May 24, 2014
5:00 AM came awfully early after having stayed up to
midnight, the night before, working on my blog.
I knew I would suffer at the time I did it, but the internet was so good
at D&D that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to upload all my Honduran
photos. Once I admitted that I was
awake, I quickly bathed (the hot water quit after 5 seconds), dressed and
packed. I wanted to be ready early
because the bus could have arrived as early as 6:00 and I had to carry my bags
a quarter of a mile or so over muddy roads. I had decided to forego my plan of returning to San Pedro Sula to take Tica Bus to Managua. Patrick, Eliza, Brianna and I were taking the local buses to Nicaragua together. As soon as I found one of the girls, I told
her I was starting up the road and set off.
I put my daypack on my back and balance my duffel on my head. This sort of thing is why the farmer’s carry
is my strongest suit in CrossFit. Of
course, I have also developed my ability to hoist my bag over my head to hand
it to the gentleman loading bags onto
the top of the bus. It pays to travel
light.
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| Eastern Honduras |
The rest of the group caught up to me and we were all at the
bus stop by 6:00. There was only one
direct bus to Tegucigalpa per day and we didn’t want to miss it. We waited for the bus until 6:30. When it finally arrived, it was a big,
comfortable Pullman and we were thrilled.
It seemed too good to be true. It
was. Within 20 minutes, the transmission
gave out and we were stranded. The bus
company sent another bus very rapidly, but it was only a 30 passenger
minibus. The passengers pushed the
disabled bus off the road and over to where the new bus was parked so that we
could transfer the luggage. From the
nice, dry, easily accessible bins under the bus, we hoisted all our earthly goods
onto the exposed roof rack of the minibus.
For once, the men weren’t being macho.
When the guy on the roof couldn’t reach Brianna’s pack, he just said,
“Come on, Chica,” urging her to raise it higher. We packed 44 people into that little
minibus. Patrick and I stood for the
first half an hour, which was no mean feat on twisty mountain roads with a
maniacal driver. Brianna was practically
sitting in the driver’s lap. Eventually,
a family of three, who were sharing two seats, invited me to perch on the edge
with them. They were very sweet. We were there for a long time. It took us five hours to make the three hour
trip to Tegucigalpa. Poor Patrick stood
all the way to Comayagua, when he and I finally got seats. We were across the aisle from each other and
kept landing in each other’s laps as the driver hurled the bus around
curves. We were all very glad to arrive
in Tegucigalpa.
I had spent part of my time perching on the edge of the seat
talking to the conductress (the first woman I had seen working on a bus
anywhere) about our onward journey. She
told me what we should expect to pay for a taxi. A horde of taxistas swarmed the passengers as
soon as we disembarked and we found one who charged us exactly the correct
price (50 lempiras, about $2.50) each to shuttle us clear across Comayaguela to
where the buses left from the border. We
had half an hour to wait, so we grabbed a cheap lunch of pupusas while we were
waiting. I paid for everybody, since I
needed to change a large bill. Lunch for
four cost me about $6.00. After lunch, we
packed into another mini bus. Everybody
got a seat, but this bus had no luggage rack, so all our belongings were piled
on the floor in front of the door where they had to be shifted every time
someone wanted to get off. It took us
2.5 hours to get to the border at Los Manos.
Once again, I was on the aisle seat and had to hang on for dear life to
avoid being thrown on the floor every time we went around a curve. It turned out that the woman sitting next to
me had grown up in the United States.
She worked as a translator for a Baptist children’s home run by American
missionaries. The home took in orphans
and children whose parents either didn’t want them or had them taken away as a
result of neglect or abuse. The children
got to stay and go to school until they were 18 and then got six months in a
transition house where they were taught to fend for themselves and had time to
find employment. Often, they were
allowed to stay longer than six months because employment was hard to
find. Sometimes, they were adopted. My traveling companion was very excited for
one of the girls there who had finally been allowed to go to the United
States. An American family had been
trying to adopt her for 13 years, but had never been able to get her into the
country. They had come to visit her
every year. Finally, at 17 years old,
they had managed to get her into a private school and she was granted a student
visa. It sounded to me that the children
in that home were very fortunate. They
got to finish high school in a country with only nine years of compulsory
education and they were taught English, which made them marketable. Of course, they had to suffer some terrible
experience to get there. Their parents’
drug use was not, however, the primary reason they were there, unlike the
children in foster care in the United States.
 |
| The Border at Los Manos |
We got to the border in Los Manos about 2:00 in the
afternoon. Just as we got off the bus, a
large group of men started cheering. It
turned out that someone had scored a goal in a soccer game on TV, but the
timing was perfect. We paid our 60
lempira exit fee ($3) and changed our money to cordobas without incident. Our money changer was a woman, this
time. She was much less pushy than the
guys were. We walked across the border
to immigration on the Nicaraguan side.
Nicaragua charges a $12 fee to enter, but they really only accepted
exact change. It took us forever to get
out of there. Patrick had $15 and they
eventually managed to find him $3 change, although they tried to give it to me. I gave them a $20, but they wouldn’t take it
because someone had written on it.
Fortunately, I had exact change in cordobas. I had to negotiate with the immigration
officer for both Eliza and Brianna.
Eliza didn’t have dollars and her officer didn’t know how many cordobas
to charge. We eventually worked that out
and got her through. Brianna didn’t have
any cordobas other than large bills. She
had to go back to the money changer to get smaller bills, but she still didn’t
have exact change, so I ended up paying the last 20 cordobas just so we could
finally get out of there. We walked a
little way further down the road and got on a chicken bus to Ocotal.
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| Our Room in Ocotal |
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| Ocotal |
For a chicken bus, our ride to Ocotal was pretty
luxurious. The overhead racks were big
enough for our bags and the seats were extra wide and actually had
padding. We drove through dry mountains for
an hour and a half or so and stopped at Ocotal because we didn’t think we could
make it to Esteli or Matagalpa before dark.
We took a cheap taxi ride (about 75 cents each) to a hostel near the
center of town and got two double rooms for about $8 each. The place wasn’t attractive, but it was clean,
the sheets were soft, and we had a huge TV and a quiet fan in our room. The sketchy bit was that the town was under
water rationing and didn’t have water on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. There was a tub of water with a dipper in it
in the shower to use for bath water on the days when the water was off. Fortunately, we were there on the
weekend.
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| Courtyard of our Hostel in Ocotal |
We all went out for dinner at a bar and restaurant called
Campbell’s. The food was actually very
good. I had pork fajitas. Fajitas don’t come with tortillas in
Nicaragua. I got chips with mine, but
they sometimes come with French fries.
Patrick and I had a couple of beers.
We drank Victorias which were not the same as the Victorias in
Mexico. They were actually pretty
tasty. After dinner, all four of us
packed into our room to watch
Red on
our big TV. I was so tired from two days
in a row of five hours sleep that I passed out before the movie ended. I slept like the dead.
May 25, 2014
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| "Garbage Truck" in Ocotal |
Having passed out at 9:00 the night before, I woke up
early. At 6:00, I got up and spent an
hour or so using the WiFi and working on my blog, trying to be quiet so as not
to wake my roommate. About 7:30, the
others banged on our door. We got out of
there by shortly after 8:00, walked to the corner and caught another cheap taxi
to the bus station. This guy charged us
about 60 cents each. The bus terminal in
Ocotal was surrounded by market stalls on three sides. We could tell we weren’t in Honduras anymore
because there were trash cans and people actually used them. While we were there, we saw the garbage
collectors come around. The “garbage
truck” was a trailer being pulled behind a large tractor.
The cabbie dropped us right in front of the gate for
Matagalpa. Once again, we didn’t have
long to wait. Our ride to Matagalpa was
the best chicken bus I had seen thus far.
It had a large flat screen TV at the front that played music videos
actually synched to the sound system. We
put our luggage behind the rear seats and the conductor made sure we sat in the
back where we could keep an eye on it.
That turned out to be necessary because passengers and vendors went in
and out of the rear door every time we slowed down to less than five miles per
hour. In Esteli, we saw lots of bicycles
tossed on the rooftop luggage racks. We
rode for another couple of hours over the mountains, across a wide valley and
then up into the mountains on the other side.
The valley was more fertile looking than the mountains, although it
didn’t seem to be the growing season when we passed. The bus terminal in Matagalpa was below the
town. We took the cheapest taxi yet to
the other side of town for a total of about $1.50. The driver was extremely pleased when I gave
him a 10 cordoba (about 40 cents) tip.
 |
| My Room in Matagalpa |
The girls wanted to go to the cheapest hostel in town. It was cheap, but didn’t offer much in the
way of amenities. I got a private room
for $10 and they got a double with a shared bath for about $8. My room had a toilet and a shower, but no
sink. I had to use the sink in the
courtyard to brush my teeth.
Surprisingly, my bed was the most comfortable mattress I had experienced
since leaving home. It was probably just
a piece of foam, but at least it was comfy.
Even the sheets were nice. They
were exactly like some I had at home.
The hostel looked like a former stable or garage. There was no WiFi. There was, however, a large covered patio
area with some rocking chairs and a cage containing two Amazon parrots who were
amusing, but loud. They could say,
“hello,” in several languages.
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| Parrot in Matagalpa |
After depositing our luggage at the hostel, we walked over
to a restaurant called
Monkey’s behind
the church. The power was out in the
entire town, so the available menu items were limited. I had spicy chicken wings with French fries
and salad. The fruit punch was very
tasty. After lunch, we started to walk
up the hill to the overlook, but it started raining before we got very far, so
we turned around and walked back to town.
We went into a couple of stores, looking for face wash for Breanna. The grocery store also had a buffet. Three dirty little boys under the age of 10,
whom we had earlier seen smoking and making obscene gestures, begged me to buy
them some beans and rice. When I agreed,
they asked if I would also buy some for their grandmother. I fed all of them for about a dollar. Then we returned to the hostel and spend the
remainder of the afternoon reading, writing, washing and mending. None of us were hungry, so we retired to our
rooms and spent the evening in our windowless cells. The girls’ room looked like a room in a
whorehouse. Mine was more like a
janitorial closet with plumbing.
May 26, 2014
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| "Monkey's" in Matagalpa |
While the parrots were covered and didn’t emit a peep in the
morning, the neighbors’ rooster was not so polite. All of us were awake by 6:00. We set off to find breakfast at about 7:45,
as checkout was at 9:00. Most of the
restaurants were closed and the open ones were all offering the same dismal
breakfast buffet. We wandered around
until 8:00 when the coffee shops opened and ended up having breakfast at
Seleccion Nicaraguense, the Nicaraguan version of Starbucks, minus the high
prices. I got a double latte and a piece
of cheesecake for under $4.00, although that was exorbitant by Nicaraguan
standards. We hung around and used the
free WiFi and then headed back to the hostel by 9:00.
We wanted to take a taxi back down to the bus station, but
all the taxis were full by the time they reached our neighborhood. We tried to find one for about 10 minutes
until a gentleman convinced us that we should just walk there. It was about ten blocks, but all
downhill. He walked with us to be sure we
didn’t get lost and I talked with him along the way. He was a former tourist guide from the
collective farms outside of town, although he didn’t speak English. When we got to the bus station, the shuttle
bus for Leon was loading. It was the
last bus of the day, although it left at 10:00 am. At first they said they didn’t have room for
us. We stood there, trying to figure out
an alternate route to get to Leon, and eventually they took pity on us and
packed us in. Brianna got to sit in one
of the back seats. I sat on a beach
chair suspended across the aisle on top of Brianna’s pack and Eliza sat on
another beach chair on top of her pack.
My duffel was in the door well, where it fell out every time someone
opened the door. We rode like that for
two hours, but at least it only cost us 74 cordobas (<$3) each.
When we got to Leon, we were mobbed by young men with
bicycle taxis who wanted to take us the long way to the hotel. As there were three of us with three big
bags, we looked around for a real taxi, but they were insistent that they could
make it. We packed into one of the
bici-taxis and set off (fortunately) downhill.
We didn’t get very far before the rear wheel gave out and we had to
switch to another bici-taxi. I felt very
exposed sitting in front of the driver.
I was certain we were going to smash into something as we careened down
the hill, but we managed to survive the ride and arrived at the Tortuga Booluda
Hostel in one piece. Our taxi ride cost
us 50 cordobas each, but it was worth it for the entertainment value.
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| Courtyard at Tortuga Booluda |
The Tortuga Booluda was a cheerful hostel with colorful art
on the walls and hammocks in the courtyard.
It wasn’t fancy, but had a self-service bar, nice kitchen and common
area, and free pancakes in the morning, which attracted Eliza like a
magnet. The girls were going to get beds
in the dorm, but I offered to pay the difference in price and got us a triple
room. Unfortunately, like all rooms I had
stayed in in Central America, there was only one electrical outlet. Plugging in two fans, a light, three phones
and a computer involved lots of swapping plugs and a three-outlet extension
cord. Our room cost us $30.
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| Our Room at Tortuga Booluda |
We were all hungry, so we set off in search of food as soon
as we got moved in and oriented ourselves.
Eliza was a vegetarian, so we chose a vegetarian restaurant nearby. The restaurant was run by a German woman and
the food was fabulous. I had spinach
quesadillas that were more like crepes than tortillas. Eliza had a delicious Indian Curry and
Brianna had chop suey. Just when we were
sure we were going to eat there every day, the owner told us she was closing
down for a week to go on vacation. That
was a huge disappointment as I think we were all planning to eat there
frequently. After lunch, I walked across
town and dropped my dirty clothes off at the laundry. It was 96 degrees out, so I was pretty wiped
out when I got back. I spent the rest of
the afternoon reading in a hammock and couldn’t even move myself to go out to
get dinner. I munched a bag of chile
peanuts and hung out in the room while the girls went out to see their
friends. The evening would have been
perfect if I had not been attacked by huge flying insects that refused to be
chased away and just laughed at me when I tried to smash them. I finally had to turn off the light and go to
sleep.
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