Friday, El babre del mono, Granada 10.28am
I am currently in the lovely colonial town of Granada, Nicaragua. Much needed after the relentless multi-storey shopping malls and high rise buildings of Managua.
I do not think I shall be returning to Managua unless I absolutely had to. We were staying in a local hostel not too far from the bus station. We were advised by locals to get taxis everywhere but as we were travelling on a shoestring we thought we’d be fine walking to the post office a mere 15/20 minutes walk away to send a package home. Thankfully we arrived safely, packages intact. On the way back we took a detour to admire the shoreline, a few powerful looking statues and an old church. We stopped off at an ATM to get a big more cash. I always (luckily) squirrel any withdrawals away in my socks and/or bra along with my debit/credit cards. 10 minutes later, we were walking down a relatively busy crowded street (of locals) when 3 men suddenly appeared out of the crowd. The older of the 3 had a gun, which he pointed directly at my chest, and the younger 2 had knives which they aimed at my friend. To this day I cannot remember if he spoke to me in English or Spanish but the meaning was clear. I didn’t have a bag and my very small purse was attached to my belt with a looped string, I opened it and offered it to him (it had about $5 in it) he took the money and ran off, his two fellows followed suit after wrestling my friends bag away from her (which contained her withdrawal of several $100, her camera, umbrella, contacts, credit cards and other useful bits and bobs – as well as our hostel key). So. The moral of the story is to always listen to the locals! At the end of the day, it could have been much worse and we weren’t hurt. If anything, the thing that upset me most was the attitude of the other locals. Once the men had ridden off, people simply returned to their business, and no one asked us if we were ok or anything (which most certainly would have happened in Costa Rica). This either spoke of people assumption that as we were tourists we were therefore wealthy (which comparatively we obviously are) and/or of their distrust in the legal and justice system. Or simply that no one wanted to get involved.
Annnyyywaayyy. The town here in Grenada is beautiful. The cathedral? Wow. Set against a (thankfully) pure clear forget-me-not blue sky, to which the rich, sunflower yellow of the cathedral stands out in brilliant contrast. I cannot believe some of the photos I have taken. Not that I’m an amazing photographer or anything but it’s just so easy over here! Everything looks like its straight out of a guide book or something.
Yesterday we went to Laguna Apoyo, which is a natural fresh water lake in the middle of an extinct volcano. It was cloudy by the time we arrived after an hours hike up and down little muddy twisted paths but still absolutely magnificent. The water stretched out still and calm, a faint breeze gently rippling the water’s surface. The heavily wooded sides of the crate slope down to brush the waters´ edge. Everything is so green, peaceful and alive. The indigenous people here say that the lakes’ waters have healing powers. Luckily the day before we bumped into this very friendly chica se llama Sam, from Brighton who was doing voluntary work here and who told us how to get to this private beach, she said it was quite a trek, and she was not wrong. So worth it though. The water felt incredible silk soft-like, caressing, it was almost as if we were in an enormous bath, floating without a care in the world. Felt so good to be swimming again. One would think that you would keep really fit and in shape backpacking but unless you´re a dedicated morning jogger or whatever it can actually sometimes prove rather difficult as apart from various hikes you send an awful lot of time on various forms of public transport!
