We spent three days in Leon (I'm using a hybrid American/Spanish keyboard and can't figure out how to make the accent mark dangit), mostly near the pool in our hostel as the heat was intense. We saw a lot of churches, and had some truly excellent pizza, the best we've had since we were in Xela. We did go to a terrific museum, that had some Picasso and Chagal and Matisse, and a lot of great pieces by Central American artists. I generally have a pretty low threshold for enjoying museums, but I really enjoyed this one.
We stayed at the Lazybones hostel, which overall was great (did I mention the pool?) however we did get some visitors in our room at night. It was hot, so we weren't using the mosquito nets because they blocked the fan. The first night David felt something crawling on him, which in his half asleep daze he thought seemed like a cat, although it was too small and there was certainly not a cat in our room. I'm thinking it was a mouse, as there were some nibbles to some food we had. The next night something hit my face. Something fast and leathery. A bat! I actually think bats are pretty cool, but getting slapped in the face by one while you are trying to sleep is decidedly uncool. Anyway, we used our nets after that, guess they were there for a reason, cause we didn't see any mosquitoes.
From Leon, we jumped in bus to the capital, Managua, where we stayed just long enough to get off the bus and get on another to Granada. We sat next to a local guy named Alan, who is a medical student and spoke pretty good English. He was getting ready to go to Germany to get his PhD, and was nervous because his german wasn't very good. Can you imagine going to college in a third language? But he got a scholarship, so that was his best option. We asked about the weather, wondering if it would be as hot as it had been in Leon. He said not as hot, but he promised it would be very dry. "We only get rain maybe twice a year." Cue rain for the next three days straight.
Granada is a lovely colonial town, making comparisons with Antigua, Guatemala hard to avoid. But it hasn't yet had quite as many coats of polish, and still retains a slightly grittier feel, in the good sense of the word. It has had more coats of paint however, making it quite pleasing to look at. We holed up at the Oasis, a sister-hostel to the Lazybones, also with a pool which we enjoyed. I even met a friendly Peace Corps Volunteer who was taking a little vacation from her rural outpost, and I think I may have talked her into going to nursing school in Albuquerque when she finishes. It is hard to resist such a great path!
Granada is on the shores of Lake Nicaragua, a huge freshwater lake. The lake used to have maneating bull sharks in it, the only freshwater shark in the world. But a lucrative trade in shark fin saw the quick decimation of the species, which supposedly still exist in small pockets down the river that leads to the Caribbean coast. We rented bicycles and rode several miles down a peninsula. It was raining a bit, and we got splattered with mud from the tires. But at the end of the road we saw a family of howler monkeys, much bigger in size than the ones we saw in Guatemala, and a beautiful species of jaybirds that we've been coveting since we saw their picture in a bird book in Honduras. It was a great ride.
From Granada we decided to head to the beaches of San Juan del Sur. Though still overcast, our luck held and it didn't rain, giving us one last chance to get some sun. You know how sometimes walking the beach you will see some dumb little fish washed up on shore? Here we saw three pufferfish (still puffed up!) and a large parrot fish with a huge set of teeth on him.
We were up early the next day to head to the Costa Rican border. We had been warned this would likely be our most difficult crossing, and indeed it was. By far. Approaching the border we passed miles and miles of semi-trucks, which were stopped along the side of the road, single file, inching so slowly toward the border that the drivers were wandering around the street in little groups. I can't even imagine how long it takes them to get through, but I can't see how they would all get through in a day.
Once we got to the border, the usual group of "helpers" attached themselves to us hoping we would change money with them. But they proved quite useful in navigating the maze to the immigration office. After paying three different sets of "fees" (all of which were supposedly legit, according to our guidebook), we got flustered and jumped on an international bus. These busses are far more comfortable than the chicken busses, and also far more expensive. But we were confused and decided just to splurge for the convenience. After waiting a bit for the people who came through on the bus to finish at Nicaraguan immigration, the bus drove us over to the Costa Rican side and we got in line. Luckily the rain had stopped, because we were standing outside in line for over two hours. At one point, there was a mass movement as 50 - 75 people in line ahead of us suddenly left the line and walked away. I have no idea what they were doing or where they were going, or why they all decided to leave at once. But it probably saved us another hour of waiting, so we were grateful for the mystery. Once we finally made it into the building, we saw that there were exactly two officials moving people through. They were friendly and efficient, but hopelessly backlogged. There must be some rhyme or reason to why the Costa Rican government doesn't just hire a few more people, as this crossing is notorious for being long and awful, but I can't imagine what the reason is. We made it through, the officials making a show of everyone on the bus getting their bags out to be inspected, but then just waved all the backpackers through without checking anything on us, though they did a cursory check of the locals.
Next came the intrigue of us finding our stop. The bus was express to San Jose, but we wanted to get off before that at the turnoff to the cloud forest reserve of Monteverde. The guy who sold us our ticket said it would be no problem, but of course he was now nowhere to be found. We talked to who I thought was the driver and one of the assistants, but we didn't know the name of the place we wanted to be dropped off, and that seemed to be confusing them. We weren't even really sure what would happen when we got dropped off on the side of the road, we just assumed that we would be able to find another form of transport to the reserve. The drivers sort of smiled and nodded and blew us off, so as we took off we were stressed that they might not stop where we needed to go, but were also stressed that they would, because we weren't sure what we would do then. Then the rain started, which is never a friend to a backpack.
But, as usual, it all worked out. They dropped us off at the right place, just after the rain stopped. A cabbie tried to get us to pay $50 to take us direct, but he also admitted the public bus would be by just over an hour later. We waited (and looked at bugs, natch) until the bus came, and we paid about $3 for the ride to Santa Elena, the town outside of the reserve.
Sorry there are no pictures on this post (and I got a great one of the parrotfish!), but this afternoon I was checking out the camera and the bus hit a bump and I managed to format my camera card. groan. I'm pretty sure I will be able to recover the pics once I get home (at least I hope!), but there is no doing it from here. Technology is the best thing ever, until it isn't.
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