As we we had decided to leave Leon the next day it was our last chance, and she delivered the news to C before heading to the Quetzaltrekkers office to retrieve our money. Somewhat forlornly she enquired if anyone else in town was running volcano boarding. A man also loitering in the Quetzaltrekkers office waved and announced that his group were leaving a hostel opposite ours in twenty minutes. This gave J just enough time to run to the hostel and beg pathetically and when they agreed to our joining at the last minute we jumped into action and joined the group.
In the interests of not breaking them, we left cameras at the hostel, but this image is of the same slope we went down and the same Guantanamo style jumpsuits. The boarding was a lot of fun (even the bit where C fell off and bounced on his face for a bit) and the walk up the volcano stunning with views of the sunset and sulphur jets, some parts of the ground hot to the touch. The tour group we had joined however gave us a lot to think about. There were several very lovely people, of course, and though the whole activity was a bit beer-based and not everyone was lovely (the tour guide could have done a better job of reining in some of the young mens comments, given there were also kids and also that they weren't funny), its not really that that we are pondering.
The thing is, you can get by in certain areas of Nicaragua only spending dollars. All hotels, hostels and tourist restaurants/bars are priced in them. Tourist material is all in English. And its terrifyingly easy to never talk to anyone from Nicaragua, certainly not in Spanish. The tourist strip of the same destinations is like its own little world.
The next day we hitched to Granada (the centre of said tourist strip) and checked out some bookshops with books in English, a benefit of the cultural imperialism that we cannot help but enjoy. We obtained, and J has since started and could not recommend more strongly, Open Veins of Latin America, an amazing work of history and analysis (including all kinds of imperialism) that anyone interested in the region should read.
In Granada we also visited the Chocolate Museum, as the museum part was free. We did learn some interesting things about chocolate, but mostly the staff are just supposed to sell you the expensive "make your own chocolate" workshop and the all you can eat buffet. Also, we felt like the museum's historical sections skimmed over the darker side of chocolate production. It's not that every museum has to be a searing indictment of global capitalism's cruelties - though it would be nice =) - but the story of exploitation is so essential to the story of chocolate, that the way it was told came across as dishonest white-washing, designed to allow tourists to indulge guilt-free.
Our couchsurf was another hostel, and a very kind man he is too, to let us camp for free. But the hostel was only another example of what has been making us feel uneasy recently. Its an amazing place, basically a treehouse built up the steep side of a jungly hill
and staffed by volunteers. Everyone there is young and english-speaking. Everyone has been to San Juan del Sur, the big beach resort. Most people are not even trying to speak spanish or learn how many cordobas there are to the dollar. All the activities people go off to do each day are far beyond what the average Nicaraguan, let alone a poor one, could afford. There's a sense the entire country is an adventure playground here for our amusement, and that each central american country is nothing more than its tourist centre. When people ask where we went in El Salvador they mean which beach and are amazed to hear we didn't even see the sea there- they have never heard of the museum at Perquin.
All this starts to sound pretty smug if we completely discount ourselves, but we're not. It's a constant niggle trying to find a balance between accepting you can't break every stereotype and privilege and just enjoying the odd slide down a volcano, and trying to get off the beaten track a bit, see the country itself and learn about where we actually are. Hitching is a godsend here. You end up making conversation in potted spanish with people from every different walk of life in the country.
Bearing this in mind and with all these thoughts, we undertook an expedition to the Caribbean Sea, which failed in all important respects, except getting far from the beaten track.
Google maps lied. It says there is a road (the BR20) between El Rama and Bluefields. Anyone who does not believe us look it up. One hitch also lied to us about this road. This road does not exist. It is not there. The only way from El Rama to Bluefields is by riverboat, which we could not afford. So after a long day's hitch out to El Rama on New Year's Eve, we spent the night in a slighty suspicious hotel by the river that gave the impression of being patronised by pirates down on their luck, listened to some enthusiastic fireworks and the next day found ourselves in a town that had shut down for the 1st of January, trying to hitch-hike back the way we had come.
This made us look both desperate and pathetic. Traffic was slow to the point of non-existance and we ended up in one small town (more a suburb of El Rama, which is not a metropolis) for six hours. The advantage of looking both desperate and pathetic are that people pity you. We received: free Fanta, a bag of doughnut-like things, two huge plates of chicken and rice, and two slices of cake. Also a small boy let us play with his baby rabbits. Eventually we got to Juigalpa that night and hitched on again today, with much more success.
With some free bananas from a friendly trucker, we got to Rivas, which contains a port for ferries out to the Ometepe islands in Lago Nicaragua. It seems very pretty here, though we have not explored yet, though the views approaching the islands were quite something
We are squarely back on the gringo trail, although remain as cheap as ever, as we have begged a camping spot in someone's yard for a fraction of the normal prices.
Tomorrow we intend to give ourselves a much needed clean in the lake.
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