Our first stop in Nicaragua was the beach resort community of San Juan del Sur, a place we thought would be a good starting point because of its popularity with tourists. It was the weekend that the town celebrated the fiesta to honour the Virgin Carmen, patron saint of fishermen, and there was quite a bit of activity. We saw horses parading down the cobbled streets and street musicians playing Latin American music. The oddest thing we saw was a couple of transvestites strolling down the street. It was just as we rode into town in a taxi and the driver honked at the two trannies, right away the whole car erupted in laughter. The two Germans that were sharing the cab with us and the driver all understood our surprised exclamations of "Ellos estan hombres!"
A popular way of celebrating for Nicaraguans is to set off bottle-rocket-like fireworks. There wasn’t any sort of colour in them, just a loud bang. For the first few days in San Juan del Sur Mary Beth and I would duck and look frantically around whenever one went off as they are quite loud. But by the time we arrived in Granada, the day before the country celebrated the anniversary of the victory of the Sandinista Revolution, we were pretty used to the almost constant bangs of the bottle-rockets.
In Granada we were guided to a cheap hostel by a couple of American volunteers that were in town to work with local schoolchildren. At $10 US a night for a private room with private bathroom, it was one of the cheapest places yet that we have stayed in. But we soon learned that the joys of cheap travel are often balanced by certain hardships. In Granada, and Nicaragua in general, the defining characteristic at the moment is the country’s energy crisis. Apparently the nation’s aging electricity-generating plants are not meeting the needs of the country. Plans are in the works to remedy the situation, but the new plants won’t be online until later this year so meanwhile the country is getting by on 30% less electricity than it needs. In practical terms this means that for 5-6 hours a day most citizens deal with the rolling black-outs that the government has scheduled. Our first week in Granada there was no juice from 2pm to 5 or 6 o’clock, the next week it switched from 5 to 10 at night. The lack of electricity is really no big deal as one can get by with flashlights and such to see, but most buildings’ water pumps rely on electricity so the lack of running water is the most trying part of the energy crisis. For us it meant we could only flush the toilet once each morning and splash a bit of water on our faces before the water flow returned to full force in the evening. Not every community is affected and some homes have water reservoirs that allow them to get by for most of the outages.
For the first few days we searched fruitlessly for a public pool to cool off in since the A/C and fans weren’t running, but to no avail. Our first solution was to head to the Laguna de Apoyo - a lake in an extinct volcano crater - to swim and relax, but we realized we couldn’t go everyday as it was a full-day trip to get there and back. After two weeks we finally heard about a hotel that allows non-guests to swim in their pool, so it’s safe to say we’ll be there often.
In general every one we meet agrees that Nicaragua is a great country for travellers. Every one coming from Costa Rica comments on the lack of American influence and the more tolerable number of tourists. Though we haven’t had a chance to travel very much within the country as we get settled in Granada, Mary Beth and I are both excited to spend a lot of time in Nicaragua and see the many attractions available.
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