Lots of agua, but not yet Managua, in Nicaragua

We are now in lovely volcano-covered Nicaragua. As in most countries we have visited, the people are very nice for the most part. Nicaragua is the poorest country in Latin America, and that shows mostly in the number of people who come up to us on the street asking for money. In general, they have been more aggressive here than other countries. Rooms and tours are cheap, but food is surprisingly expensive compared to other countries in the region. Now for some pictures:

Tara was enthralled with the Nicaraguan sunsets, which would have been nicer without the city wires, but it still looks nice. This is from outside a church in Rivas, which has a colony of parrots nesting in the church. They are really cool, but so loud that I have no idea if anyone hears the priest speaking.
Most of Nicaragua seems to celebrate one or more religious festivals on any given night. Some of them have accompanying rides. In Rivas, they had a ferris wheel that went backwards at about 5 times the speed of a normal ferris wheel. And the whole thing looked like it was built out of extra scrap metal in someone's yard. This meant you felt like you were falling each time you went around. It was a lot of fun, and we were happy to have survived.

We traveled by boat to Ometepe, an island in Lake Nicaragua that is the largest lake island in the world. It was created by two erupting volcanoes. This is the smaller of the two covered in clouds.

This is the ferry that we took to Ometepe. We don't have a picture of the boat that we took back, but it was half the price of this one and looked like it was built of popsicle sticks. This one was very full going to the island. For some reason, the boat that could barely float on the way back was almost empty...

We didn't realize it, but the devil apparently lives at the bottom of this lake in Ometepe. According to local tradition, if you want to make a Faustian deal with the devil (and a lot of people apparently do), you go to this lake in the night and talk to him. They have many local stories about people who suddenly became rich or powerful after taking trips there.

In Ometepe, we went swimming in a nice large pool filled by natural springs. Here, Tara tried to show off her diving skills and I agreet to take a picture underwater of her entrance. As it turns out, Tara dives much like a cat would. Arms and legs pointed down and entering first and then the belly hits. I was laughing too hard to take the picture right as she went under, but here is one a second later.

We took maybe a half dozen underwater pictures. In this one, we agreed to keep our eyes open and stick out our tongue. Somehow, Tara configured her face to look like a diseased gnome.

This is a view of the pools, advertised as natural pools. Many things on our journeys have been advertised as natural, which translates to "slightly more natural looking than a cement block". It was very nice, though.

At the pool, we saw this lizard. It sat still just long enough for me to snap a shot, but not long enough for me to get the better camera.

We also saw these birds, which the locals apparently hate because they eat the crops. We thought they were terrific. Look at the crown on its head. We plan to introduce them to New York in hopes that they supplant pigeons.

Also on Ometepe, the natives there used to build huge statues. Not Easter Island size or anything, but bigger than life size. This was apparently a likeness of a king. This is clear because he is looking straight ahead. Everyone else has to look at the king's feet.

The primary method of transport for most of Nicaragua (and much of Panama) is old school buses. Some are painted, but many look just like the yellow Blue Bird specials that delivered me to school each day as a kid.

While sitting in an internet cafe one night, we heard what sounded like an explosion. Then a band. Then saw a float coming by. Part of a random religious procession, but they had a full marching band leading the way. That's the virgin on the back of the float. They really, really like the Virgin Mary here.

This is the larger volcano of Ometepe when the clouds cleared for a moment. This is considered the most dangerous volcano in Nicaragua because it is active, due for an eruption, and the 30,000 or so people on the island are sitting ducks if it erupts.

Tara took this picture in an attempt to Jew up Nicaragua since Adonai is one of the names for god in Judaism. Truth be told, I suspect the Jewish population of Nicaragua is a donut. (For more on donuts, see Tara's food post.)

At the market in Masaya, they had these colorful piggybanks stacked up for sale. Not sure who buys them, but they looked so nice all piled up.

In Masaya, we went to see some folk dancing. All the local professional dancers perform every week. Tough to take pictures in the dark, but you might be able to see here that most of them have these huge dresses that they have to hold the whole time they dance. One of the traditional dances is somewhat Halloween like and everyone wears crazy outfits. Really funny since they can't really see out of the masks and frequently collide.

We went to Masaya Volcano, which actually has five different craters, one of which is currently active. This cross was erected by an early Spanish missionary in hopes that it would stop the local people from sacrificing women and children to the volcano. Not surprisingly, it didn't work.

Here we are by the active crater. The smell of sulfur is definitely strong there. We didn't see them, but there are parakeets that live right down in the toxic fumes.

One more shot near the active crater. You can see how the crater falls off. We couldn't see any lava--just lots of steam. The last eruption in 2001 was a small one, but threw up lots of rocks that destroyed many of the cars in the parking lot, but no deaths. The signs warn you to hide under your car in the event of an eruption.

This crater is no longer active, but was responsible for one of the largest eruptions in Nicaragua's history. It is right across from the active crater, so it certainly isn't impossible that it could blow again someday. Fortunately, it didn't the day we were there.

Two cities in Nicaragua were historically the most powerful: Granada and Leon. Managua was the compromise capital between the two. Both are nice colonial cities. Then you find out that they have both been destroyed and rebuilt about a half dozen times, with both being in really bad shape after the civil war that ended in 1979. Here is a shot of Granada.

Here is a closer shot of the church. About as colonial looking as it gets.

From Granada, we took a kayaking trip around the 365 small Granada Islands in Lake Nicaragua. Well, we didn't see them all, but a lot of them. The current trend if you own one of these islands is to sell it to a dumb American willing to pay a minimum of $100,000, so if you have some spare money and want to buy one, they are available. Here is Tara in her kayak.

This is a tiny fort built on one of the islands to defend against lake pirates! That's right, Lake Nicaragua is so big that it historically had a ton of pirates who would show up, burn Granada to the ground, and loot everything in sight. So, they built this fort that apparently saw a lot of action and had to be rebuilt several times. I wonder if lake pirates were laughed at by ocean pirates. Are you a real pirate if you sail around a lake?

If you are a lake pirate, you only get a parakeet rather than a full sized parrot. Arrgh!

And there we have the first half of Nicaragua. More to come.

Let's Dance! (Southern Colombia)

We are in Colombia!

The very first thing that happened when we crossed the border from Ecuador in the south is that we were met by moneychangers in the street, a pretty typical border occurance. What was new is that these guys had rigged calculators in an attempt to rip off tourists on the dollars-to-pesos exchange rate! We had read that such calculators exist, but had not encountered them yet. Luckily, Andy's fast ability to commit math saved us from being gauged by these nogoodnicks.

That has been quite atypical of Colombians, though, who on the whole seem incredibly friendly and helpful. In general, this is the kind of country where if you stand on the corner for a minute with your guidebook, looking confused, people start shouting at you from across the street asking how they can help. It's like being in Sao Paulo again, or somewhere midwestern, like St. Louis.

One of the other first things that happened in Colombia was that Andy's third pair of sunglasses on this trip bit the dust. He has been very unlucky with sunglasses! (Left his old ones on a bus in Brazil; bought cheap ones in Paraguay that broke the next day; then swore off sunglasses for a long time, til Bolivia when we were going to the blinding white salt desert.)

Here is what was left of the Bolivian sunglasses.

So, our first major stop in Colombia was Cali. You may know of it as a formerly notorious drug-smuggling center, but I was excited about it for two reasons--it's supposed to be the cheese-bread capital of Colombia and the salsa-dancing capital of Latin America. In these two areas, it did not disappoint!

The town itself wasn't the most exciting, though, especially on a Sunday morning, which is when we first walked around. Here is a view from a nearby hill.

I did love all the azaleas, though! (There are way more in Cartagena, as I would later learn.) Here is a cool gothic church near the center of town in Cali. Couldn't get inside, sadly.

One thing I found curious about Cali is that their pigeons are different from the standard ones you see everywhere, even in other cities in Colombia. They are smaller, and brownish--a classier breed of dove, methinks.

Here is Andy in our hostel with the resident puppy. Puppy is sad that we won't give him any of our breakfast. Andy looks sad, but really his mouth is just full of breakfast.

There are way more black people in Colombia than in almost any other South American country we've been to...but political correctness does not yet seem to have affected this restaurant's logo.

So, the salsa dancing! We actually found Colombia (or at least Cali and Cartagena) to be surprisingly expensive, but one great deal we got was private salsa lessons with champion salsa dancer Carlos (and one of his female students) for $10 US an hour. (Which was apparently expensive, since our hostel-keeper seemed slightly appalled at the asking price when he phoned them up for us.) So our teachers came to our hostel and taught us some basic salsa steps for two hours out on a lovely terrace with views of the rooftops of Cali.

How did I get Andy to agree to do this, you ask? Easy--I just reminded him of the countless, endless hours I have spent hiking with him on this trip, and pointed out that two hours of dancing would hardly begin to make up for the time I have devoted to his physical activity of choice. Hard to argue with that logic.

So, here you can see Andy concentrating very hard as he prepares for our big twirling/switching places move...

...and smiling, because we nailed it!

At the end of our lesson, we asked our teachers to do a little demo of their own for us. Of course, they were amazing.
I had a great time at the lesson...Andy decidedly less so, but he stuck with it and though he refuses to believe me when I say this, he did a terrific job. We meant to go out to a club that night and try out our moves...but, well, we were tired, and I decided I had tortured Andy enough for one day, so we went to sleep instead.

Speaking of sleep, we ended up with the most amazing "bedroom" in our next destination, the capital city of Bogota. At the excellent Hostel Platypus in La Candelaria, the old city area, we were given a choice of a room with shared bathroom for $20 US or private bathroom for $25. We decided to spring for the private bath...and ended up with a private apartment! In addition to the promised bathroom, it had a bedroom with three beds, a kitchen, and dining room/living room with a big hammock. We kind of wished we were staying more than one night.

Our first stop in Bogota was the Museo de Oro, or Gold Museum, which cost about $1.50 apiece and is supposed to be one of the best museums in South America. I usually get bored at such places, but I must say that it was pretty cool. The first part taught us all about how different metals are mined, smelted, and made into different shapes, and the second displayed all sorts of amazing artifacts from indigenous cultures all around Colombia and South America. We called this guy the flying monkey.

There was also amazing pottery in all sorts of shapes, like this fellow, who I think is some sort of jug.
Fun churches in the old city in Bogota: I thought this one was straight out of Candyland.
And here is the cathedral on the main square. We couldn't get to it because the whole square was closed for some sort of police promotion ceremony. Note the lovely mountains in the background. Bogota is the third-highest capital in S. America (after La Paz and Quito).

Speaking of the police, it cracked me up that in the cities here, police are labeled "me" (short for metropolitan) and the beginning of their city's name. So in Cartagena, their vests say "MECART," and in Bogota, well, see below.

The fun abreviations continue at the public library, aka Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, aka Blaa.


Bogota seemed like a very modern, cosmopolitan place to us, especially in North Bogota, which is the newer section with all the business towers and malls. But even there, we saw horsecarts in the rush-hour traffic!


We weren't even going to go to North Bogota, but then I found out that "Julie & Julia" (which I have wanted to see for three countries now) was playing at a mall up there, so we had to go!


At first we thought that we could walk the 60 blocks in an hour, easy, but we quickly realized that Bogota blocks are waaay longer than New York City blocks. This led to a frenzy of bus-system-figuring-out, and walking around confusedly after we were dropped off (North Bogota has so many malls that at first we went into the wrong mall). Then there was a power outage in our mall, and the theater's computers went down, and we were afraid that the showing would be canceled! But lo and behold, the lights came back on, and the movie showed, and it was just as delicious as I had hoped. (And, since it was half-price Tuesday, tickets only cost $3.50 apiece!)Getting home was another story, as we ended up on an express bus (oops!) that took a turn in the opposite direction from where we wanted to go (double oops!). But we eventually made it back to our sweet pad, where, inspired by all the cooking in the movie, we cooked lentils and pasta and fresh tomato sauce in our sweet little kitchen.


The next day, we took a trip to Zipaquera, a town outside of Bogota that claims to have the #1 tourist attraction in all of Colombia--the Salt Cathedral. It was set in a very touristy "theme park," and would have been really expensive if it hadn't been half-price Wednesday (Tuesday and Wednesday are clearly the days to visit the Bogota area!).


As it was, we paid $5 US each to get a 1.5-hour tour of the Cathedral, which was built completely out of salt and some marble underground in a huge salt mine, completed in 1995. Yes, you could lick the walls, and yes, we did.


Here's a detail of a cathedral wall that had been damaged by water, causing this cool texture to form.

The main cathedral chamber, which is huge and pretty awe-inspiring. Though the subterranean surroundings really seem more fitted to worshiping Satan than Jesus, don't you think? Hm, maybe that's just me. My favorite thing in the salt cathedral--this carved stone version of the hand of God reaching out and touching the hand of Adam, as it is on the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel in Rome. This piece is lit from behind and central to the main cathedral chamber.

After the tour, we were treated to a 3-D movie about how the mine works.

I'll just say that it featured a time-traveling robot that can project holograms and was almost as good as some of the movies we have seen on the buses here--such as "Fireproof," in which Kirk Cameron is a fireman who finds Jesus and stops yelling at his wife, "Nostradamus 2012," and "Drop Zone," starring Wesley Snipes as a skydiving cop. Only the best of world cinema on the Colombian buses, I tell you.


That wraps it up for the first half of Colombia. My better half will tell you all about the second in due course!