Once again I was astounded by the ease of leaving Honduras and entering Nicaragua. We cleared both borders with little to no stress. I was surpised to find that there were none of the 'Reindeer Games' that the money changers and tramitadors played at the Guatemalan border. Especially in Nicaragua, the money changers quoted a competative exchange rate right off the bat and even went so far as to explain the difference in their rates and the banks. The reason was, if you can believe it, was to charge a small commission for providing the service! Now that kind of honesty and forthrighteousness works with me every time. One of the peculiar nuances of crossing into Nicaragua was that we had to pay our $7 entrance fee in US Dollars. They would not take Cordobas, the Nicaraguan currency. They did take Cordobas to pay the $10 dollar entrance fee for the motorcycles though. After crossing the border we could see that they haven't come as far as Honduras in dealing with the effects of Hurricane Mitch. The roads were still in very bad condition and there were numerous bridges that were washed out and have not yet been repaired. At lunch we immediately noticed the difference in costs from the other countries visited so far. A large chicken dinner with beans, rice, salad and drink went for about $2. Nicaragua is the poorest of the Central American countries. They still haven't recovered from the cold war game of chess that America played with the Soviet Union back in the late 80's. I'm sure ya'll remember 'Irangate' that's where the US Government sold weapons of mass desctruction to Iran using the profits to fund the Contra rebels. The Contra's holed up in Honduras and were being used to overthrow the Sandinista Government. The US funded guerilla war decimated the already weak Nicaraguan government who suffered for centuries under the dictatorship of the Somosa family (who coincidently were US backed also). Come to think of it, I remember that the Democrats were screaming for President Bush's head while the Republicans quietly tried to sweep 'Irangate' under the rug while secretly hoping that the Democrats would make an equally stupid blunder. And then along came Monica...but that's a whole 'nother story. Meanwhile here's Nicaragua is still trying to put the pieces back together. Our destination today would be to check out the mountain retreat called 'Selva Negra' (Black Forest). Selva Negra is a coffee plantation owned and operated by 4th generation German immigrants to Nicaragua. But first we stopped in the mountain town of Matagalpa. After crusing the streets of the pleasant town we proceeded to ask 4 different banks if we could cash travellers checks, none would. The 5th and last bank finally said they could cash the check if I would just kindly sign away our first born child. Nicaragua will have to improve some of its tourist services if they want to milk the cash cows meandering through their country. After climbing the 10 kilometers or so up the mountain side, we arrived at the coffee plantation.
Scribe: Linda The road that leads to Selva Negra is canopied by tall pines. It seemed like we were entering a tunnel. We had to pay a fee at the entry gate of 25C each but it can be used against the price of a meal. We inquired about a room and found out they had regular rooms for $30. Not cheap but we had decided that this was a place we really wanted to visit. The hotel has regular rooms, a small hostel (which was closed) and cabins. Everything is decorated in German traditional style with pretty floral curtains with matching bedspreads and towels and lots of carved wood decoration. We checked into our room and laid down to do some typing and relaxing. Jeff was feeling really low with the uncertain news of his brother and we were anxious to find out if we could use the phone line to receive some e-mail. We went over to the restaurant to get some dinner and the woman at the desk allowed us to receive mail. The phone line was pretty iffy but I was successful after about 5 tries. The messages poured in regarding Jeff's brother. The news was still pretty grim. Tom had bilateral pneumonia and was on a ventilator in the critical care unit. The messages also indicated that he was unconscious. It did say that he was more stable but not out of the weeds. We sat staring at our plates unable to eat and Jeff was sliding deeper into sadness. Right about this time, Eddy, the owner of Selva Negra appeared at our table and introduced himself. He joined us for the remainder of our dinner and his infectious good nature and hospitality warmed us tremendously. Eddy is a descendent of the original crew of Germans that came to Selva Negra. He is quite a history and storytelling buff and filled our ears with all sorts of interesting things. Eddy went to school in LA and lived in the states for a number of years, so speaks perfect English. However, we spoke mostly in Spanish and he only translated when we didn't understand. It is always a great opportunity for us to learn more when speaking with someone fluent in both languages. Feeling uplifted, we retired to our comfy room for the night. Tomorrow would be the day for us to decide whether we needed to go directly to Costa Rica and fly to Germany to be with Tom's brother. We planned to check e-mail in the morning to find out how he was doing.
The next morning we slept in a little and went over to the restaurant for breakfast. I connected for e-mail again and we got some more news on Tom and it sounded a little bit better. He seemed to be in a stable condition. After breakfast, we went out to enjoy the main attraction of Selva Negra, the hiking trails. On our way out, we saw a woman overseeing the construction of a new building. She greeted us in English and asked if we were going hiking. We said yes and inquired about the construction which turned out to be a new conference center/meeting hall. We asked a couple more questions about the trails and headed off. Jeff thought that we must have been talking with Mausi, Eddy's wife. It hadn't dawned on me, but it made perfect sense. Eddy had told us a lot about his wife the night before and we were planning to try to meet her in the afternoon. Eddy had also told us that one of his daughters was going to be getting married soon and that they were building an eloborate chapel to host the wedding. It was just up the hill and we could just picture how pretty a wedding would be there. We ducked into the jungle and proceeded up the trail. We planned to hike the "Peter and Helen" trail, so named for the founders of Selva Negra. This trail led to the top of the private mountain within the plantation. We reached the top after an hour but there wasn't really a view because of the thick foliage. Hmmm... seems like a pattern in our hikes. It was pretty though. We tried to connect to a different trail to come back down but couldn't find it. We gave up after a half hour and came back the same way. It seemed that no-one had hiked this trail in some time as it was quite overgrown. Jeff seemed to derive great pleasure in attempting to teach Mother Nature a lesson she wouldn't soon forget by whacking away at the branches to clear the trail. Must be all that farmer blood coursing through his veins. So back down we went, connected to another trail and wound our way around the lake and wound up back at the restaurant after about 2.5 hours of hiking. That's more like it. 2 to 4 hours is the perfect amount of time for me. We sat down to have some lunch, lakeside. It started to rain right about the time our food came. Perfect timing. After lunch we walked around the bird cages and headed in the direction of Eddy and Mausi's house to see the coffee fields and hopefully meet Mausi too.
Just down the road, a jeep pulled up next to us and lo' and behold, it was the same woman that we talked to in the morning. She asked if we were lost. We said no and being pretty sure she was Mausi but unsure of the pronunciation, I asked if she was Eddy's wife. She said yes and asked if we would like to join her and her assistant, Irma for a mini tour and review of the work they were doing in the coffee process. We gladly accepted and hopped in the car. Mausi and Irma took us over to where they were building a drainage system to be used in the coffee production. Excluding a great many details, this system would basically carry the toxic by-products of the coffee process down through a drainage system and eventually deposit the remains in a marshy area - by which time the water would be completely contaminant free. After some time for build up, they scrape the marsh and use it to fertilize the fields. The Kuhl's go great lengths to be environmentally aware and find ways not to waste anything - we were impressed. We then walked around their nursery and went for a tour of the coffee fields. The coffee plants creep up into the hillsides in very thick vegetation and it immediately made me wonder how they pick it. Mausi said they just walk around in there. Boy are we whimps, we thought it was hard hiking the trail. That was nothing compared to the physical rigors of climbing the hillsides to pick these beans! Anyway, we also took note of the numerous landslides left behind in the wake of Hurricane Mitch. Whole sides of hills had slid off. But, those hearty coffee plants had already grown back. Finally, Mausi deposited us back at the hotel and we went back to our room to type a little.
Later that evening we returned to the restaurant to get some e-mail, get something to eat and hopefully hear some more of Eddy's stories. We were in luck on all accounts and also got promising news on Tom's condition. He was doing even better and was showing signs of turning around. What a relief. Eddy showed up in the restaurant also and we were once again entertained by stories of Nicaragua's history. He told us to be prepared for a quiz later. We had told Eddy and Mausi about Jeff's brother and that evening he brought a message from Mausi that we could leave our bikes there for safekeeping if we needed to fly to Germany. We told him about our latest news and that we were going to continue on to Costa Rica and make a decision along the way. We were going to be sad to leave these wonderful people! We told Eddy good night and went back to get our bags packed again.
The ride from Selva Negra descended from the Nicaraguan highlands to the hot, arid flatlands. You could still see remnants from Hurricane Mitch and I suppose this years hurricane season everywhere. Many temporary bridges were installed and all that remained of the roads, at times, were washed out gravel. After a couple hours of riding we arrived in the colonial city on the lake. According to Eddy of Selva Negra Granada is the oldest post-colonial cities in all of the America's. It was founded by Francisco Hernandez de Cordova in 1524 and shortly thereafter they founded a church that still stands today. We quickly found a nice, cheap (which is kinda redundant for me because in order for it to be nice, it has to be cheap) room at the Hospedaje Calzada. After check-in we quickly hit the streets to explore this charming city. We walked for hours marvelling at the architecture and numerous antique churches. But now it was finally time to get down to business, finding the cigar factories. We asked some locals if they knew where I could buy some cigars. They hailed down a cab and told him what we were looking for and sent us on our merry way. Once we arrived we were quickly met by the head of production, an amiable fellow who was smoking three cigars at one time. The cigar smell was making Linda feel ill so she elected to sit in the foyer while I toured the facilities trying about 4 different cigars. The boss and I finally decided on a box of export grade Robusto's, 25 cigars for $30. He also threw in 5 other types of cigars for good measure. You know I really don't smoke cigars more than a couple of times a year but when in Rome...
Scribe: Linda
Meanwhile, Jeff forgot to tell you that the original premise of our walk was to get something to eat since we hadn't eaten since breakfast at 8:00. It was now past 2:30 and I was getting a case of the low blood sugar crankies. When he proceeded to tell me that he spent all the money we had on cigars and we probably wouldn't have enough money to get lunch without going back to the hotel, I was really unhappy. Forntunately for him, we had just enough. We sat down in a little cafe in the town square. We noticed that they appeared to be setting up food tents for something and we were told there was to be a party that night. Well, we'd just have to come back. Anyway, on the menu I spied the drink they had talked about in our travel book, Cacao. We both ordered one. Wow! Delicious. I think Jeff nearly replaced his beloved Horchata with Cacao for the favorite drink award. After lunch, we went back to our hotel to play some ping pong for awhile. Then we went for a walk down to the lakefront for a stroll through the "Complejo Turistico". Down to the beautiful waterfront we went and entered the gates of the tourist thing. I don't know who dreampt up this fiasco but whomever it was does not understand the concept of market saturation. There is a huge waterfront park with boatloads of bars and restaurants (numbering over 20). Meanwhile, there was not a soul inside them. It was like a ghost town, really weird to us. They had obviously sunk a lot of money into creating this area but clearly did not understand the target market. There was absolutely nothing to keep you in the park. Our consulting minds switched into overdrive trying figure out how to make this place work. We walked back to town thinking of the possibilities. After walking about 5 miles, we decided to call it quits and headed back to the hotel. After a quick shower we were going to go straight to the fiesta but decided to have just one more cacao drink in the park central. As we were waiting for our drinks, the owner's two buddies were laughing and looking at us and saying something about drugs. I began to get paranoid that they were plotting to spike our drinks and try to rob us or something. I was convinced that I felt funny from the first few sips. I decided to let Jeff drink his and I'd just see what happened. He seemed to be faring well so I drank mine too. When we walked off we laughed that they had underestimated the size of us gringos and they should have doubled the dose. So off to the fiesta we went. There were numerous bands of musicians walking around playing songs to the tables. Now Jeff was the paranoid one 'cause he was afraid that if we sat at a table that they would come over and play a song and try to make us pay. After spending a fair amount of time there, we noticed that no-one was paying them. There's a first. We hung out for awhile and decided to go over to the a little disco bar nearby. We were probably the oldest people in there and we were hard-pressed to believe that the girls in there were of legal drinking age. But we had a good time dancing to Mambo #5 which we have become very proficient at. Later the music got weird so we went back to the fiesta. Jeff got some dinner and we were gonna leave but we spied a big table of gringos and thought we might as well go on over for visit. There were a number of Aussies, a Swedish girl, a Mexican guy and some Brits. We all sat around chatting for awhile and eventually decided to call it a night. We were all going to Isla de Ometepe in the morning on the ferry and agreed to meet up then.
I woke up early after not getting much sleep because when we laid on our bed, it formed the shape of a "V" and we both slid into the middle on our sides. We also were told to come about 10:30 for the 12:00 ferry and we still needed to pack the bikes. We went ahead and got everything packed and then ordered some breakfast from our hotel restaurant. We sat next to a French guy that is a fellow computer geek like me. He was interested in a future motorcycle trip and we sat talking about our experiences. 10:15 rolled around and we decided we should head over to the ferry. Certainly didn't need to be there that early but it gave us an opportunity to hang out talking with some of the guys working around the dock. Although they asked way too many questions about how much our trip was costing and how much money we made. It was rather uncomfortable for us. But what can you do? Squirm and wriggle your way out of the conversation... and that's what we did and oh yeah Jeff told them his two very tired jokes for the umpteenth million time. I have to admit it though everyone seems to think they're pretty good jokes. I bet they wouldn't feel that way if they had heard them as much as I have. Finally time to load the bikes onto the boat. We asked the guys if there was a ramp to use and if it would be easy to load them. They said of course they had a ramp and it would be very easy. Cool. We road down to the end of the dock to the boat. Hey, this surely couldn't be the ramp for the bikes cause it was only a foot wide and we had to traverse about 4 feet from the dock to the boat. We stood there scratching our heads and obviously were taking too long because the guys at the dock came over, put the bikes in gear, picked them up and slid them down the ramp while we watched our babies pass over the water. Very unnerving to say the least. Now that we were safely onboard we headed to the top deck. I took some dramamine because the lake (10th largest natural freshwater lake in the world) is rumored to be very rough. There were two big rectangular benches up top and we perched ourselves atop them. The boat filled and we left on the nose. My dramamine made me really sleepy and I fell asleep on the benches. After I woke we sat around talking with our friends from the fiesta. It was a beautiful, clear, sunny day and 4 hours later we were at the next dock, Altagracia. Uh oh, more stess with the bikes. However, this time we only had to cross about a foot of water which was good. However, there were about a zillion platanos on the dock in our way. Eventually, a bunch of guys came over and moved the plantains and performed the same procedure to get the bikes off. We needed to ride about 12 miles to the town where we would be staying and we only had about an hour of daylight. We also knew the road wasn't paved and were unsure of its condition. We put on the riding pants and our boots and took off. The road wasn't bad - hard packed dirt. We got out to the main road to Moyogalpa, though and it got really rocky. Not my forte. I wasn't looking forward to 10 miles of this. Fortunately it became less rocky and was a varying mixture of rocks, hard pack and loose sand. It wasn't too bad except that we were headed directly into the sunlight and there was a ton of dust in the air which made it super hard to see. We approached town, which is paved and were greeted by a friendly volcano guide that gave us directions to the hotel. We headed down the road and within 10 minutes we had found a $10 room with AC at Hotel Ometepel. Awesome. We checked in and were debating whether we wanted to do a 9 hour volcano hike the next day. I wasn't all that motivated but we decided to go for it. We were going to find the guide we met earlier when an English speaking guide, that was the nephew of the woman that owned the hotel, showed up showing off his English. We agreed to go with him for $10 each and he directed us to go and buy food for the hike. We headed down the street to buy groceries when the power went out. Back for the flashlights. This time I wasn't going hungry! It was hard to shop with a flashlight and there wasn't a great selection so we got fruit cocktail, gatorade, raisin bread, raisins and cookies. Umm, umm, good. Now there's a breakfast of champions. We were starving but with the power out, were uncertain about the food possibilities. Our hotel had a generator so we opted to eat there. Meanwhile, we were still anxious about Tom's condition and really wanted to get e-mail. Our guide for tomorrow said he would help me find a place to connect. We went down the street to his friend's restaurant and he allowed me to connect, with the whole family peering over my shoulder. I went back to the hotel and Jeff and I read the e-mail over dinner. Great news. Tom was greatly improved and there was now no reason to believe he wouldn't recover fully. What a relief after the past two weeks of not knowing completely what was going on. We went back to our room early for tomorrow was to be a 4:15 wakeup call.
Bright and early the next morning we awoke for our hike. Jeff and the guide had convinced me to ride back down the dirt road we arrived on yesterday to the trail entrance. It was a hard sell for them because once I've crossed a difficult, unpaved road safely, I sure don't want to do it again. I made them wait until daylight though. So we took off about 5:30. We parked the bikes at our guide's friend's house and were on the trail by 6:00. As we walked, we discussed our guide's name, which we had taken for Berman. He informed us that it was "Birdman". Apparantly, his mother had watched an American movie when she was pregnant and heard that word and thought it sounded like a good name, but of course, had no idea what it meant. Anyway, Birdman told us it would take us about 5 hours to summit. The first hour was pretty flat and jungly and then we started climbing, but it was much easier than Celaque. After 2 hours of climbing through coffee fields, then banana plants and finally dense jungle we finally started to rise above the tree line and caught glimpses of what would surely be a fabulous view of the entire lake and mainland. Hey, where did all these clouds come from? The condensation in the clouds was so heavy that our hair was dripping wet. The temperature had also dropped quite a bit and we were all chilly. As the vegetation thinned the wind got very strong and we ascended into a thick dark cloud. As we approached 3 hours, the wind was so fierce that if we jumped in the air, we would fly backward a few feet. The visibility was almost non-existent, hmmm... seems like a pattern in our hikes. (deja vu). We made the decision that the wind was not going to permit us to continue, at least not safely. I don't think any of us were broken hearted although Jeff said he really wanted to see the top. Oh well. Back down we went, talking about Birdman's years as a boxer and about Nicaragua's number one sport, baseball. He told us stories of when they were kids playing baseball - there were times when the Sandinista army recruiters would show up unexpectedly and all the kids would take off running in all directions. If they caught them, they'd just haul them off without their family knowing. He said that even to this day when he sees the jeeps that the Sandinistas' used to round up the Country's youth, he still feels compelled to run. They finally caught him a little bit before his 16th birthday and he spent a little over 2 years in the Army before he escaped to Costa Rica. He was able to return to Nicaragua when they had their first democratic elections in 1990. He was a very likeable person and also highly motivated. He taught himself to speak English and was always asking for new words or expressions. He was planning on a future where he would start a tourist office on the island. Jeff suggested that he call it the 'Birdman of Ometepe Tours', why we could set up sea kayaking, mountain biking, volcano exploration, swimming, off road triathalon. The possibilities are endless, this place has it all. When Nicaragua develops a middle class, which could take a couple of generations and a mini revolution (because the rich down here in Central America are very protective of their wealth), this place is going to be 'the' tourist destination of Nicaragua. As we were scheming, I realized that my sunglasses were missing. Jeff was sure that they were in the backpack or my shirt but I was sure that I wasn't sure where they were. We all hoped that my glasses would be at the house with the bikes but I had no such luck. Bummer. Birdman's friends weren't home so we decided to check back later to see if they had found them. We all headed back to town for lunch. Jeff and I went to the restaurant of the guy that let me use the phone line the night before. I was hoping he might offer the line again and he did. I was gonna come back later to check mail again.
Later that afternoon, Jeff and Birdman went back to check on the sunglasses, apparantly they only were successful in running over a chicken. I went to check e-mail. More good news on Tom, he was making good progress and the latest prognosis was that he would make a full recovery with no long lasting side effects. By this time, we had learned that some of our friends from the ferry boat were staying in our hotel (the British couple). The guy reminded me of Hugh Grant and the girl was a fellow accountant. We all sat around in the hammocks and rocking chairs chatting and Jeff and Birdman went across the street to play some pool. From what Jeff said, it was the USA versus Nicaragua in a winner take all grudge match. Fortunately for the good ole' US of A, Jeff persevered 10 games to 8. By the time they finished there was quite a crowd watching the match. From my vantage point from across the street I could see Jeff smoking one of his Nicaraguan cigars and talking a whole bunch of smack. He can be as predictable as the tides sometimes. We all had a relaxing afternoon and eventually went down to the waterfront to have some dinner. While eating, we were befriended by three little local boys that took great interest in mine and Jeff's Nike watches. They wanted us to give them to them. Jeff joked with them and told them to play "rock, paper, scissors" to see who would win. When there was a winner to the game, they thought he was really going to give it to them and the losers got really upset. I told him that it wasn't very nice to kid around with them like that. Well, we had to catch the 6:00 a.m. ferry so it was time to pack and go to bed. When we were packing, we decided to charge the camera battery. Jeff went to plug in the adapter into the outlet and when he got the prongs close to the outlet, we saw a lightning bolt zap the adapter, sparks flew and the smell of smoke filled the room. Thank goodness that we were using our surge protector, it not only saved our camera charger but probably kept Jeff's teeth in place. Unfortunately we had fried the outlet and in all likelihood, the ac too. Crud. We had to hang up the mosquito net and open the windows for a nice muggy evening. Maybe ac just isn't in the cards for us.
We rose early again the next morning and went the 200 meters or so down to the ferry boat. We rolled up at the back of the boat and Jeff went to buy tickets. Birdman was also going on the boat as his family lives on the mainland. Once aboard Jeff, Birdman and I went through Birdman's notebook of English words that he is working on. We had fun with our on board English school. When we got to the other side we had to get the bikes through a bit of water at the river bank. Jeff wheeled his bike over and I went to do mine. Call it machismo, call it chivalry or call it what you want but all the guys milling around just couldn't let me do it myself. A few guys rolled my bike over and one guy gave me a piggyback ride so that I didn't get my boots wet. Meanwhile, I'm sure they all thought Jeff was the most thoughtless guy in town. It was pretty funny. Anyway, safely off the boat, we said our goodbyes to the Birdman of Ometepe and took off to get some gas and then head the other 18 miles down the road to San Juan del Sur. It was rather windy on the this side of Lago de Nicaragua but was a little lighter as we headed toward the beach. We were to SJdS in no time. We rolled up to the cozy little cove that the town is tucked in to. I checked out the first hotel, which was beachfront. It was just a little too sparse so I went out to tell Jeff. Outside, Jeff had run into a Belgian guy, Renault, that we had met in Moyogalpa. As they talked, I walked down the street to check out other rooms. I found a nice little room with private bath for about $7. I went back to get Jeff and we were checked in and unpacked by 9:00. Feeling very weary from our last few days of early wakeups, we decided to take a nap. While we were napping, we noticed that the fan turned off. The electricity had gone out.
We didn't have very much Nicaraguan currency left so we were trying to go pretty cheap on everything. We were really hungry when we woke up so we went over to the market to find a lunch stand. We both had the lunch of the day including a fresh fruit drink for about $3.50 for both of us. Afterwards, we headed down to the beach to do some typing. We sat in one of the many beach front bars and drank some cokes while we typed. We were still feeling really wiped out so we headed back to the room. We took another little nap and got up in time to catch the sunset and walk on the beach. I really liked this town. It's really mellow and pretty. We walked all over town and soon it was dark. As we walked, the electricity went out again. We decided to head back to get our flashlight and then walk around some more. We continued to walk around and the lights went on and off again another two or three times. We sat in the rocking chairs at one hotel and had a beer while we waited for the lights to come back on. Note: we have observed that Nicaragua has more rocking chairs per capita than any country we've ever seen. Since we couldn't really see what restaurants were what with the dicey power, we decided to head back to the beach. We finally chose a nice beachfront place and right as we sat down the electricity came back on. We asked the restaurant owner what the problem was (with the power) and he informed us that it was because of the strong winds. We had a great fish dinner and headed home since we had no money and the electricity was out again. In total, we counted seven outages. Seeing as I was working at Portland General Electric before I left, these outages were just incredible to me and hopefully, if we did our job right, this won't happen in Portland at the turn of the centrury :-). Other than that though, I sure like this quaint little coastal town.
Let me start this section with an apology... we haven't had much variety in our writers lately because Jeff says he has writer's block. Let's all hope he recovers soon. Anyway, the next morning we only had about 35 miles to the border and knew it wouldn't take us too long so we weren't too worried about getting up super early. We still got off about 8:00 and headed back towards Lago de Nicaragua. It was very windy again. Not far from the border, we were stopped for a police check - our first in Nicaragua. No problems and after a couple suspicious looks, we were off within a few minutes. As we approached the border, numerous cars and trucks lined the roads. We were looking for the office but were informed that it was further down the road. When we arrived at the border crossing that Jeff went to three years ago we found the office but it looked empty. It was. Apparantly it was the old building which had been replaced by another one a bit more down the road. Finally, we arrived at the nice, new office and Jeff walked around doing the border thing. He paid a our $3 exit fee per person and within a half hour we were on the road. We approached the border guard and upon checking our papers he informed us that we were missing something. Back we went and in another five minutes we were a-ok on the papers and were headed towards Costa Rica. Hasta luego Nicaragua!