked up some delicious banana bread to hold us over for dinner. While enjoying our light lunch and popping into various shops that caught our attention, we decided we wanted to head to Volcán Pacaya for one our day trips, so we dropped into numerous tour companies around town (there are TONS of them in Antigua, offering to bus you just about anywhere from down the street to Mexico) until we found a good price and signed up for the next day.
Having to figure out a few things going on back home, we hopped into an internet café in which I did some academic planning, summer job searching, but most importantly received some exciting news – I was offered a Peer Advisor position in East Hall at Augustana next year! So that made me pretty happy, because I was worried that a late application and being out of the country might hinder my chances. Anyway, afterwards we headed into a bookstore we’d been meaning to check out where I found a ton of books I would have loved to buy, but I unfortunately had neither the money to pay for them (books are expensive down here!) nor the physical space to bring them back to Costa Rica. I did make a short mental list, though, and I’ll have to do some searching when I get back to the U.S.
For dinner that evening, we found a great Italian restaurant whose prices were remarkably reasonable despite the restaurants location on one of the busiest streets in Antigua. Having put down some excellent bruschetta (how do you spell that?) and pasta, we walked just a few restaurants over where there was a fantastic salsa group playing live. Unfortunately, neither of us had much cash on hand, so when the place got a little more packed we felt a little awkward taking up a table having bought only one drink between the two of us. Nevertheless, we thoroughly enjoyed the music they played. Guatemalans, it seemed, are not as apt to dancing as Ticos, and that made the ambiance a little different. Granted, we were not in a dance club, but even I felt compelled to move a bit to the great music we had the pleasure of listening to. Around midnight or so we finally headed out to rest up for another outing.
April 9 – Maundy Thursday
Around 6:00 in the morning we were picked up by our tour company’s shuttle, which had already picked up 8 or so other tourists set to make the same hike. On the ride to the volcano, two things became clear to me; first, all the other tourists in the bus knew each other and two, they all were speaking French. Ashley, coincidentally, is nearly fluent in French, having both grown up with it in an immersion primary school and lived in France for some time. Consequently, she is passionate about all things French and jumps at the chance to do French-related things, in this case, making some new friends and practicing the tongue she hadn’t used much in so long. The French folks were more than happy to talk back with her – most of them did speak various amounts of English as well, but naturally they only resorted to that when speaking directly with me. While not extraordinarily bothered by all this, I was in fact lost for much of the day. *sigh* I’ve gotta learn French someday….
The hike itself was great. It was a little cold in the morning (which I was not dressed for), but eventually the sun decided to show up and grace us with a little heat and better views from the trail which began the day enshrouded in fog. One of the more interesting parts of our way up was a steep hillside which was not part of the official trail at all, but our tour guide had led us up a little higher so we could “ski” (the guide’s word) down to get back on track. We literally just skidded down hundreds of feet of volcanic hillside, skidding through loose rock and dust until the terrain leveled out a bit at the bottom. It’s a little difficult to describe the sensation, but I suppose skiing is about as close I can get.
After that little adventurous bit we walked further up the trail where we (along with the multitude of other tour groups that go there daily) were lucky to come across an impressive “river” of lava coming down the mountainside. It was incredible to see – it looked like a large chain of volcanic rock like the rest of the landscape we were walking around on, except it was spotted with glowing orange gaps and slowly moving down the incline. Sometimes, what looked like (and I suppose it was) solid rock simply melted into the rest of the mass as if it suddenly just lost its solidity. Another amazing aspect of that particular sight (which was a huge “duh” moment but was still striking) was the intense heat! We stood several meters (a good 20-25 feet, at least) away from the lava, but even at such distance it was difficult to bear. For safety reasons the guides earnestly encouraged us to take only a few pictures and then turn around to head back down to the “safe zone” (hillside instability, or something like that – “NOW you tell us,” I thought). After snapping my fair share of shots – more than “a few,” anyway – I regrouped with our guide and the French brigade to start making our way down back to the bus.
Back in town, we headed to Antigua’s supermarket to get some basic food for lunch along with some mangos we bought from street vendors. After eating Ashley decided to take a nap while I went out and did some more exploring and hopped in another internet café for a bit.
Thursday is when the serious Holy Week events start happening in Antigua, including the alfombras (carepts). As part of the processions that take place all week long, but particularly in the last few days, people create alfombras right in front of their house or business. They are not literally carpets, but rather decorative works of art made directly on the street using flowers, grasses, colored sands/sawdust, and absolutely whatever else one feels like using. The subject matter of the alfombra varies just as much as the creator’s choice of materials, but normally people give them religious themes, such as creating flower crosses or crucifixes, portraits of Christ, depictions of the Host, or other such images. As the alfombras are not at all regulated, some people choose to go different routes both in terms of image (one we saw simply had a colored backdrop with flower petals forming the word “HOLLAND”) and of materials (some put actual loaves of bread and goblets of wine on theirs, another included a model of St. Peter’s Basilica, and still others were made entirely out of fruit or vegetables).
Alfombras are only constructed on streets where the processionals will pass by. When they arrive, normally the front section of participants keeps to the sides of the street and avoids the alfombras entirely. When the floats/platforms come on the scene, though, they simply walk right over them, effectively trampling and destroying beautiful works of art that have only been in existence for a matter of hours. For me, this was perhaps the most curious aspect of the alfombra tradition, that after working so very hard and meticulously on these things, they are simply destroyed by the procession for which they were made. Topping it all off, after the entire procession has passed by it is always followed by dump trucks and other construction site-style vehicles along with a group of men with brooms, all of whom whose job it is to gather up what remains of the alfombras and quickly dispose of it. In other words, after both the procession and these guys have passed by, there is absolutely nothing left. Crazy.
By the time I got back to the hostel, the staff had started making one out on the street and invited me to help. Ashley promptly came down too to join us. Even though our little alfombra was hardly the biggest or most extravagant, it was very fun to help make one. Rather than sticking around to wait for the coming procession to swing by, Ashley and I grabbed a camera and headed out, taking literally hundreds of pictures of all the beautiful alfombras we could find. Our hostel owner told us that the best time to go find some amazing alfombras would be the following day, Friday, very early in the morning, and so we made plans to not get much sleep.
For dinner we went to a place closer to our hostel, but actually got stuck on the way. One thing you learn quickly about the processions is that the city literally stops for them. If you’re trying to cross a street but are cut off by a procession, you simply must wait until the whole thing goes by – it is prohibited to cut across them. That having been said, these things can last up to an hour or maybe more, so you just find yourself on one side of the street for a long time. Furthermore, people pack the sidewalks to watch these things (or perhaps, in some cases, to wait to cross the street), and sometimes they get so full one can’t even go up or down the street on the side he or she is already on. This happened to us in our search for dinner, but it wouldn’t be the only time.
After dinner we went to a place on the other side of town where supposedly there was supposedly some live Reggae music going on. Unfortunately, we arrived right as the band was finishing their last song. Not wanting to waste the cover charge we paid to get in, we stuck around and enjoyed the decent selection of reggae and similar music the place put on for the rest of the night, even though it was not live. After we tired of Bob Marley and people watching (which actually entertained us for a surprising amount of time!) we made our way back north towards our hostel. On our way there, we stopped by a large county fair-style assortment of food vendors going on outside one of the major churches in Antigua, La Merced. We had seen this set up for the past couple days, but hadn’t yet explored it at all. Picking up some cheap dessert-type food, we browsed the more substantive options and resolved to have at least a few meals here for both the experience and to save significant amounts of money. By the time we got back to the hostel it was nearly 1:00 am, which was just lovely as we would be getting up in a little over three hours to find some more great alfombras before the Good Friday morning processional, one of the grander spectacles of the week.
Hope you’re enjoying the updates. I realize this post only includes two days of travel, but it got a bit long for just two days and the awesomeness of an Antiguan Good Friday will take some serious descriptive initiative to do it justice. Check back soon!
Friday, April 17
Guatemala trip, part 1!
Hello again! I’m finally back from my trip! Just to remind you, we here in Costa Rica got all of Semana Santa (that is, Holy Week) off of classes since they close the public universities anyway. Ashley Lyons (one of the girls with whom I traveled to Nicaragua) and I bought tickets months ago to head up to Guatemala for the week and experience the world famous Holy Week celebrations in the city of Antigua. We had a fantastic time, and this trip will be every bit as memorable as the Nicaragua one was. I’ll try to be a bit quicker to get all the details about the whole trip than I was with Nicaragua, but once again there is just too much to tell! We’ll give it a shot though, right? So…
Saturday, April 4
Like our last trip, we elected to travel by bus. Flying would have been twice as expensive, and this way we would have the opportunity to spend some evenings in other cities on our way there and back. As such, we had another extremely early bus to catch in San José, so Ashley stayed over at our house in the guest room the night before. Not a whole lot happened this first day – it was mostly time spent on the bus (and much of that sleeping, due to our early rise). The first leg of our trip took us north to Managua, so we had done this part before. On the bus ride up we watched no less than four movies, and all of them pretty stupid.
When we actually arrived in Managua we struck by the incredible heat. For unknown reasons, the bus drivers for the company we take up there, TicaBus, keep the air in the vehicle somewhere between 0 and 3 degrees Fahrenheit, so after getting off the bus extreme heat seems even hotter yet. We arrived in Managua in the early evening, so we wandered around a nearby mall a bit before finally going around 9:00 or so to a nearby restaurant we had found on our previous trip, in which there was live music almost every weekend, and this Saturday was not an exception. And so, for a few hours we enjoyed some very fun Nicaraguan folk music, some with fairly obvious political overtones. The only thing I didn’t really like about the place was that the entire establishment was a bit pricy, and after filling up with people it became fairly obvious to us that we were spending the night with Nicaragua’s upper crust. I don’t have a problem with people with money in general, but here I sort of got a negative feeling of being somewhere I wasn’t part of the club. Hard to explain. Anyway, the music was great and gave us an excuse to stay out until midnight or so before another super early bus the next day.
Sunday, April 5
Another relatively uneventful day, but I suppose travel days are just like that. Having stayed out the night before we slept quite a bit again on the bus, waking up now and then for border crossings, movies (a much better selection this day – and I’d like to note here that watching Speed while on a bus is an interesting experience), and the occasional initiative to do homework. Though we did not stop anywhere except at borders, I suppose I can say now that I’ve at least been through the country of Honduras. It looked pretty enough from the highway view we enjoyed, and I’d certainly like to come back some day to spend some more time exploring it.
Our second and final country we crossed into for the day was El Salvador. Reading about the country in Ashley’s Lonely Planet book was a bit frightening, to be honest (I’ll spare you the details), but we certainly had a fine time there (even though it was only two days en route to Guatemala/Costa Rica). Our hotel was fairly nice, if a little far off from the bus stop. Our first night here there was only one person on staff, an extremely helpful and kind young lady who recommended us some things to do for our evening. We ended up simply going to a nearby mall, which actually turned out to be a very cool place. Though filled with shops one can find in many U.S. shopping centers, the place had a very unique feel to it and even though I’m not one for malls I was impressed and content to spend my evening wandering about it. At the end of the evening, we went to the mall’s movie theater to see Monsters vs. Aliens, which was great for two reasons: one, it was in Spanish (dubbed, not subtitled, as are all movies down here that small children might go see), and I would say I comfortably understood 95% of the dialogue, which made me feel pretty good about myself; two, it was absolutely hilarious and I loved it. The movie selection was my suggestion, and though I think Ashley may have been a bit skeptical at first, she loved it to. When it was over, we grabbed a taxi back to our hotel to get some sleep before yet another early morning.
Monday, April 6
The day before, the taxi driver who brought us from the bus station to our hotel offered to pick us up in the morning, and we accepted. Unfortunately, he didn’t show up, and we had to call another one. Luckily we arrived at the TicaBus station on time and had a comfortable and brief bus ride to the Guatemalan border and on to Guatemala City. Once in the city we opted to take a taxi instead of finding buses to Antigua, sharing the ride with a woman from Portland (with whom Ashley talked the whole ride, as she too is from Oregon) and a young French guy.
One of the only regrets I have about this trip is that we didn’t get a very complete picture of Guatemala. Holy Week in Antigua is ridiculously packed, and as such we had to make reservations at our hostel months before. Not having any specific itinerary in mind at the time, we booked for the whole week which would limit our travel opportunities a bit. Due to its fame and popularity as a tourist destination, Antigua really is a world apart from its country – the streets are perfectly clean, the shops and food is (relatively) expensive, and poverty is hardly visible. That comment in itself is not a complaint, but just a recognition that the Guatemala we experienced was a bit separate from the “real” Guatemala (I imagine it’s similar when one visits Cancun).
That having been said, Antigua was amazing. The hostel where we stayed was fantastic – I don’t think I’ve ever been welcomed so warmly or treated by such friendly hostel staff. The hostel, named simply Hostel 5, is run by a family who speaks near-perfect English (but respected our desires to practice our Spanish with them). Small but comfortable rooms, private bathrooms, and free breakfasts all contributed to a weeklong stay that left us very much satisfied with our near-random booking from months before.
Since we arrived in Antigua relatively early in the day, we didn’t waste any time in getting out and exploring. It didn’t take us long to find a ton of markets and street shops filled with things we resolved to hold off on buying until the end of the week (when we would have a slightly clearer idea about what our options were – and how much money we would have left!). One of the first people we met in Antigua was an outgoing guy near the central park who was offering free tourist info and a variety of bus options for day trips outside Antigua. Knowing we wanted to venture to Atitlán Lake sometime in the week, we eventually came back to him and bought some tickets for the following day.
In one of the shops we dropped into we ended up meeting another friendly guy with whom we ended up having a long conversation. Rodrigo is a native Guatemalan whose first language is K’iche, one of the more common native dialects in a country filled with indigenous peoples (and pride). Rodrigo had actually just gotten back to Guatemala after having spent ten years or so in the United States, illegally. His stories about his border crossings, encounters with la migra (immigration police) – both U.S. and Mexican – and his life in the states were fascinating. One always hears such stories from the media, but it’s nothing like hearing about such experiences first-hand – I’ll take Rodrigo’s version of an illegal’s life in the States over Lou Dobbs any day! Interestingly, Rodrigo was never caught or sent back to Guatemala; rather, he decided to return to Guatemala simply because he missed his family and – get this – he preferred taking his chances, economically speaking, in Guatemala rather than the U.S. because of the current crisis. Crazy.
After our fill of shopping and exploring, we headed back to the hostel for a bit to figure out what we wanted to do for dinner and possibly evening entertainment. One of our greatest resources for the week turned out to be a widely distributed magazine that is circulated throughout Antigua giving a ton of information about nearly all the restaurants, shops, events, ceremonies, and entertainment options for the week. As such, we were able to find some great live music almost every evening we were there, and our first night was no exception.
On our way to the restaurant, we ran into the first procession we would see. One of the main characteristics of an Antiguan Holy Week is the elaborate processions that go through the street for almost all of Lent, but particularly for this week. They typically consist of banners marking the particular church or religious group presenting the procession, a swarm of people in full costume (mostly Biblical garb of some sort), and enormous platforms/parade floats which are carried on the shoulders of the people in the processional. I’ll get into more detail when describing processions later in the week.
We had dinner at a little place a few blocks away from Antigua’s Central Park, where the food was great, but the evening was a bit awkward as we were virtually the only people in the restaurant other than wait staff and musicians. Nevertheless, the live music went forward as planned and we enjoyed a series of musicians playing guitar, flute, drums and singing. The guy on flute, while not extraordinarily musically gifted, was particularly entertaining simply because I’ve never seen anyone get so physically into their own music (eccentric and unpredictable convulsions – yes, that’s the word – characterized every one of his songs). At the end of the evening, all of the musicians got together for a few great joint numbers. Afterwards we went straight back to the hostel to sleep up before our early bus to Atitlán.
Tuesday, April 7
The shuttle for which we had purchased tickets the previous day picked us up at 8:00 am for a two to three hour drive to Lago de Atitlán. This lake, another popular tourist destination, is fairly well known, and for good reason – it is absolutely beautiful. It’s an enormous lake, with an ample amount of villages all the way around it. Some of the towns are sizeable and touristy, others are strictly indigenous communities in which Spanish is hardly spoken (if it all). The lake is also characterized by three impressive volcanoes which surround it, adding to the beauty and intensity of the landscape. Interestingly, Ashley and I had just read a short story in our Latin American literature class by Miguel Angel Asturias describing a mythical collide of indigenous peoples, Spanish conquistadors, and personified forces of nature that explained the formation of one of the volcanoes which, as legend has it, covers a hoard of priceless treasures the natives hid from the European invaders. This certainly added to my fascination with the lake.
It is truly lamentable that we only had one day (6 hours, actually) to spend here. The lake deserves so much more time than that, and I believe one could easily spend at least a week exploring both the communities and the landscape there. When we got off the shuttle, we ran into a ton of street vendors selling the same beautiful art, crafts, and clothing we had seen in Antigua. Again, we would have loved to have spent more time here, and as such we didn’t really know where to go. In the interest of saving both time and money, we finally elected to take a private boat/taxi to San Marcos, a small community apart from the larger and touristier towns of the lake. From the dock at San Marcos we made our way to a nearby swimming area a mix of Europeans and local kids were enjoying the crystal clear waters and cliffs of various heights to jump off of. The water, while of course nothing like the North Woods lakes I’ve swam in, were a bit chilly. Nevertheless, we had a great (albeit short) time enjoying the water, clear skies, and beautiful landscape surrounding us.
Shortly thereafter we just managed to catch a boat back to the town where we needed to hop on our shuttle again, and having an hour or so of time left when we arrived we did a bit of shopping. Much to my delight, bartering is a much more common practice in Guatemala than both Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and I was happy to help Ashley now and then, as she was a bit too, um, shall we say polite? to contest the prices that the vendors try to extort out of their white customers.
Finally hopped back on the shuttle and rode back to Antigua. That evening we went to a comfortable café with good food and, once again, live music. It was a very strange act – musically it consisted of basically one guy who sang and played guitar, but for some reason he was joined by a clown who made balloon animals, flowers, and other such things while the first guy sang and played. Very strange. Anyway, after the music was over the guitarist sat down for a drink and a meal at the table next to ours, and after his friend the clown left he started to talk with us. He was a really nice guy (and a pretty good musician, too!), and invited us to join him for a few hours at a café he usually went to after performing. We accepted, and headed across town to Café No Sé, a cozy little place with low-key live music of its own and a dark relaxed ambiance that reminded me of an English pub for some reason. After a few hours of music and conversation with our new friend (and some more locals we met there), we headed back to the hostel, exhausted by a long day.
Ok, I’ll take a break for now but hopefully get another post up soon. I’m trying to keep these things at around 2,500 words maximum, otherwise a single post just gets way too long. There’s lots more to be told, so check back soon for stories from the next few days. I also should have pictures up within the week. Until then, take care!!
Saturday, April 4
Like our last trip, we elected to travel by bus. Flying would have been twice as expensive, and this way we would have the opportunity to spend some evenings in other cities on our way there and back. As such, we had another extremely early bus to catch in San José, so Ashley stayed over at our house in the guest room the night before. Not a whole lot happened this first day – it was mostly time spent on the bus (and much of that sleeping, due to our early rise). The first leg of our trip took us north to Managua, so we had done this part before. On the bus ride up we watched no less than four movies, and all of them pretty stupid.
When we actually arrived in Managua we struck by the incredible heat. For unknown reasons, the bus drivers for the company we take up there, TicaBus, keep the air in the vehicle somewhere between 0 and 3 degrees Fahrenheit, so after getting off the bus extreme heat seems even hotter yet. We arrived in Managua in the early evening, so we wandered around a nearby mall a bit before finally going around 9:00 or so to a nearby restaurant we had found on our previous trip, in which there was live music almost every weekend, and this Saturday was not an exception. And so, for a few hours we enjoyed some very fun Nicaraguan folk music, some with fairly obvious political overtones. The only thing I didn’t really like about the place was that the entire establishment was a bit pricy, and after filling up with people it became fairly obvious to us that we were spending the night with Nicaragua’s upper crust. I don’t have a problem with people with money in general, but here I sort of got a negative feeling of being somewhere I wasn’t part of the club. Hard to explain. Anyway, the music was great and gave us an excuse to stay out until midnight or so before another super early bus the next day.
Sunday, April 5
Another relatively uneventful day, but I suppose travel days are just like that. Having stayed out the night before we slept quite a bit again on the bus, waking up now and then for border crossings, movies (a much better selection this day – and I’d like to note here that watching Speed while on a bus is an interesting experience), and the occasional initiative to do homework. Though we did not stop anywhere except at borders, I suppose I can say now that I’ve at least been through the country of Honduras. It looked pretty enough from the highway view we enjoyed, and I’d certainly like to come back some day to spend some more time exploring it.
Our second and final country we crossed into for the day was El Salvador. Reading about the country in Ashley’s Lonely Planet book was a bit frightening, to be honest (I’ll spare you the details), but we certainly had a fine time there (even though it was only two days en route to Guatemala/Costa Rica). Our hotel was fairly nice, if a little far off from the bus stop. Our first night here there was only one person on staff, an extremely helpful and kind young lady who recommended us some things to do for our evening. We ended up simply going to a nearby mall, which actually turned out to be a very cool place. Though filled with shops one can find in many U.S. shopping centers, the place had a very unique feel to it and even though I’m not one for malls I was impressed and content to spend my evening wandering about it. At the end of the evening, we went to the mall’s movie theater to see Monsters vs. Aliens, which was great for two reasons: one, it was in Spanish (dubbed, not subtitled, as are all movies down here that small children might go see), and I would say I comfortably understood 95% of the dialogue, which made me feel pretty good about myself; two, it was absolutely hilarious and I loved it. The movie selection was my suggestion, and though I think Ashley may have been a bit skeptical at first, she loved it to. When it was over, we grabbed a taxi back to our hotel to get some sleep before yet another early morning.
Monday, April 6
The day before, the taxi driver who brought us from the bus station to our hotel offered to pick us up in the morning, and we accepted. Unfortunately, he didn’t show up, and we had to call another one. Luckily we arrived at the TicaBus station on time and had a comfortable and brief bus ride to the Guatemalan border and on to Guatemala City. Once in the city we opted to take a taxi instead of finding buses to Antigua, sharing the ride with a woman from Portland (with whom Ashley talked the whole ride, as she too is from Oregon) and a young French guy.
One of the only regrets I have about this trip is that we didn’t get a very complete picture of Guatemala. Holy Week in Antigua is ridiculously packed, and as such we had to make reservations at our hostel months before. Not having any specific itinerary in mind at the time, we booked for the whole week which would limit our travel opportunities a bit. Due to its fame and popularity as a tourist destination, Antigua really is a world apart from its country – the streets are perfectly clean, the shops and food is (relatively) expensive, and poverty is hardly visible. That comment in itself is not a complaint, but just a recognition that the Guatemala we experienced was a bit separate from the “real” Guatemala (I imagine it’s similar when one visits Cancun).
That having been said, Antigua was amazing. The hostel where we stayed was fantastic – I don’t think I’ve ever been welcomed so warmly or treated by such friendly hostel staff. The hostel, named simply Hostel 5, is run by a family who speaks near-perfect English (but respected our desires to practice our Spanish with them). Small but comfortable rooms, private bathrooms, and free breakfasts all contributed to a weeklong stay that left us very much satisfied with our near-random booking from months before.
Since we arrived in Antigua relatively early in the day, we didn’t waste any time in getting out and exploring. It didn’t take us long to find a ton of markets and street shops filled with things we resolved to hold off on buying until the end of the week (when we would have a slightly clearer idea about what our options were – and how much money we would have left!). One of the first people we met in Antigua was an outgoing guy near the central park who was offering free tourist info and a variety of bus options for day trips outside Antigua. Knowing we wanted to venture to Atitlán Lake sometime in the week, we eventually came back to him and bought some tickets for the following day.
In one of the shops we dropped into we ended up meeting another friendly guy with whom we ended up having a long conversation. Rodrigo is a native Guatemalan whose first language is K’iche, one of the more common native dialects in a country filled with indigenous peoples (and pride). Rodrigo had actually just gotten back to Guatemala after having spent ten years or so in the United States, illegally. His stories about his border crossings, encounters with la migra (immigration police) – both U.S. and Mexican – and his life in the states were fascinating. One always hears such stories from the media, but it’s nothing like hearing about such experiences first-hand – I’ll take Rodrigo’s version of an illegal’s life in the States over Lou Dobbs any day! Interestingly, Rodrigo was never caught or sent back to Guatemala; rather, he decided to return to Guatemala simply because he missed his family and – get this – he preferred taking his chances, economically speaking, in Guatemala rather than the U.S. because of the current crisis. Crazy.
After our fill of shopping and exploring, we headed back to the hostel for a bit to figure out what we wanted to do for dinner and possibly evening entertainment. One of our greatest resources for the week turned out to be a widely distributed magazine that is circulated throughout Antigua giving a ton of information about nearly all the restaurants, shops, events, ceremonies, and entertainment options for the week. As such, we were able to find some great live music almost every evening we were there, and our first night was no exception.
On our way to the restaurant, we ran into the first procession we would see. One of the main characteristics of an Antiguan Holy Week is the elaborate processions that go through the street for almost all of Lent, but particularly for this week. They typically consist of banners marking the particular church or religious group presenting the procession, a swarm of people in full costume (mostly Biblical garb of some sort), and enormous platforms/parade floats which are carried on the shoulders of the people in the processional. I’ll get into more detail when describing processions later in the week.
We had dinner at a little place a few blocks away from Antigua’s Central Park, where the food was great, but the evening was a bit awkward as we were virtually the only people in the restaurant other than wait staff and musicians. Nevertheless, the live music went forward as planned and we enjoyed a series of musicians playing guitar, flute, drums and singing. The guy on flute, while not extraordinarily musically gifted, was particularly entertaining simply because I’ve never seen anyone get so physically into their own music (eccentric and unpredictable convulsions – yes, that’s the word – characterized every one of his songs). At the end of the evening, all of the musicians got together for a few great joint numbers. Afterwards we went straight back to the hostel to sleep up before our early bus to Atitlán.
Tuesday, April 7
The shuttle for which we had purchased tickets the previous day picked us up at 8:00 am for a two to three hour drive to Lago de Atitlán. This lake, another popular tourist destination, is fairly well known, and for good reason – it is absolutely beautiful. It’s an enormous lake, with an ample amount of villages all the way around it. Some of the towns are sizeable and touristy, others are strictly indigenous communities in which Spanish is hardly spoken (if it all). The lake is also characterized by three impressive volcanoes which surround it, adding to the beauty and intensity of the landscape. Interestingly, Ashley and I had just read a short story in our Latin American literature class by Miguel Angel Asturias describing a mythical collide of indigenous peoples, Spanish conquistadors, and personified forces of nature that explained the formation of one of the volcanoes which, as legend has it, covers a hoard of priceless treasures the natives hid from the European invaders. This certainly added to my fascination with the lake.
It is truly lamentable that we only had one day (6 hours, actually) to spend here. The lake deserves so much more time than that, and I believe one could easily spend at least a week exploring both the communities and the landscape there. When we got off the shuttle, we ran into a ton of street vendors selling the same beautiful art, crafts, and clothing we had seen in Antigua. Again, we would have loved to have spent more time here, and as such we didn’t really know where to go. In the interest of saving both time and money, we finally elected to take a private boat/taxi to San Marcos, a small community apart from the larger and touristier towns of the lake. From the dock at San Marcos we made our way to a nearby swimming area a mix of Europeans and local kids were enjoying the crystal clear waters and cliffs of various heights to jump off of. The water, while of course nothing like the North Woods lakes I’ve swam in, were a bit chilly. Nevertheless, we had a great (albeit short) time enjoying the water, clear skies, and beautiful landscape surrounding us.
Shortly thereafter we just managed to catch a boat back to the town where we needed to hop on our shuttle again, and having an hour or so of time left when we arrived we did a bit of shopping. Much to my delight, bartering is a much more common practice in Guatemala than both Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and I was happy to help Ashley now and then, as she was a bit too, um, shall we say polite? to contest the prices that the vendors try to extort out of their white customers.
Finally hopped back on the shuttle and rode back to Antigua. That evening we went to a comfortable café with good food and, once again, live music. It was a very strange act – musically it consisted of basically one guy who sang and played guitar, but for some reason he was joined by a clown who made balloon animals, flowers, and other such things while the first guy sang and played. Very strange. Anyway, after the music was over the guitarist sat down for a drink and a meal at the table next to ours, and after his friend the clown left he started to talk with us. He was a really nice guy (and a pretty good musician, too!), and invited us to join him for a few hours at a café he usually went to after performing. We accepted, and headed across town to Café No Sé, a cozy little place with low-key live music of its own and a dark relaxed ambiance that reminded me of an English pub for some reason. After a few hours of music and conversation with our new friend (and some more locals we met there), we headed back to the hostel, exhausted by a long day.
Ok, I’ll take a break for now but hopefully get another post up soon. I’m trying to keep these things at around 2,500 words maximum, otherwise a single post just gets way too long. There’s lots more to be told, so check back soon for stories from the next few days. I also should have pictures up within the week. Until then, take care!!
Friday, April 3
Volcán Arenal (again), Soccer, and more rain!
Topics…
Hello again to all the faithful followers! The big news this week is that tomorrow (Saturday) I’ll be heading off to Guatemala to spend a whole week in Antigua, and a few nights in both Managua (Nicaragua) and San Salvador (El Salvador) during the bus ride there and back. More on that, of course, when I get back. For now, I’d just like to give a bit of an update on what I’ve been up to over the past week since the last post.
So, this past weekend the group did go to Arenal. This was the second time I’ve been there, because last time I went with Ben and Kristen and we spent a few hours at Baldí, a natural hot springs/bath resort near the volcano. Well, guess what the group did? Yup, spent a few hours at Baldí…so that was fun. Not going to lie, I would have loved to have done some different type of adventuring around the area but overall it was a very good day over there and I bonded with many of the program kids that I hadn’t talked to much before, mostly because I didn’t go on the large group Nicaragua trip. Baldí was fun again – this time the waterslides which Ben, Kristen and I didn’t use were open, and so we made heavy use of them. Even though this was a very gringo-ized location, these slides were yet another form of Costa Rican entertainment that likely would fail many U.S. safety standards – oh well, they were fun! Much like my time there last semester, though, there are only so many hours one can spend in warm pools before deciding that simply sitting in warm pools is not that exciting for, well, however many hours one is in them. Nevertheless, we got treated to a delicious meal at the resort’s restaurant, concluded by an amazing tres leches (three milks) cake.
After finally heading back to the hotel around 9:00 or so, a few of us hung out outside Lauren, Brook, and Jolene’s room and played a bizarre “cup game” I had never heard of but turned out to be pretty fun. Strangely, for almost the entire rest of the evening, somehow a fair-sized group of us got started on a conversation about God, non-Christian religions, spirituality, and other such topics. People came and left throughout the chat, but eventually it turned into a conversation between Lauren, Brook, and Ashley Lyons (with whom I’ll be traveling this coming week and a half) about whether or not there’s a heaven and a hell, whether we as humans can know such things for sure, etc. Near the end of the night I jumped in and spouted some Luther dialogue (without explicitly calling it that), which was followed by some more conversation and around 12:30 or so we decided that it was a good talk but we needed sleep.
On a completely different note, there’s been some peculiar weather happening lately – the rain is back! Now, nobody told me that it was going to rain at all this semester, and I was surprised enough that we had some in January/early February. Apparently rain in March is in fact extremely rare, but there have been a couple days where it just poured. All of the new students (that is, not here last semester) were pretty impressed, but those of us who were here during the infamous October days tried to explain to them what real rain was like! Jessica told me that these strange downpours do not hail the beginning of the rainy season, only that it’s on the way. I’m hoping we can keep up clear skies for the most part at least until I leave!
This past Wednesday, I had the privilege of going to a soccer game with Jessica and a few of her friends in San José, where we watched Costa Rica (national selection team) play El Salvador. It was extremely fun and extremely energetic. The whole stadium was basically a stream of red (I went out earlier that day to get myself a jersey, so that I would fit in – had I worn Salvadorian colors my life might have been in peril) jumping and screaming in a unison that one usually only finds in student sections in the States. We arrived extremely early to ensure we had good seats, even though we were in the cheapest section. Nevertheless, we had a pretty good view of the action, behind one of the goals at the end of the field. When the crowd starts jumping up and down, one’s seat shakes violently (it was certainly more so for me than any earthquake I’ve ever felt)! Some of the less impressive aspects of Tico culture come out during soccer games, including a plethora of nonstop vulgarities directed at the opposing team, the officials, and even their own players. One thing that I had known before the game but I still can’t seem to get used to here is that whistling at a game is very much negative gesture or jeer, as opposed to the positive context it has in sports events in the states; as such, it was strange to hear the entire stadium begin whistling loudly whenever a Salvadorian came on or off the field. Cameras were not allowed into the stadium, but I think some friends of mine who were also at the game snuck them in, so I might be able to post some pictures later.
Speaking of pictures, I’ve finally uploaded some from Nicaragua! Sorry for the wait, but it took me a while to get some from the Ashleys.
That’s about all for now. It’ll be a bit before the next post, as I’ll be out of the country again starting tomorrow and won’t be back until the 14th of April. All the while, my remaining time here is slipping away…as of today I have just barely over a month left in Central America!! I’m both excited and sad about the inevitable bittersweetness (is that a word?) of the departure to come, but I’m trying not to think about it too much until I get there.
Until next time then! Please keep me in your prayers, and know that I’m thinking about all of you all the time!! God bless!
Hello again to all the faithful followers! The big news this week is that tomorrow (Saturday) I’ll be heading off to Guatemala to spend a whole week in Antigua, and a few nights in both Managua (Nicaragua) and San Salvador (El Salvador) during the bus ride there and back. More on that, of course, when I get back. For now, I’d just like to give a bit of an update on what I’ve been up to over the past week since the last post.
So, this past weekend the group did go to Arenal. This was the second time I’ve been there, because last time I went with Ben and Kristen and we spent a few hours at Baldí, a natural hot springs/bath resort near the volcano. Well, guess what the group did? Yup, spent a few hours at Baldí…so that was fun. Not going to lie, I would have loved to have done some different type of adventuring around the area but overall it was a very good day over there and I bonded with many of the program kids that I hadn’t talked to much before, mostly because I didn’t go on the large group Nicaragua trip. Baldí was fun again – this time the waterslides which Ben, Kristen and I didn’t use were open, and so we made heavy use of them. Even though this was a very gringo-ized location, these slides were yet another form of Costa Rican entertainment that likely would fail many U.S. safety standards – oh well, they were fun! Much like my time there last semester, though, there are only so many hours one can spend in warm pools before deciding that simply sitting in warm pools is not that exciting for, well, however many hours one is in them. Nevertheless, we got treated to a delicious meal at the resort’s restaurant, concluded by an amazing tres leches (three milks) cake.
After finally heading back to the hotel around 9:00 or so, a few of us hung out outside Lauren, Brook, and Jolene’s room and played a bizarre “cup game” I had never heard of but turned out to be pretty fun. Strangely, for almost the entire rest of the evening, somehow a fair-sized group of us got started on a conversation about God, non-Christian religions, spirituality, and other such topics. People came and left throughout the chat, but eventually it turned into a conversation between Lauren, Brook, and Ashley Lyons (with whom I’ll be traveling this coming week and a half) about whether or not there’s a heaven and a hell, whether we as humans can know such things for sure, etc. Near the end of the night I jumped in and spouted some Luther dialogue (without explicitly calling it that), which was followed by some more conversation and around 12:30 or so we decided that it was a good talk but we needed sleep.
On a completely different note, there’s been some peculiar weather happening lately – the rain is back! Now, nobody told me that it was going to rain at all this semester, and I was surprised enough that we had some in January/early February. Apparently rain in March is in fact extremely rare, but there have been a couple days where it just poured. All of the new students (that is, not here last semester) were pretty impressed, but those of us who were here during the infamous October days tried to explain to them what real rain was like! Jessica told me that these strange downpours do not hail the beginning of the rainy season, only that it’s on the way. I’m hoping we can keep up clear skies for the most part at least until I leave!
This past Wednesday, I had the privilege of going to a soccer game with Jessica and a few of her friends in San José, where we watched Costa Rica (national selection team) play El Salvador. It was extremely fun and extremely energetic. The whole stadium was basically a stream of red (I went out earlier that day to get myself a jersey, so that I would fit in – had I worn Salvadorian colors my life might have been in peril) jumping and screaming in a unison that one usually only finds in student sections in the States. We arrived extremely early to ensure we had good seats, even though we were in the cheapest section. Nevertheless, we had a pretty good view of the action, behind one of the goals at the end of the field. When the crowd starts jumping up and down, one’s seat shakes violently (it was certainly more so for me than any earthquake I’ve ever felt)! Some of the less impressive aspects of Tico culture come out during soccer games, including a plethora of nonstop vulgarities directed at the opposing team, the officials, and even their own players. One thing that I had known before the game but I still can’t seem to get used to here is that whistling at a game is very much negative gesture or jeer, as opposed to the positive context it has in sports events in the states; as such, it was strange to hear the entire stadium begin whistling loudly whenever a Salvadorian came on or off the field. Cameras were not allowed into the stadium, but I think some friends of mine who were also at the game snuck them in, so I might be able to post some pictures later.
Speaking of pictures, I’ve finally uploaded some from Nicaragua! Sorry for the wait, but it took me a while to get some from the Ashleys.
That’s about all for now. It’ll be a bit before the next post, as I’ll be out of the country again starting tomorrow and won’t be back until the 14th of April. All the while, my remaining time here is slipping away…as of today I have just barely over a month left in Central America!! I’m both excited and sad about the inevitable bittersweetness (is that a word?) of the departure to come, but I’m trying not to think about it too much until I get there.
Until next time then! Please keep me in your prayers, and know that I’m thinking about all of you all the time!! God bless!
Monday, March 23
life in costa rica between vacation
Hi again! I’ve been so busy updating y’all on my Nicaragua trip (there was just so much to tell!) that I haven’t had the time to let you know what’s been going on since! So, then, allow me to fill you in.
Probably the most exciting news has to do with Jessica – she has a job now! Finding some work has been near the top of her priority list since I’ve been back in the country, now that’s she’s done with school. Some time ago she won a student competition of some sort sponsored by Proctor & Gamble’s branch here in Costa Rica, and ever since she’s been hoping to get a job with them. About a week before I left for Nicaragua, she FINALLY landed an interview with them after sending in an application some time before that. She actually went through two interviews (the second group of people she saw weren’t aware she had already had one interview), and some time while I was in Nicaragua they called her back and offered her the job! I haven’t really asked her in detail what she does, but so far it’s mostly been a lot of training type stuff. She is in charge, it seems, of a ton of P&G related stuff in both Chile and Peru. It sounds like the two countries could fall apart if Jessica doesn’t show up to work – again, I don’t know the details, but it sure sounds like she’s got a pretty important position right out of the gate. The only really frustrating part so far has been that, due to the fact that P&G is a U.S. company, EVERYTHING is in English. Obviously the employees communicate with one another in Spanish and all that, but basically all of the incoming/outgoing communications, international reports, training manuals, and a ton of other things are in English. It’s a little rough right now, but her English is good enough that she’ll quickly get used to it. On the bright side (which far exceeds the bad stuff), by Costa Rica standards she’s getting a great beginning salary, and the benefits that the company offers are pretty amazing (including free movies at the theatre…I’m trying to get her to take me :D).
Speaking of the movie theatre, Erick and I went to see Watchmen the weekend it came out. I’ve never really done anything with just Erick before, and since he’s very much into superhero and sci-fi/fantasy stuff I asked him if he wanted to go. When we got to the theatre it turned out that the movie started much later than we thought, so we headed to a nearby arcade where we played a couple games of air hockey. We enjoyed the movie, although Erick said it was one of the weirdest things he’d ever seen. We ended up waiting a long, long time for a taxi, because someone had the genius idea (that would be me) of calling a taxi instead of waiting in line outside the mall. Nevertheless, we had a pretty good night overall and it was nice to bond a little bit with him as I hadn’t yet done.
On a completely different note, there were some pretty strong earthquakes again last week, though much farther to the south than the monster ones in January. Once again I did not feel them at all, and I have no idea because everybody else seems to be able to feel them no matter where they are. I was home alone watching TV, and I just happened to flip to local news where an excited reporter was telling me that a 6-point-something earthquake just rocked the country…two minutes ago. I slowly looked around the room, as if expecting something to have moved while I wasn’t looking. Turns out just about everyone else in Heredia felt it. Oh well…
Though I haven’t been traveling (outside Heredia, that is), I’ve been keeping pretty active the past couple weeks, as we finally managed to reserve the university’s gymnasium to play some basketball. So far, “we” has only been Ashley Hansen and myself, but we’re trying to get some other students who said they’d love to play to join us. Scheduling a reservation when all the right people do NOT have class has been a little tricky. Last Tuesday, about ten of us played some volleyball, arranged by one of our program directors. Much like the soccer we play, it was pretty chaotic and devoid of anything resembling proper regulation – but it was tons of fun!
One thing I’ve been meaning to do ever since I’ve arrived here has been to go to the cathedral in San Rafael, a nearby town where I attend church with Jessica. The Catholic Cathedral in the center of town is absolutely enormous and from the first time I saw it I wanted to have a look inside. Last weekend I did manage to do just that, in part to just check it out and in part to just spend some quiet time with God outside the house. While I was there, more and more people streamed in until I realized they were about to start a Saturday evening mass. Instead of leaving, I just figured I’d stick around and see some Catholicism in action a la Costa Rica. They didn’t convert me or anything, but I did enjoy the service very much. I might head back one or two times before leaving (in only a month and a half now, yikes!).
This past weekend, I finally got the pleasure of seeing the piece of property that Eli owns to the northeast of us. She’s been telling me all about this place since I’ve been here, and it is quite pretty territory. Sooner or later (meaning sooner) she’d like to stop working in Heredia and live a tranquil country life. While we were there, she told me all about where she’d like to build, what they’ve done so far, and all the types of foods she’s going to grow when she lives there. Getting to the property was a little adventurous, as we had to park the car near one of her future neighbor’s houses and cross two rivers via two rickety swinging bridges. While on the property, we gathered up a few dozen lemons from a tree they have, which I carried all the way back to the car. I accused Eli of using me like a slave…and she laughed, and asked me not to write that in my host family evaluation form for USAC.
After visiting her property, we drove to where her niece Vianey lives. If you remember from my blogs in January/February, Vianey is the mother of Angie, the girl who lived with us in Heredia for a couple months. It was really great to see Angie again, and this time I met the whole family, not just her mom and little sister. The first night there we got to see a couple soccer games, one which involved one of Vianey’s brothers. Vianey was hilarious that night, because while in Heredia she was utterly soft-spoken, much like her youngest daughter, but that night she was absolutely nuts, screaming at the players every five seconds or so. My Spanish vulgarity vocabulary is not terribly extensive, but I certainly heard a few things from Vianey and some other moms and dads (with children nearby) which I would never utter in polite company!
The following day (Saturday), Eli, Angie, Vianey, two other daughters of hers, a few little boys who hang around their house, and I all went to a nearby river for a mini-picnic and swim. Everybody got in the water except me because 1) I didn’t have a bathing suit or any shorts with me and 2) the river is located next to gigantic banana fields, and the idea of the all the chemicals they use getting on my skin wasn’t terribly appealing. Nevertheless, we had a great time. I played with their dog Benji quite a bit, impressed Eli with my rock-skipping skills, and joined one of the small boys as he learned how maddeningly impossible it is to catch minnows with one’s hands or a tuna can. When we got back Luis had arrived, and after a good dinner we (that is, almost the entire family) spent almost the entire evening watching one of Costa Rica’s major rodeo competitions. By this point we were all pretty tired, and though some went to bed a few of us stayed up to watch a movie (The Gods Must be Crazy – a very peculiar but funny film I’ve wanted to check out for some time). The next morning and afternoon we spent relaxing around the house before heading back to Heredia around 3:30 or so.
And that’s pretty much been my life since Nicaragua. This coming weekend, I’ll be spending a couple days at Volcán Arenal, organized by USAC, so that should be fun (though I’m sure not half as fun as when I was there with Ben & Kristen – miss you guys!). Until my next update, take care of yourselves. I’m having bouts of homesickness every so often, so I’d love to hear from you! Thanks, as always, for prayer and support.
Probably the most exciting news has to do with Jessica – she has a job now! Finding some work has been near the top of her priority list since I’ve been back in the country, now that’s she’s done with school. Some time ago she won a student competition of some sort sponsored by Proctor & Gamble’s branch here in Costa Rica, and ever since she’s been hoping to get a job with them. About a week before I left for Nicaragua, she FINALLY landed an interview with them after sending in an application some time before that. She actually went through two interviews (the second group of people she saw weren’t aware she had already had one interview), and some time while I was in Nicaragua they called her back and offered her the job! I haven’t really asked her in detail what she does, but so far it’s mostly been a lot of training type stuff. She is in charge, it seems, of a ton of P&G related stuff in both Chile and Peru. It sounds like the two countries could fall apart if Jessica doesn’t show up to work – again, I don’t know the details, but it sure sounds like she’s got a pretty important position right out of the gate. The only really frustrating part so far has been that, due to the fact that P&G is a U.S. company, EVERYTHING is in English. Obviously the employees communicate with one another in Spanish and all that, but basically all of the incoming/outgoing communications, international reports, training manuals, and a ton of other things are in English. It’s a little rough right now, but her English is good enough that she’ll quickly get used to it. On the bright side (which far exceeds the bad stuff), by Costa Rica standards she’s getting a great beginning salary, and the benefits that the company offers are pretty amazing (including free movies at the theatre…I’m trying to get her to take me :D).
Speaking of the movie theatre, Erick and I went to see Watchmen the weekend it came out. I’ve never really done anything with just Erick before, and since he’s very much into superhero and sci-fi/fantasy stuff I asked him if he wanted to go. When we got to the theatre it turned out that the movie started much later than we thought, so we headed to a nearby arcade where we played a couple games of air hockey. We enjoyed the movie, although Erick said it was one of the weirdest things he’d ever seen. We ended up waiting a long, long time for a taxi, because someone had the genius idea (that would be me) of calling a taxi instead of waiting in line outside the mall. Nevertheless, we had a pretty good night overall and it was nice to bond a little bit with him as I hadn’t yet done.
On a completely different note, there were some pretty strong earthquakes again last week, though much farther to the south than the monster ones in January. Once again I did not feel them at all, and I have no idea because everybody else seems to be able to feel them no matter where they are. I was home alone watching TV, and I just happened to flip to local news where an excited reporter was telling me that a 6-point-something earthquake just rocked the country…two minutes ago. I slowly looked around the room, as if expecting something to have moved while I wasn’t looking. Turns out just about everyone else in Heredia felt it. Oh well…
Though I haven’t been traveling (outside Heredia, that is), I’ve been keeping pretty active the past couple weeks, as we finally managed to reserve the university’s gymnasium to play some basketball. So far, “we” has only been Ashley Hansen and myself, but we’re trying to get some other students who said they’d love to play to join us. Scheduling a reservation when all the right people do NOT have class has been a little tricky. Last Tuesday, about ten of us played some volleyball, arranged by one of our program directors. Much like the soccer we play, it was pretty chaotic and devoid of anything resembling proper regulation – but it was tons of fun!
One thing I’ve been meaning to do ever since I’ve arrived here has been to go to the cathedral in San Rafael, a nearby town where I attend church with Jessica. The Catholic Cathedral in the center of town is absolutely enormous and from the first time I saw it I wanted to have a look inside. Last weekend I did manage to do just that, in part to just check it out and in part to just spend some quiet time with God outside the house. While I was there, more and more people streamed in until I realized they were about to start a Saturday evening mass. Instead of leaving, I just figured I’d stick around and see some Catholicism in action a la Costa Rica. They didn’t convert me or anything, but I did enjoy the service very much. I might head back one or two times before leaving (in only a month and a half now, yikes!).
This past weekend, I finally got the pleasure of seeing the piece of property that Eli owns to the northeast of us. She’s been telling me all about this place since I’ve been here, and it is quite pretty territory. Sooner or later (meaning sooner) she’d like to stop working in Heredia and live a tranquil country life. While we were there, she told me all about where she’d like to build, what they’ve done so far, and all the types of foods she’s going to grow when she lives there. Getting to the property was a little adventurous, as we had to park the car near one of her future neighbor’s houses and cross two rivers via two rickety swinging bridges. While on the property, we gathered up a few dozen lemons from a tree they have, which I carried all the way back to the car. I accused Eli of using me like a slave…and she laughed, and asked me not to write that in my host family evaluation form for USAC.
After visiting her property, we drove to where her niece Vianey lives. If you remember from my blogs in January/February, Vianey is the mother of Angie, the girl who lived with us in Heredia for a couple months. It was really great to see Angie again, and this time I met the whole family, not just her mom and little sister. The first night there we got to see a couple soccer games, one which involved one of Vianey’s brothers. Vianey was hilarious that night, because while in Heredia she was utterly soft-spoken, much like her youngest daughter, but that night she was absolutely nuts, screaming at the players every five seconds or so. My Spanish vulgarity vocabulary is not terribly extensive, but I certainly heard a few things from Vianey and some other moms and dads (with children nearby) which I would never utter in polite company!
The following day (Saturday), Eli, Angie, Vianey, two other daughters of hers, a few little boys who hang around their house, and I all went to a nearby river for a mini-picnic and swim. Everybody got in the water except me because 1) I didn’t have a bathing suit or any shorts with me and 2) the river is located next to gigantic banana fields, and the idea of the all the chemicals they use getting on my skin wasn’t terribly appealing. Nevertheless, we had a great time. I played with their dog Benji quite a bit, impressed Eli with my rock-skipping skills, and joined one of the small boys as he learned how maddeningly impossible it is to catch minnows with one’s hands or a tuna can. When we got back Luis had arrived, and after a good dinner we (that is, almost the entire family) spent almost the entire evening watching one of Costa Rica’s major rodeo competitions. By this point we were all pretty tired, and though some went to bed a few of us stayed up to watch a movie (The Gods Must be Crazy – a very peculiar but funny film I’ve wanted to check out for some time). The next morning and afternoon we spent relaxing around the house before heading back to Heredia around 3:30 or so.
And that’s pretty much been my life since Nicaragua. This coming weekend, I’ll be spending a couple days at Volcán Arenal, organized by USAC, so that should be fun (though I’m sure not half as fun as when I was there with Ben & Kristen – miss you guys!). Until my next update, take care of yourselves. I’m having bouts of homesickness every so often, so I’d love to hear from you! Thanks, as always, for prayer and support.
Thursday, March 19
nicaragua...part 3 (finally!)
So, finally, here’s part 3 of 3 (promise) of my trip to Nicaragua!
Thursday, February 26
We got up early that morning to head out to Masaya, which is famous for its grand markets. We had not done a whole lot of touristy shopping, and although none of us are fanatic shoppers, we were looking forward to seeing what they had. It turns out there were no buses from León directly to Masaya, and as such we had to take a bus back to Managua where we didn’t wait long in catching another bus to Masaya. We arrived in the late morning, and immediately took a taxi to a local hostel that was highly recommended in our handy Lonely Planet book. The hostel, unfortunately, was closed for repairs, so we did some more searching. A friendly looking place across the street was open, but they didn’t have space for three. Our third stop finally was a success, finally getting a room in a small place with reasonable prices. We all decided that the interior, while clean and certainly cozy, was horrendously ugly, with terrible color coordination in the paint and furniture and bizarre works of art scattered about the lobby. Oh well, it all looks the same while you’re sleeping, right?
After locking up our stuff in the room, we headed out to the market. The first one we found was monstrous, with shops covering a couple city blocks, and all with a ton of stuff inside. A lot of it was very cool to look at, but, as it is with many tourist shops, most of the items we saw were the kind of things you say to yourself, “Well, what the heck would I do with it once I got home?” The whole set up was very, very touristy, but since the place was so famous we pretty much expected it. After a few hours of wandering aimlessly looking at various trinkets that quickly began to blend together, we sat down at a nearby restaurant for some quick lunch. Ashley L. was feeling a little better, and she at least had a bit of food, but not much. While seated, we had quite an eclectic variety of persons approach our table: a few kids simply asked us for money, one lady tried to sell us some chocolate powder (for cocoa? I’m not sure), another kid tried to sell us some pirated DVDs (I would have bought “Che,” but he only had one half of it), a dog continuously came back to see if we would share some of our greasy fajitas, and one woman actually managed to sell us some cookies which tasted something like ginger snaps (she got me good with the free sample).
Well fed and ready for a bit more exploring, we headed farther into town to look for a second market which many tourists down visit, but was supposedly a little cheaper and more local-based (not so touristy). We did find it, eventually, and it was even bigger than the first one! This market was all indoors, and it certainly had a different feel to it. Although most of the tourist goods being sold were similar to those of the first market, there was a large variety of other types of shops, selling everything from rice and beans to fried chicken to fabrics, and I saw one shop that I think was selling scrap metal (not sure…).
By this point we were pretty tired of tourist goods, and after Ashley2 patiently waited for me to barter down a wall decoration as best I could we headed back to the hostel to rest. We played cards for a bit more, and even took a while to just rest on our beds. I wasn’t feeling terribly tired, but Ashley L. was still recovering from the day before and for an equally inexplicable reason Ashley H. was starting to feel a little under the weather as well. As it was late afternoon, we decided to just rest up before going out in the evening. While having lunch, we saw a group of men running around with speakers and cords on a nearby stage, and when we asked our waiter what for, he told us that every Thursday night (what luck!) there was live music in the market plaza. Later that evening, as Ashley2 rested I watched a little bit of “The Departed” on TV (with both Spanish audio and subtitles…which I couldn’t really figure out).
Finally we headed out back to the market, where we couldn’t really figure out how to get back in the plaza until we found an entrance where we had to pay a cover fee. Approaching the stage we saw a sea of tables and chairs set up, and almost immediately a waiter approached us and led us to a table. This was around 9:30 or so, and even though Ashley H. by this point had completely lost her appetite (I was worried I was next), and Ashley L. ordered a small salad, I was completely starving and ordered a plate of chicken and rice which I downed in no time. The live music turned out to be more of a combination of bands that played by themselves (to which the crowd occasionally danced) and bands that provided music for a series of dancers who provided us with a wide variety of traditional Latin dances. The dancers were fantastic, and the traditional clothing they wore was beautiful! It was all very colorful, no doubt, in part, due to the fact that a good third of the audience was gringos. Overall we had a great time, and the only thing we regretted was not bringing a camera! Oh well.
Friday, February 27
Because our hostel did not serve breakfast, we went next door that morning to the second hostel that wouldn’t take us for the night but gladly made us something to eat. We sat down with a couple of Australians whom we had seen the day before and were staying in the same hostel. Waiting a while for our pancakes and gallo pinto to be served, we got to know the couple, Mike and Yenny, fairly well. Yenny is a native Malaysian who speaks fluent Mandarin along with English and her native Malay, and after moving to Australia a few years ago she met Mike and the two married. They had just begun an enormous four-month vacation, including basically every country of Hispanic America, Spain, and Finland (random ending, no?). Over breakfast we realized that both they and we were planning to go to Volcán Masaya that morning, so the five of us crammed into a taxi and headed to the park.
While it probably would have cost very little for us to continue the taxi ride up to the volcano crater, we decided to walk the road. The way up turned out to be considerably longer than we thought, and it was a very hot day. Fortunately we had plenty of water with us, and we made it up tired but hydrated! Volcán Masaya was very different from Telica, in that it had a parking lot directly next to the crater and it had a good-sized crowd peering into the crater’s depths from either the parking lot or a lookout point with a large cross stationed above. The other notable difference was the fact that we were actually separated by a barrier from the crater’s edge, and this time we couldn’t get as close. Nevertheless, the crater was pretty spectacular, and although the noxious steam was a little agitating when one got in its path, it was worth the walk. Since we pre-arranged a time for our taxi driver to come pick us up at the same spot, we soon had to turn around and head back down the long, hot path to the roadside ranger station.
When we arrived back in Masaya we had lunch with Yenny and Mike before bidding them farewell. Ashley2 was still without appetite, and I was a little concerned that my friends were hardly eating at all, but we could do little else other than continue on our loose itinerary. After gathering up all our stuff at the hostel we made away to Masaya’s bus station, where a horde of rickety buses were coming and going in an unperceivable system directed by shouting drivers and young children who helpfully led travelers to the bus they sought. The chaos was only matched by the vendors in the area, who scurried from bus to bus loudly reciting the food, medication, or even book they were trying to sell. Finally our bus got moving for a short ride to Granada.
Granada is one of the oldest colonial towns in Central America, and it is certainly maintained better than most. Likely the most popular tourist spot in Nicaragua, it is also said to be the safest city in Central America. One of our friends from last semester highly recommended the hostel Oasis near the bus station, and thankfully they had space and we got our dorms for the night. It was a pretty nice place, with a layout extremely similar to that of LazyBones in León. On arrival Ashley H. was feeling particularly sick and exhausted, so Ashley L. and I let her take a long nap while we went out to explore the town a little bit. We found a couple of grand churches and stumbled upon the beautiful and active central park, next to which there is a cobblestone street with a long stretch of inviting restaurants boasting delicacies of myriad nationalities.
Finally we headed back to the hostel to relax a bit before waking up Ashley H. and going out to get some food at a Mexican restaurant we had seen on the cobblestone street – the food was delicious. During our meal there was a steady stream of street performers, who are eager to do their best to get the fine-dining gringos to empty their pockets just a bit more. Ashley L. did give some money to a group of teenagers who did some amazing break dancing. Other than the dancers, there were a couple groups who came by and did some really strange traditional (maybe?) dancing while wearing gigantic decorative costumes in the form of a woman in traditional clothing. After paying the bill, we headed back to the hotel very tired and ready to sleep before a more explorative day to come.
Saturday, February 28
On our final day of the trip (excluding our long travel day, which isn’t worth writing about), we got up and headed out to the edge of Lake Nicaragua, an enormous body of water that takes up a significant portion of the space within the country’s borders. Upon reaching the waterfront, we realized we weren’t entirely sure where to go. While thinking it over we were approached by an eccentric old man selling ice cream in a little cart, and being too cute to turn down we each got a little half-melted snack while thinking over our options. Fortunately, an option came to us. In the tradition of our extremely open-ended itinerary we decided to investigate the offer of some random man who walked up to us in the street, showed us a picture of his boat, and offered us a tour.
After leading us down the street and into the tourist area of the waterfront we had originally been searching for, he showed us the boat, told us a little about where he would take us, and we accepted. $20 for all three of us got us an hour tour of Las isletas, a miniature archipelago of little islands that hug the shoreline of Lake Nicaragua. Many of the islands have houses built on them, mostly inhabited by extremely rich Nicaraguans or gringos. The guy who offered us the tour, who was thankfully very friendly beyond the point of paying him, knew who most of the owners of each house was and told us a little bit about almost every island we boated by. An hour later we were back where we had taken off, and started walking back towards the center of town.
However, we had walked only a couple blocks when we spotted some horse-drawn carriages (which are all over Granada) and, having read the evening before that they were relatively cheap and provided pretty extensive tours of the city, we decided to hop on one. Our driver, happy that he could tell his passengers all about his city in his native tongue, let us know about many of the buildings and sights in the city we had either only seen or read about. The tour did not last terribly long, but by the time we got dropped off in the central park it was around 2:30. In light of the fact that my companions were still not healthy enough to remember to include food in the days plans, I kindly informed them that I for one was absolutely starving and would love to get some lunch even if they wanted nothing.
We (that is, I) ate at a small restaurant in a mini-mall plaza near the hostel with tables out on their patio. The meal itself was not extremely noteworthy, but as Ashley L. was feeling particularly charitable that afternoon we were joined by Francisco, a street kid to whom Ash offered what remained of the juice her troubled stomach wasn’t enjoying anyway. Francisco told us a little about his life, and after finishing his treat asked for some money (give a mouse a cookie…) for some school supplies. Wanting to be sure that the money would be spent likewise, Ashley2 went with him to a nearby bookstore to get some pens and a notebook while I finished my meal.
After paying, we headed back to the hostel. Though we hadn’t done a ton of walking that day, the beating sun and heat more than anything had us pretty tired (though not having any food in their stomachs did not help Ashley2). As such, we decided to rent a movie from the hostel’s small collection and watched The Thomas Crown Affair with Pierce Brosnan. Decent flick. Anyway, Ashley2 took naps afterward while I used the computers to check my mail and read up on how the world was doing since last I checked. They slept quite awhile, and upon waking up we decided to just go out to the same Mexican place we had been the night before.
There turned out to be a huge parade-style event happening through central park and down the cobblestone restaurant avenue, consisting almost entirely of men (and some women) on horses. There were so many horses! They stretched farther than I could make out down the street, and a steady stream of them came in from around the bend by the park for a good half-hour before the street cleared out. There were a couple of accidents near our table, and a couple people fell off their horses who were a little spooked by the thick crowd of their own kind. The food was excellent again, and again we were entertained by the same group of street performers.
Though we were planning on going out dancing that night, since it was our last in Nicaragua, we all realized around 10:00 (as we were changing to go out) that we had to get up at 4:00 the next morning for an early bus ride. So, we decided, we’ll celebrate our trip together sometime back in Heredia, and go to sleep instead.
And that’s my trip to Nicaragua! Thanks for being patient with me getting the whole thing up. I really ended up writing a lot more than I thought I would, but I hope you all enjoyed it! Since I didn’t have my camera in all the locations we were at, I’m waiting to get pictures from Ashley2’s cameras before I can put them up here on the blog. I’ll try to get a post up early next week to let you know what’s been happening since I’ve been back, and what’s going to be happening in the next few weeks. Thanks, again, and as always, for your prayers and support. ¡Pura Vida! and God bless!
Thursday, February 26
We got up early that morning to head out to Masaya, which is famous for its grand markets. We had not done a whole lot of touristy shopping, and although none of us are fanatic shoppers, we were looking forward to seeing what they had. It turns out there were no buses from León directly to Masaya, and as such we had to take a bus back to Managua where we didn’t wait long in catching another bus to Masaya. We arrived in the late morning, and immediately took a taxi to a local hostel that was highly recommended in our handy Lonely Planet book. The hostel, unfortunately, was closed for repairs, so we did some more searching. A friendly looking place across the street was open, but they didn’t have space for three. Our third stop finally was a success, finally getting a room in a small place with reasonable prices. We all decided that the interior, while clean and certainly cozy, was horrendously ugly, with terrible color coordination in the paint and furniture and bizarre works of art scattered about the lobby. Oh well, it all looks the same while you’re sleeping, right?
After locking up our stuff in the room, we headed out to the market. The first one we found was monstrous, with shops covering a couple city blocks, and all with a ton of stuff inside. A lot of it was very cool to look at, but, as it is with many tourist shops, most of the items we saw were the kind of things you say to yourself, “Well, what the heck would I do with it once I got home?” The whole set up was very, very touristy, but since the place was so famous we pretty much expected it. After a few hours of wandering aimlessly looking at various trinkets that quickly began to blend together, we sat down at a nearby restaurant for some quick lunch. Ashley L. was feeling a little better, and she at least had a bit of food, but not much. While seated, we had quite an eclectic variety of persons approach our table: a few kids simply asked us for money, one lady tried to sell us some chocolate powder (for cocoa? I’m not sure), another kid tried to sell us some pirated DVDs (I would have bought “Che,” but he only had one half of it), a dog continuously came back to see if we would share some of our greasy fajitas, and one woman actually managed to sell us some cookies which tasted something like ginger snaps (she got me good with the free sample).
Well fed and ready for a bit more exploring, we headed farther into town to look for a second market which many tourists down visit, but was supposedly a little cheaper and more local-based (not so touristy). We did find it, eventually, and it was even bigger than the first one! This market was all indoors, and it certainly had a different feel to it. Although most of the tourist goods being sold were similar to those of the first market, there was a large variety of other types of shops, selling everything from rice and beans to fried chicken to fabrics, and I saw one shop that I think was selling scrap metal (not sure…).
By this point we were pretty tired of tourist goods, and after Ashley2 patiently waited for me to barter down a wall decoration as best I could we headed back to the hostel to rest. We played cards for a bit more, and even took a while to just rest on our beds. I wasn’t feeling terribly tired, but Ashley L. was still recovering from the day before and for an equally inexplicable reason Ashley H. was starting to feel a little under the weather as well. As it was late afternoon, we decided to just rest up before going out in the evening. While having lunch, we saw a group of men running around with speakers and cords on a nearby stage, and when we asked our waiter what for, he told us that every Thursday night (what luck!) there was live music in the market plaza. Later that evening, as Ashley2 rested I watched a little bit of “The Departed” on TV (with both Spanish audio and subtitles…which I couldn’t really figure out).
Finally we headed out back to the market, where we couldn’t really figure out how to get back in the plaza until we found an entrance where we had to pay a cover fee. Approaching the stage we saw a sea of tables and chairs set up, and almost immediately a waiter approached us and led us to a table. This was around 9:30 or so, and even though Ashley H. by this point had completely lost her appetite (I was worried I was next), and Ashley L. ordered a small salad, I was completely starving and ordered a plate of chicken and rice which I downed in no time. The live music turned out to be more of a combination of bands that played by themselves (to which the crowd occasionally danced) and bands that provided music for a series of dancers who provided us with a wide variety of traditional Latin dances. The dancers were fantastic, and the traditional clothing they wore was beautiful! It was all very colorful, no doubt, in part, due to the fact that a good third of the audience was gringos. Overall we had a great time, and the only thing we regretted was not bringing a camera! Oh well.
Friday, February 27
Because our hostel did not serve breakfast, we went next door that morning to the second hostel that wouldn’t take us for the night but gladly made us something to eat. We sat down with a couple of Australians whom we had seen the day before and were staying in the same hostel. Waiting a while for our pancakes and gallo pinto to be served, we got to know the couple, Mike and Yenny, fairly well. Yenny is a native Malaysian who speaks fluent Mandarin along with English and her native Malay, and after moving to Australia a few years ago she met Mike and the two married. They had just begun an enormous four-month vacation, including basically every country of Hispanic America, Spain, and Finland (random ending, no?). Over breakfast we realized that both they and we were planning to go to Volcán Masaya that morning, so the five of us crammed into a taxi and headed to the park.
While it probably would have cost very little for us to continue the taxi ride up to the volcano crater, we decided to walk the road. The way up turned out to be considerably longer than we thought, and it was a very hot day. Fortunately we had plenty of water with us, and we made it up tired but hydrated! Volcán Masaya was very different from Telica, in that it had a parking lot directly next to the crater and it had a good-sized crowd peering into the crater’s depths from either the parking lot or a lookout point with a large cross stationed above. The other notable difference was the fact that we were actually separated by a barrier from the crater’s edge, and this time we couldn’t get as close. Nevertheless, the crater was pretty spectacular, and although the noxious steam was a little agitating when one got in its path, it was worth the walk. Since we pre-arranged a time for our taxi driver to come pick us up at the same spot, we soon had to turn around and head back down the long, hot path to the roadside ranger station.
When we arrived back in Masaya we had lunch with Yenny and Mike before bidding them farewell. Ashley2 was still without appetite, and I was a little concerned that my friends were hardly eating at all, but we could do little else other than continue on our loose itinerary. After gathering up all our stuff at the hostel we made away to Masaya’s bus station, where a horde of rickety buses were coming and going in an unperceivable system directed by shouting drivers and young children who helpfully led travelers to the bus they sought. The chaos was only matched by the vendors in the area, who scurried from bus to bus loudly reciting the food, medication, or even book they were trying to sell. Finally our bus got moving for a short ride to Granada.
Granada is one of the oldest colonial towns in Central America, and it is certainly maintained better than most. Likely the most popular tourist spot in Nicaragua, it is also said to be the safest city in Central America. One of our friends from last semester highly recommended the hostel Oasis near the bus station, and thankfully they had space and we got our dorms for the night. It was a pretty nice place, with a layout extremely similar to that of LazyBones in León. On arrival Ashley H. was feeling particularly sick and exhausted, so Ashley L. and I let her take a long nap while we went out to explore the town a little bit. We found a couple of grand churches and stumbled upon the beautiful and active central park, next to which there is a cobblestone street with a long stretch of inviting restaurants boasting delicacies of myriad nationalities.
Finally we headed back to the hostel to relax a bit before waking up Ashley H. and going out to get some food at a Mexican restaurant we had seen on the cobblestone street – the food was delicious. During our meal there was a steady stream of street performers, who are eager to do their best to get the fine-dining gringos to empty their pockets just a bit more. Ashley L. did give some money to a group of teenagers who did some amazing break dancing. Other than the dancers, there were a couple groups who came by and did some really strange traditional (maybe?) dancing while wearing gigantic decorative costumes in the form of a woman in traditional clothing. After paying the bill, we headed back to the hotel very tired and ready to sleep before a more explorative day to come.
Saturday, February 28
On our final day of the trip (excluding our long travel day, which isn’t worth writing about), we got up and headed out to the edge of Lake Nicaragua, an enormous body of water that takes up a significant portion of the space within the country’s borders. Upon reaching the waterfront, we realized we weren’t entirely sure where to go. While thinking it over we were approached by an eccentric old man selling ice cream in a little cart, and being too cute to turn down we each got a little half-melted snack while thinking over our options. Fortunately, an option came to us. In the tradition of our extremely open-ended itinerary we decided to investigate the offer of some random man who walked up to us in the street, showed us a picture of his boat, and offered us a tour.
After leading us down the street and into the tourist area of the waterfront we had originally been searching for, he showed us the boat, told us a little about where he would take us, and we accepted. $20 for all three of us got us an hour tour of Las isletas, a miniature archipelago of little islands that hug the shoreline of Lake Nicaragua. Many of the islands have houses built on them, mostly inhabited by extremely rich Nicaraguans or gringos. The guy who offered us the tour, who was thankfully very friendly beyond the point of paying him, knew who most of the owners of each house was and told us a little bit about almost every island we boated by. An hour later we were back where we had taken off, and started walking back towards the center of town.
However, we had walked only a couple blocks when we spotted some horse-drawn carriages (which are all over Granada) and, having read the evening before that they were relatively cheap and provided pretty extensive tours of the city, we decided to hop on one. Our driver, happy that he could tell his passengers all about his city in his native tongue, let us know about many of the buildings and sights in the city we had either only seen or read about. The tour did not last terribly long, but by the time we got dropped off in the central park it was around 2:30. In light of the fact that my companions were still not healthy enough to remember to include food in the days plans, I kindly informed them that I for one was absolutely starving and would love to get some lunch even if they wanted nothing.
We (that is, I) ate at a small restaurant in a mini-mall plaza near the hostel with tables out on their patio. The meal itself was not extremely noteworthy, but as Ashley L. was feeling particularly charitable that afternoon we were joined by Francisco, a street kid to whom Ash offered what remained of the juice her troubled stomach wasn’t enjoying anyway. Francisco told us a little about his life, and after finishing his treat asked for some money (give a mouse a cookie…) for some school supplies. Wanting to be sure that the money would be spent likewise, Ashley2 went with him to a nearby bookstore to get some pens and a notebook while I finished my meal.
After paying, we headed back to the hostel. Though we hadn’t done a ton of walking that day, the beating sun and heat more than anything had us pretty tired (though not having any food in their stomachs did not help Ashley2). As such, we decided to rent a movie from the hostel’s small collection and watched The Thomas Crown Affair with Pierce Brosnan. Decent flick. Anyway, Ashley2 took naps afterward while I used the computers to check my mail and read up on how the world was doing since last I checked. They slept quite awhile, and upon waking up we decided to just go out to the same Mexican place we had been the night before.
There turned out to be a huge parade-style event happening through central park and down the cobblestone restaurant avenue, consisting almost entirely of men (and some women) on horses. There were so many horses! They stretched farther than I could make out down the street, and a steady stream of them came in from around the bend by the park for a good half-hour before the street cleared out. There were a couple of accidents near our table, and a couple people fell off their horses who were a little spooked by the thick crowd of their own kind. The food was excellent again, and again we were entertained by the same group of street performers.
Though we were planning on going out dancing that night, since it was our last in Nicaragua, we all realized around 10:00 (as we were changing to go out) that we had to get up at 4:00 the next morning for an early bus ride. So, we decided, we’ll celebrate our trip together sometime back in Heredia, and go to sleep instead.
And that’s my trip to Nicaragua! Thanks for being patient with me getting the whole thing up. I really ended up writing a lot more than I thought I would, but I hope you all enjoyed it! Since I didn’t have my camera in all the locations we were at, I’m waiting to get pictures from Ashley2’s cameras before I can put them up here on the blog. I’ll try to get a post up early next week to let you know what’s been happening since I’ve been back, and what’s going to be happening in the next few weeks. Thanks, again, and as always, for your prayers and support. ¡Pura Vida! and God bless!
Friday, March 13
Nicaragua, part 2
Hello again! Here’s part two of two three about my trip to Nicaragua. I’ll just get right into it.
Tuesday, February 24
We got up super early that morning so we could get to Quetzal Trekkers by 6 am for breakfast and to store all of our stuff in their office. As promised, they gave us all the supplies we needed. After packing, I had: the backpack, my sleeping bag, mattress pad, a portion of the food we would bring, a long-sleeve shirt for the cold night, six liters of water, and some misc. odds and ends (toothbrush, etc). The pack really wasn’t that heavy, but by the time we would be done walking that day I would be more than ready to take it off. Breakfast consisted of peanut butter sandwiches, bananas, coffee, and hard-boiled eggs (hardly anyone wanted their egg, and I ended up eating three or so). As we packed and breakfasted, the entire group introduced themselves a bit. There were eight of us total: the three of us, three other tourists, and two guides.
The first guide was an Australian by the name of Locky (short for Lockland). Locky has been away from Australia for some time now – after volunteering for a few months for the Red Cross in Guatemala, he came to León to volunteer with the Quetzal people for a few months. He was super friendly, and I felt pretty privileged to have him leading the group. The other guide was a local Nicaraguan, named Oswaldo, or Oz, for short. Oswaldo speaks very little English (or so we were told…I never actually heard him say anything in English), but we talked with him plenty and got along great. He knows an incredible amount about the local wildlife and landscape, and it was abundantly clear he really enjoys his job. Oswaldo does a few of these hikes every week, and must be in absolutely incredible shape. He and Locky make a great team, as the two of them are pretty constantly bickering, verbally and physically, much to their own amusement and to that of the trekkers they guide. The other three tourists there were Europeans. One of them, a Swiss woman named Melina, was staying in the same hostel as we were before the hike. Melina teaches German in the area of Switzerland where she lives (she herself is trilingual – English/French/German – with pretty good Spanish too), and is currently on an extended vacation traveling most of Central America. The other two were Dutch – Nico and Claire. Claire is French by birth, but her mother moved when she was 12 or so, and later met Nico. The two of them used to work in human resources or tourism or something (I never really figured it out), and decided to quit their jobs to spend a few months in Latin America, not really sure what they’ll do upon returning. The three of us would get to know all five of these people very well over the next two days, as there was plenty of time to chat about each other’s lives on the (very) dusty trail.
After breakfast we hopped on a camioneta (and with all 8 of us wearing huge backpacks plus a few locals on board, it was pretty packed) to get to a bus station that would take us to the trailhead. Hopping off the camioneta we walked through a crowded market very much alive with the morning bustle of merchants selling everything from rice to gum to DVDs to haircuts, always motivated by the sight of blonde hair and white skin to make a sale. After finding the right bus, we loaded our backpacks in the back (Locky keeping a close eye on them) and took our seats. One of the most amusing parts of my day happened then. Two things for context: First, it’s entirely common to see Central Americans with t-shirts with random English phrases on them, oftentimes making English speakers wonder if the wearer knows what his or her shirt means. It’s also entirely common (and allowed) for vendors to board large buses before they depart and try to sell some things before the passengers head off. Sometimes they obnoxiously stand in front of all the seats and make a short speech about their product. We endured a short discourse by such a person who was excited to tell us about the miraculous effects of some herbal cream which for some reason that escapes me right now would make our lives infinitely better. As for the t-shirt he was wearing? In large print it clearly stated: “My job is to annoy you.” We all had a good laugh.
At about 8:30, we reached our stop…which turned out to be in the middle of a highway with no outstanding characteristics other than a small trailhead off to the side of the road a bit. In the distance (like, really, in the distance) Locky pointed out the volcano we would be climbing – Volcán Telica. It looked like it would take just about all day – and it did. After taking a couple “Here we are at the start” pictures and a few sips of our water, we started off.
The trail was actually in not too bad of shape. For almost the entire day it was wide enough for two people abreast, if we happened to be doing so. The one thing that none of us will forget was the dust. So. Much. Dust. It was absolutely incredible. Melina and I decided about halfway through the day that we had already eaten about 3 kilos each of dirt kicked up from the trail. It quickly became clear that we would be ridiculously dirty by the time we got back to civilization the next day. Many parts of the trail, it felt like walking on flour. Even though the spot where you put your foot was clearly solid earth, at times your shoe would still sink a good half-inch before you got any support.
After about 4 ½ hours of hiking (with very brief water breaks every half-hour or so) we stopped in a shady patch of trees for lunch, which by that point tasted absolutely delicious. It was a simple meal of gallo pinto (a special rice and beans mix which is everywhere in Costa Rica as well), tomato, cucumber, and tortillas. I ate what seemed at the time about five pounds of gallo pinto, and after everyone said they were full had some more. We indulged our legs to another 20 minutes or so of rest, and then started up again.
“Up” is the operative word here. We only had another three hours or so to go, but this second leg of the trek was considerably more inclined than the morning’s portion. Furthermore, the trees became very sparse at the same point the steepness became constant, and so we were in for a hot afternoon. By this point, we had sort of split into two groups – Oswaldo, Ashley2, and I would take off at a slightly faster pace while Locky, Nico, and Claire would take a slightly easier pace a ways back. Melina sort of bounced between the two groups at random. We weren’t in any hurry – we just seemed to get ahead and would take a break every once in a while to let them catch up. At one point the four of us in front stopped in a rare patch of shade and waited. Oswaldo distributed some firewood he collected to us, because he said there would be little where we camped that night. After the others reached us, we decided to wait a bit longer for a large cloud on its way towards us to provide some cover before the final ascent to the summit, now very much in sight (and much larger). While we rested, Os showed off his baseball skills by lobbing up chunks of the volcanic rock and using a huge branch to send them flying hundreds of feet away, down the volcano slope. Locky was not able to repeat the feat, consistently failing to make contact with the rocks he lofted to himself, much to the delight of Oswaldo. “¡Búscate una guitarra!” he taunted, employing an apparently common Nicaraguan phrase to ridicule batters – “Get yourself a guitar!”
Then we made our final push to the top. Oswaldo took us up a “shortcut,” which, while walkable, basically meant skipping the last leg of the trail and going straight up the side of the volcano to the crater’s edge. When I reached the top, I got three amazing views all at once. I looked behind me, where I had come from, and surveyed an infinite stretch of rolling land with various shades of greens and browns as forests and farmers’ fields scattered the space between the formidable hills. 180° behind me, there was a vast valley where the land leveled out and the rich volcanic soil allowed a vibrant mix of trees and shrubbery to thrive. Finally I took in the actual volcanic crater before me. Still a few hundred feet off, it was majestic and intimidating all at once. The sun having burned through what remained of our cloud cover, we got a clear view of the crater walls and slopes. The space directly in front of us ran gradually up to the crater’s edge, allowing us to walk straight up the edge itself. To the left and right, the crater wall slowly became higher as its outer side became steeper – it would be impossible to approach the crater from any side but the one from whence we came. Unlike most volcanoes a tourist will find on his or her travels, the total isolation of Telica and lack of road to its summit prevents many people from scaling it, and as such there are no barriers, safety rails, or anything of the sort up there. We literally could peer over the edge (were we brave/crazy enough to do so), though there was no way through the volcano’s steam and sheer depth that we could see anything below other than the fact that it was definitely a drop-off of hundreds of meters.
After appreciating the views for a bit, we headed down the opposite end of the ridge we had just scaled, down into a small enclosed clearing where we would camp for the night. It was about 4:30 and so, exhausted after 8 hours of hiking minus breaks, we simply lay down on the grass or sleeping mats and rested for a good hour or so. Later, Locky led us across the open valley, back towards but keeping below and off to one side of the crater. On the opposite side, we sat down on some rocks and enjoyed a spectacular sunset as the soft yet vibrant light of the sun fell back behind the Pacific horizon in a pleasant medley of reds and pinks. With the darkness came the cold, and when the sun had completely disappeared we headed back to the campsite where Os had made a very welcoming fire and a very welcomed meal of pasta with assorted vegetables.
After dinner we went back up to the crater’s edge to see if we would be able to see any lava below, but the steam was too thick. We waited a bit for it to clear up (while Ashley2 and others were freezing), but it never did. We headed back down the rocky slope by flashlight – which was slightly treacherous but no one was hurt. Making use of the coals of our dying fire we had some s’mores (how do you spell that?) and later rolled out the sleeping bags. The stars of the night sky by that point were utterly breathtaking. Nevertheless, my exhaustion didn’t allow me to enjoy them much longer, and it didn’t take me long to fall asleep after a remarkable (albeit tiring) day.
Wednesday, February 25
I woke up only once during the night to the sound of everyone moving about (keep in mind we were not in tents), and when I asked why, they said, “We’re moving under the trees – it’s raining!” I hadn’t even noticed until they said so, and deciding that it wasn’t that strong, I withdrew into my sleeping bag and went back to sleep. The next morning they told me that it did pick up a little bit, but nothing too severe. Also, there was a thin white horse walking around our campus that morning, and most people apparently had woken up again as it plodded amongst our sleeping bags during the night as well. I had no idea. Still, the skinny thing (which Os told me someone had just left up there to die) was happy to hang out with us until we left, eating the hard centers of our pineapple we had for breakfast.
Before we ate, though, Oswaldo woke those of us who wanted to accompany him up the ridge once more to watch the sunrise in the east. Leading us up a hill opposite the crater and overlooking our campsite, we sat down at the top around 5:30 and watched the sun come up just as beautifully as it had gone down the night before. Ashley L. and Locky had stayed behind and slept in a big more – Locky because was tired and seen plenty of sunrises from that point, and Ashley L. because she was unfortunately feeling terrible that morning. We didn’t really know what to do about it; apparently she hadn’t slept much in the night because she was constantly getting due to diarrhea issues. I felt really bad for her, but in the middle of nowhere on top of a volcano, what can you do? We packed up, and headed out.
The trail that day was much narrower, and pretty steep for the first few hours. The dust situation had not improved in the least; rather, we kicked up just as much the day before to add to our already gross conditions. Dust, dust, dust. I did remind myself over the course of the day that it was Ash Wednesday, and despite the fact I didn’t get to a church service that day, the whole “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return” thing rang truer that day than perhaps any Ash Wednesday I’ve ever had. We took a break after getting through the roughest part, breaking out some snacks and starting to down our last bottles of water under a giant mango tree. Ashley was not feeling any better, and hadn’t eaten anything since the night before. After walking another couple hours through wide-open valleys that starkly contrasted the dense foliage we had just exited, we arrived at another tree where we took a rest. Ashley, still feeling awful and near the point of vomiting, finally did. Which was gross. But she felt a lot better afterward! The bad news was that she now had even less food in her system, but the good news was that there was only an hour or so of walking left.
Finally we arrived at San Jacinto, a small town near Telica where the Quetzal folks always take their exhausted customers for lunch at a local diner. Before eating we stopped at a small plot of land outside the town which has some mud pots, very much like those in the geyser area in Yellowstone Park back home. The smell was awful, but it was interesting to see them bubbling away. Much like the volcanic crater we had just left (and unlike Yellowstone), there were no barriers or catwalks to preserve the natural formations or protect the visitor who would be foolish enough to get too close. Os, priding himself on his knowledge of the sight before us, explained to me with a straight face that what I saw below me was not actually mud bud rather a complex series of natural chocolate springs. I smiled and teasingly told him he was an idiot, but he just laughed and told me I was missing out on the best tasting (albeit worst smelling) chocolate in the world. At the restaurant we had a very good meal of very Nicaraguan food, and afterward walked over to where we would grab a bus to León. On the bus almost everyone was either napping or half-asleep, excluding Oswaldo, who incredibly seemed pretty much totally unphased by the fact that he had hiked about 13 hours in the last 30. After getting back to the Quetzal Trekkers office in León, we said goodbye to Nico and Claire, took some pictures with our guides, and walked back to our hostel with Melina.
We originally had planned to take a bus to Masaya immediately after getting back to León, but because 1) we were exhausted, 2) we were filthy and could use shower at the hostel and 3) Ashley L. was still feeling terrible and wasn’t really in a condition to travel a few hours more in buses, we decided to stay another night in León and leave the next morning. All of us took our much-needed showers, and Ashley L. decided she would just take a nap while Ashley H. and I went out to get some dinner. We weren’t terribly hungry, so we just had a couple slices of pizza and cokes at a local place. Back at the hostel, Ashley2 and I played some card games before she went back to bed and Ashley H. and I went back out. We went to a bar recommended to us by Locky and Os – and we saw them there – called La Olla Quemada (The Burnt Pot). We didn’t stay long, but we did enjoy some live music by a local group playing some lovely traditional Nicaraguan music. After seeing Os and joining him and his buddies for a bit, we made our final farewells to Oswaldo and headed back to the hostel for an inviting night’s sleep.
I know I promised the second half, but since this post has gotten super long as well I’m going to leave it at these two days and post the final third later regarding our last few days in Masaya and Granada. Look for it soon! Take care of yourselves.
Tuesday, February 24
We got up super early that morning so we could get to Quetzal Trekkers by 6 am for breakfast and to store all of our stuff in their office. As promised, they gave us all the supplies we needed. After packing, I had: the backpack, my sleeping bag, mattress pad, a portion of the food we would bring, a long-sleeve shirt for the cold night, six liters of water, and some misc. odds and ends (toothbrush, etc). The pack really wasn’t that heavy, but by the time we would be done walking that day I would be more than ready to take it off. Breakfast consisted of peanut butter sandwiches, bananas, coffee, and hard-boiled eggs (hardly anyone wanted their egg, and I ended up eating three or so). As we packed and breakfasted, the entire group introduced themselves a bit. There were eight of us total: the three of us, three other tourists, and two guides.
The first guide was an Australian by the name of Locky (short for Lockland). Locky has been away from Australia for some time now – after volunteering for a few months for the Red Cross in Guatemala, he came to León to volunteer with the Quetzal people for a few months. He was super friendly, and I felt pretty privileged to have him leading the group. The other guide was a local Nicaraguan, named Oswaldo, or Oz, for short. Oswaldo speaks very little English (or so we were told…I never actually heard him say anything in English), but we talked with him plenty and got along great. He knows an incredible amount about the local wildlife and landscape, and it was abundantly clear he really enjoys his job. Oswaldo does a few of these hikes every week, and must be in absolutely incredible shape. He and Locky make a great team, as the two of them are pretty constantly bickering, verbally and physically, much to their own amusement and to that of the trekkers they guide. The other three tourists there were Europeans. One of them, a Swiss woman named Melina, was staying in the same hostel as we were before the hike. Melina teaches German in the area of Switzerland where she lives (she herself is trilingual – English/French/German – with pretty good Spanish too), and is currently on an extended vacation traveling most of Central America. The other two were Dutch – Nico and Claire. Claire is French by birth, but her mother moved when she was 12 or so, and later met Nico. The two of them used to work in human resources or tourism or something (I never really figured it out), and decided to quit their jobs to spend a few months in Latin America, not really sure what they’ll do upon returning. The three of us would get to know all five of these people very well over the next two days, as there was plenty of time to chat about each other’s lives on the (very) dusty trail.
After breakfast we hopped on a camioneta (and with all 8 of us wearing huge backpacks plus a few locals on board, it was pretty packed) to get to a bus station that would take us to the trailhead. Hopping off the camioneta we walked through a crowded market very much alive with the morning bustle of merchants selling everything from rice to gum to DVDs to haircuts, always motivated by the sight of blonde hair and white skin to make a sale. After finding the right bus, we loaded our backpacks in the back (Locky keeping a close eye on them) and took our seats. One of the most amusing parts of my day happened then. Two things for context: First, it’s entirely common to see Central Americans with t-shirts with random English phrases on them, oftentimes making English speakers wonder if the wearer knows what his or her shirt means. It’s also entirely common (and allowed) for vendors to board large buses before they depart and try to sell some things before the passengers head off. Sometimes they obnoxiously stand in front of all the seats and make a short speech about their product. We endured a short discourse by such a person who was excited to tell us about the miraculous effects of some herbal cream which for some reason that escapes me right now would make our lives infinitely better. As for the t-shirt he was wearing? In large print it clearly stated: “My job is to annoy you.” We all had a good laugh.
At about 8:30, we reached our stop…which turned out to be in the middle of a highway with no outstanding characteristics other than a small trailhead off to the side of the road a bit. In the distance (like, really, in the distance) Locky pointed out the volcano we would be climbing – Volcán Telica. It looked like it would take just about all day – and it did. After taking a couple “Here we are at the start” pictures and a few sips of our water, we started off.
The trail was actually in not too bad of shape. For almost the entire day it was wide enough for two people abreast, if we happened to be doing so. The one thing that none of us will forget was the dust. So. Much. Dust. It was absolutely incredible. Melina and I decided about halfway through the day that we had already eaten about 3 kilos each of dirt kicked up from the trail. It quickly became clear that we would be ridiculously dirty by the time we got back to civilization the next day. Many parts of the trail, it felt like walking on flour. Even though the spot where you put your foot was clearly solid earth, at times your shoe would still sink a good half-inch before you got any support.
After about 4 ½ hours of hiking (with very brief water breaks every half-hour or so) we stopped in a shady patch of trees for lunch, which by that point tasted absolutely delicious. It was a simple meal of gallo pinto (a special rice and beans mix which is everywhere in Costa Rica as well), tomato, cucumber, and tortillas. I ate what seemed at the time about five pounds of gallo pinto, and after everyone said they were full had some more. We indulged our legs to another 20 minutes or so of rest, and then started up again.
“Up” is the operative word here. We only had another three hours or so to go, but this second leg of the trek was considerably more inclined than the morning’s portion. Furthermore, the trees became very sparse at the same point the steepness became constant, and so we were in for a hot afternoon. By this point, we had sort of split into two groups – Oswaldo, Ashley2, and I would take off at a slightly faster pace while Locky, Nico, and Claire would take a slightly easier pace a ways back. Melina sort of bounced between the two groups at random. We weren’t in any hurry – we just seemed to get ahead and would take a break every once in a while to let them catch up. At one point the four of us in front stopped in a rare patch of shade and waited. Oswaldo distributed some firewood he collected to us, because he said there would be little where we camped that night. After the others reached us, we decided to wait a bit longer for a large cloud on its way towards us to provide some cover before the final ascent to the summit, now very much in sight (and much larger). While we rested, Os showed off his baseball skills by lobbing up chunks of the volcanic rock and using a huge branch to send them flying hundreds of feet away, down the volcano slope. Locky was not able to repeat the feat, consistently failing to make contact with the rocks he lofted to himself, much to the delight of Oswaldo. “¡Búscate una guitarra!” he taunted, employing an apparently common Nicaraguan phrase to ridicule batters – “Get yourself a guitar!”
Then we made our final push to the top. Oswaldo took us up a “shortcut,” which, while walkable, basically meant skipping the last leg of the trail and going straight up the side of the volcano to the crater’s edge. When I reached the top, I got three amazing views all at once. I looked behind me, where I had come from, and surveyed an infinite stretch of rolling land with various shades of greens and browns as forests and farmers’ fields scattered the space between the formidable hills. 180° behind me, there was a vast valley where the land leveled out and the rich volcanic soil allowed a vibrant mix of trees and shrubbery to thrive. Finally I took in the actual volcanic crater before me. Still a few hundred feet off, it was majestic and intimidating all at once. The sun having burned through what remained of our cloud cover, we got a clear view of the crater walls and slopes. The space directly in front of us ran gradually up to the crater’s edge, allowing us to walk straight up the edge itself. To the left and right, the crater wall slowly became higher as its outer side became steeper – it would be impossible to approach the crater from any side but the one from whence we came. Unlike most volcanoes a tourist will find on his or her travels, the total isolation of Telica and lack of road to its summit prevents many people from scaling it, and as such there are no barriers, safety rails, or anything of the sort up there. We literally could peer over the edge (were we brave/crazy enough to do so), though there was no way through the volcano’s steam and sheer depth that we could see anything below other than the fact that it was definitely a drop-off of hundreds of meters.
After appreciating the views for a bit, we headed down the opposite end of the ridge we had just scaled, down into a small enclosed clearing where we would camp for the night. It was about 4:30 and so, exhausted after 8 hours of hiking minus breaks, we simply lay down on the grass or sleeping mats and rested for a good hour or so. Later, Locky led us across the open valley, back towards but keeping below and off to one side of the crater. On the opposite side, we sat down on some rocks and enjoyed a spectacular sunset as the soft yet vibrant light of the sun fell back behind the Pacific horizon in a pleasant medley of reds and pinks. With the darkness came the cold, and when the sun had completely disappeared we headed back to the campsite where Os had made a very welcoming fire and a very welcomed meal of pasta with assorted vegetables.
After dinner we went back up to the crater’s edge to see if we would be able to see any lava below, but the steam was too thick. We waited a bit for it to clear up (while Ashley2 and others were freezing), but it never did. We headed back down the rocky slope by flashlight – which was slightly treacherous but no one was hurt. Making use of the coals of our dying fire we had some s’mores (how do you spell that?) and later rolled out the sleeping bags. The stars of the night sky by that point were utterly breathtaking. Nevertheless, my exhaustion didn’t allow me to enjoy them much longer, and it didn’t take me long to fall asleep after a remarkable (albeit tiring) day.
Wednesday, February 25
I woke up only once during the night to the sound of everyone moving about (keep in mind we were not in tents), and when I asked why, they said, “We’re moving under the trees – it’s raining!” I hadn’t even noticed until they said so, and deciding that it wasn’t that strong, I withdrew into my sleeping bag and went back to sleep. The next morning they told me that it did pick up a little bit, but nothing too severe. Also, there was a thin white horse walking around our campus that morning, and most people apparently had woken up again as it plodded amongst our sleeping bags during the night as well. I had no idea. Still, the skinny thing (which Os told me someone had just left up there to die) was happy to hang out with us until we left, eating the hard centers of our pineapple we had for breakfast.
Before we ate, though, Oswaldo woke those of us who wanted to accompany him up the ridge once more to watch the sunrise in the east. Leading us up a hill opposite the crater and overlooking our campsite, we sat down at the top around 5:30 and watched the sun come up just as beautifully as it had gone down the night before. Ashley L. and Locky had stayed behind and slept in a big more – Locky because was tired and seen plenty of sunrises from that point, and Ashley L. because she was unfortunately feeling terrible that morning. We didn’t really know what to do about it; apparently she hadn’t slept much in the night because she was constantly getting due to diarrhea issues. I felt really bad for her, but in the middle of nowhere on top of a volcano, what can you do? We packed up, and headed out.
The trail that day was much narrower, and pretty steep for the first few hours. The dust situation had not improved in the least; rather, we kicked up just as much the day before to add to our already gross conditions. Dust, dust, dust. I did remind myself over the course of the day that it was Ash Wednesday, and despite the fact I didn’t get to a church service that day, the whole “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return” thing rang truer that day than perhaps any Ash Wednesday I’ve ever had. We took a break after getting through the roughest part, breaking out some snacks and starting to down our last bottles of water under a giant mango tree. Ashley was not feeling any better, and hadn’t eaten anything since the night before. After walking another couple hours through wide-open valleys that starkly contrasted the dense foliage we had just exited, we arrived at another tree where we took a rest. Ashley, still feeling awful and near the point of vomiting, finally did. Which was gross. But she felt a lot better afterward! The bad news was that she now had even less food in her system, but the good news was that there was only an hour or so of walking left.
Finally we arrived at San Jacinto, a small town near Telica where the Quetzal folks always take their exhausted customers for lunch at a local diner. Before eating we stopped at a small plot of land outside the town which has some mud pots, very much like those in the geyser area in Yellowstone Park back home. The smell was awful, but it was interesting to see them bubbling away. Much like the volcanic crater we had just left (and unlike Yellowstone), there were no barriers or catwalks to preserve the natural formations or protect the visitor who would be foolish enough to get too close. Os, priding himself on his knowledge of the sight before us, explained to me with a straight face that what I saw below me was not actually mud bud rather a complex series of natural chocolate springs. I smiled and teasingly told him he was an idiot, but he just laughed and told me I was missing out on the best tasting (albeit worst smelling) chocolate in the world. At the restaurant we had a very good meal of very Nicaraguan food, and afterward walked over to where we would grab a bus to León. On the bus almost everyone was either napping or half-asleep, excluding Oswaldo, who incredibly seemed pretty much totally unphased by the fact that he had hiked about 13 hours in the last 30. After getting back to the Quetzal Trekkers office in León, we said goodbye to Nico and Claire, took some pictures with our guides, and walked back to our hostel with Melina.
We originally had planned to take a bus to Masaya immediately after getting back to León, but because 1) we were exhausted, 2) we were filthy and could use shower at the hostel and 3) Ashley L. was still feeling terrible and wasn’t really in a condition to travel a few hours more in buses, we decided to stay another night in León and leave the next morning. All of us took our much-needed showers, and Ashley L. decided she would just take a nap while Ashley H. and I went out to get some dinner. We weren’t terribly hungry, so we just had a couple slices of pizza and cokes at a local place. Back at the hostel, Ashley2 and I played some card games before she went back to bed and Ashley H. and I went back out. We went to a bar recommended to us by Locky and Os – and we saw them there – called La Olla Quemada (The Burnt Pot). We didn’t stay long, but we did enjoy some live music by a local group playing some lovely traditional Nicaraguan music. After seeing Os and joining him and his buddies for a bit, we made our final farewells to Oswaldo and headed back to the hostel for an inviting night’s sleep.
I know I promised the second half, but since this post has gotten super long as well I’m going to leave it at these two days and post the final third later regarding our last few days in Masaya and Granada. Look for it soon! Take care of yourselves.
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