The following day was Sunday, January 4, 2004. With the New Year celebration behind us and Managua going back to work, we decided to take it easy, visit my aunt and uncle's house at the Apoyo caldera, go with them to look for some land that was "only 15 minutes" from the house at Apoyo, eat dinner and make it back to Managua in time to catch a cab to a local sports bar that we had scouted the day before that was showing the Sugar Bowl on TV.
The view from the front porch of the Miranda residence at Apoyo, Volcan Mombacho in the distance.
The veranda at my aunt and uncle's home at Apoyo has a view that most of us would love to have from our own front porch. The home nearly didn't survive my cousin Roger's wedding there in 2000. Shortly after the wedding, the priest who performed the ceremony died, an earthquake ("terramoto") struck causing extensive damage to the house, Volcan Masaya erupted and Daniel Ortega announced his candidacy for president of the country. We hope the fallout from Roger's wedding is over, but we still parked our car facing away from the crater just in case.
View of veranda and Apoyo caldera, the hooks at the top are for hammocks.
Since repairing the earthquake damage, my aunt and uncle have been hard at work decorating the home and planting fruit trees and assorted other plants around the house. Things really do just grow better down there. The volcanic soil is extremely fertile and it never gets cold. The plants immediately behind Margaret in the photo below are poinsettias. I'll bet most "Norté Americanos" don't even know they can get that big.
Margaret displaying "Max" written with an achiote seed on her hand
After checking out Apoyo and my aunt's and uncle's budding herb nursery, we headed off for the "15 minute" drive to see a man about some land. After an hour or so later, we gave up on finding the property and headed back to the Masaya highway to try out some vigorón at a restaurant just outside of Managua. Of course, vigorón has pork in it, and so did the two plates of "antojitos" that Max and I split, but we didn't see very many stumbling Nicaraguans whose predicament couldn't be blamed on rum and after all, a week without eating pork is about all you can ask of a person anyway. In any event, we had already had nacatamales for breakfast and so the pork rule was already broken for the day.
Afterwards, we headed back to Managua and took a cab to Lord Nelson's Sports Bar to watch the Sugar Bowl, the real national championship game. Watching an LSU game in a foreign country is a treat. We drank the bar out of Victoria and Toña (the two best national beers, respectively) before the night was out and we weren't even close to being the drunkest people there. One guy from somewhere in the US that I don't remember who had bet LSU and the under at the casino across the highway was so drunk that the bar stopped serving him. Well, he won big and it was a good night as the LSU fans surely know.
By Monday, January 5, I was getting the hang of driving around Managua, rotundas and all. Now for those of you who are used to traffic circles, roundabouts or whatever you call them in your part of the world, the rotundas in Nicaragua are very interesting. Some have 2 lanes, some have 4 lanes some have 3 and some have a combination where part of the circle is 4 lanes and part is only 3. In some, the lane divider lines are completely worn away and you can't really tell. To make matters worse, each rotunda has its own rules. On one four lane rotunda 2 lanes had to exit, 3 lanes could exit, two could continue around and one had to continue around. In others, the outside line had to exit and the inside lane could exit on others, the inside lane could not exit and the outer lane could continue around. As confusing as this seems, the rotundas are the best intersections.
Intersections controlled by traffic lights are an adventure as well. Some have protected left turns with no arrow. So you are sitting there waiting for the other traffic to proceed before you turn and every car behind you is blaring its horn. Some controlled intersections have arrows and at many, people are standing between the lanes, or sitting in wheel chairs in the middle of the lanes to beg, wash your windshield or sell you something.
Wheelchair bound beggar and intersection vendors in Managua
The windshield washing scam is practiced by quite a few very aggressive teen boys. Some have squeegees and some just have dirty rags. If you shake your finger, yell "no" and blow the horn, you have a 50/50 chance of getting them to leave the windshield alone. If you look like a gringo tourist in a big Mitsubishi Galloper, you are just out of luck.
We headed to Granada on Monday to do the jungle canopy tour at the nature preserve on Volcan Mombacho, but its closed on Mondays, so we went to Granada and took the boat tour of the Isletas, small islands that were made when large chunks of rock were thrown from Mombacho during an eruption. The Isleta below was for sale for $30,000.
Isleta
We visited the market at Granada looking for some "traca tracas" to bring home as presents for children. "Traca tracas" are the two plastic balls on the end of string that I used to call "knockers" when I was a kid. They were THE hot toy in Nicaragua during this trip and there were none to be had in Granada though you could hear them everywhere. I have a few extra pairs if you want to experience a little wrist pain while you learn how to use them.
