Nicaragua Trip

Alright. So I’m finally back from my travels. I’d love to write about every detail, but I would have to write a novel, and I’m more of a short story writer. Anyway, from March 17-22, I was traveling with the program that I study through. We went to Nicaragua for most of the week, but we also saw Volcano Arenal, La Fortuna waterfall, and Monteverde Cloud Forest.

Before I write about what I did in Nicaragua, let me share some information that I found in the CIA World Fact book about Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and the U.S. The GPP for each country is $3,200 (Nicaragua), $13,500 (Costa Rica), and $46,000 (U.S.). The percentage of the population that lives under the poverty line is 48% (Nicaragua), 16% (Costa Rica), and 12% (U.S.). These numbers correlate with the unemployment rates. In Nicaragua, the unemployment is 5.5% and the underemployment (not quite sure what that is…) is 46.5%. In Costa Rica it’s 5.5%, and in the U.S. 4.6%. The reason I’m sharing this information is because Costa Rica has a very large tourism industry. When I ask students here what they study, many have told me “tourism.” Anyway, my point is, Nicaragua has as many natural resources as Costa Rica, and in my opinion it is also very beautiful. However, it is so poor. And even though it could probably have what Costa Rica has, its government doesn’t care because it has other priorities like the army. The second we stepped off the tour bus in Nicaragua, there were little kids hanging on us and asking us for money. One humorous thing about these little kids and their begging is that they’re picky little beggars. I’m sorry if that sounds horrendously blunt and cruel, but it’s true. I didn’t have any Córdobas or any U.S. change, so when a little girl asked me for money I asked her if she wanted a piece of gum. She said yes, so I gave her one and then she said “two!” Well, I wanted my gum too so I told her no, but she still insisted on two, but apparently I’m heartless because I only gave her one. The next day at breakfast, a boy of about 8 was begging for food. We had some extra bread that we weren’t going to eat so we asked him if he wanted some and he said, “Yes, with butter.” There were no pleases or thank-you’s, it was definitely a command. I guess there’s not a phrase in Spanish that translates as our “beggars can’t be choosers.” Anyway, it was sad to see these children, who probably should’ve been in school, begging for money all day. Anyway, that was my tangent for the day. Now I’ll get to some of the main highlight of the Nicaraguan trip.

We stayed in Granada, which as I mentioned before is the oldest city in Central America. It was very beautiful because it was colonial. We went on carriage rides around the city and we went to watch the sunset at Lake Nicaragua (look at it on a map…it’s huge!) The next day we went on boat rides around the isletas (islands) of Lake Nicaragua. On many of these islands, homes are built, are being built, or the land is for sale, which I found sad. Our tour guide showed us some really amazing houses that are owned by the coffee plantation owners in Nicaragua. While on the boat tour, we went to an island that apparently people had put some monkeys on. To our surprise, the monkeys were quite used to tourists, and one jumped on our boat. It sat on people’s laps while trying to open our boat driver’s lunch pail that had old, crusty rice in it.

That same day we went to Managua, which has very large markets with very cheap stuff in it. When we got back to Granada, my friend Liza wanted me to go with her to the little park by our hotel because there were vendors set up there. I told her I would go there with her, but I couldn’t go near the stands because I didn’t want to spend anymore money. Well, apparently I have “sucker” written all over me because a man came up with some hammocks and asked me if I wanted to buy one. Since I was in the “no buying” mindset I firmly said no, but when he told me $5….well, who can resist a $5 hammock, even if you don’t have a place to hang it? Oh, and that same day I also purchased a $3 Cuban cigar with Liza, which we proceeded to smoke that night. I can definitely cross that off of my list of things to do before I die, and I definitely don’t need to repeat it.

The next day we went to San Juan del Sur. We took a boat ride to a beach that afternoon, and on the way back we saw “whale spouts.” I don’t know what they’re technically called, but we saw the water that shoots up when the whale breathes or whatever. Anyway, our boat driver was such a nice man that he drove us towards the whales. We actually got close enough to see their bodies and their tales come out of the water. Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely glad I got to see whales in the wild, but at the same time, our boat was pretty small, so I’m glad we didn’t get any closer. (Side note: the following week I talked to some girls from Canada, and they told me about a troublesome whale near British Columbia that capsized boats full of tourist for fun…).

Anyway, once we got back to Costa Rica, we went to Monteverde and did the zip line tour. A zip line tour, or canopy tour is where they strap some gear on you, connect you to some cables, and let you “zip” through the air over the canopy or through it. It was fun, but I was hoping for something a little scarier.

Anyway, on Saturday we headed back to Heredia, and I was quite anxious to get back because my friend Stephanie had flown all the way from South Dakota to come see me in Costa Rica and was waiting for me with my host family. However, as we were leaving Monteverde, it started raining a little bit, and because we had a massive tour bus, we were unable to make it up one of the dirt roads. Despite our attempts to weigh down the back of the bus, we had to turn around, so I didn’t get home until 10:30 that night.

(I’m going to continue with this story in a different post because that way I can add more pictures!)