19 October, Sunday

Adam has business to conduct in Nicaragua this week.  His colleague is bringing his wife, and they kindly asked if I would be able to come along, too.  Sal is from El Salvador, and about 7 years ago, Adam and I went to San Salvador and spent a week with Sal and his wife, Ana.  We all had a marvelous time.

Under normal circumstances, we would have made an effort to bring the kids, but we’re already taking them out of school two weeks from now to attend Brian’s wedding in California.  They just couldn’t miss that much school.  My mom very graciously agreed to fly to Georgia and hold down the fort so I would be able to go with Adam on the Nicaragua trip, just the two of us.

I know very little about this country.  When I was a kid — back in the early 1980s — my dad watched the 6:00 p.m. news every single evening.  This was back in the day when there were only four channels to choose from, and (as I recall with my little kid memory) all four channels aired news at 6:00 p.m. which I considered a huge bummer.

I didn’t pay much attention to the TV once my afternoon Sesame Steet/Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood combo was over, but it was always on in the background during the evenings and I listened to bits and pieces.

At that time, Nicaragua was mentioned a lot because it was a war zone.  The Contra rebels were trying to oust the Sandinistas, and it was very bloody.  It was talked about on the news frequently because the US, through the Reagan administration, was supplying the Contras with weapons.  Unfortunately for everyone, they turned out to be brutal, murderous rape-and-pillage terrorists who slaughtered nearly 30,000 innocent people.  After everyone with any sense realized that supplying these guys with weapons was a bad idea, Reagan covertly laundered weapons to them through Iran.  (It became known as The Iran-Contra Scandal.)

I am ashamed of our country when I read about what the US (and in particular the Reagan administration) did.  You can get a synopsis here if you are interested in a quick recap.  (It was also the administration which, in many ways, set the stage in the Middle East for the horrors being experienced now.)

Anyway, this awful business is what comes to mind when I think of Nicaragua.  I was a little afraid to come here, even though they’ve been relatively stable for quite some time now.  Horrors that stick in your mind when you’re little are the hardest ones to overcome, even when you know intellectually that there is no current risk.  I didn’t realize how much of those 1980s news broadcasts had seeped into my consciousness until this trip came up a few weeks ago and I started thinking about Nicaragua for the first time since 1984.

For anyone who may be reading this in the future, I’ll mention that the current international fear is the ebola virus, which is ravaging several African countries.  Pretty much everyone in the whole world is terrified of ebola spreading into a pandemic via infected people hopping on planes in a real-life version of 12 Monkeys.

Case in point:  Thomas Eric Duncan flew from Liberia to Dallas, Texas about a month ago and ended up dying after a big mishandling of his case by the Dallas hospital.  (You can read about his case by clicking on the above link.) 75 healthcare workers were in physical contact with him, and they were not quarantined.  Two of them have since proven to be infected with ebola, and one of them traveled by air (within the US) before being diagnosed.

Another healthcare worker who had contact with the ebola sample in Dallas went on a cruise from Galvaston, TX through the Western Carribbean without completing a 21-day quarantine.  The cruise ship docked off the coast of Belize and Honduras, then was denied clearance by Mexican authorities to dock in Cozumel.  As one can imagine, Belize, Honduras and Mexico were hopping mad over this breach of common sense. (The worker did enter voluntary quarantine onboard the ship, and later tested negative for ebola.  But still. This is the kind of thing that should not happen, and a perfect example of why people are scared.)

As a result, the Central American countries are now really cracking down on foreign travelers.  Once we boarded the plane in Atlanta (following normal airport security protocol) we were given the entry paperwork required by the Nicaraguan government.  One of the sheets was a quite detailed medical questionnaire.  To our surprise, when we landed in Managua we were all herded off the plane and into a long line right on the disembarking ramp.

All of the airport personnel were wearing medical face masks and rubber gloves.  Before any passengers were allowed into the actual building, we had to stand on a platform and be scanned for fever by an infrared camera.  It felt like walking into a dystopian sci-fi movie set.  It’s an uneasy feeling when everyone around you is wearing hazmat gear and you are standing there breathing air with your naked face like an experimental lab animal.

As I watched people getting scanned, one by one, my hypochondriac tendencies kicked in and I was suddenly terrified that I had a fever.  “I am feeling kind of warm!” I thought to myself.  (Bear in mind that Nicaragua is a tropical country and was around 85F with 75% humidity on the disembarking ramp.)  By the time it was my turn to be scanned, I was half convinced that I was terminally ill and would be shuffled off to some Central American holding cell while they decided what to do with me.  But the guy just grunted “bien” though his face mask and waved me on to the Customs and Immigration area.  Same went for Adam.

So, we exited the airport without further ado, grabbed a taxi, and checked into our hotel.  Tomorrow morning Adam and Sal have a meeting right after breakfast, but the four of us have the rest of the day to explore Managua once the business has been conducted.

20 October, Monday

After Adam and Sal finished with their meeting, the four of us hired a driver to take us around for the day.

We first stopped off at Mercado Roberto Huembes to do some local tourist shopping. I was looking for small presents to bring home to the kids as well as see if anyone is making any art.  I’m always on the lookout for local artists, but assumed I wouldn’t find any on this trip because the weather forecast was for rain the whole time we’re here.  The artists I usually am attracted to tend to sell their work outside on the street.  Today we lucked out and the weather was quite nice.

And then I found the motherlode of local art work!  We ended up purchasing two watercolor-and-ink drawings by an artist named Marlon Ocampo.  The guy threw in a third (much smaller) drawing as a gift.  He said the artist was a friend of his and seemed really happy that out of all the paintings on display, we chose the drawings by a guy he knew.  Once we got back to the hotel, I found this blog post on the unknown artists of Nicaragua.  

Sal and Ana.  Adam has worked with Sal for almost 15 years.  He’s retired now, but still helps Adam out part time in Central America.

Our next stop was along the shore of Lake Nicaragua.  It’s such an enormous lake that I mistook it for the ocean.  It has a unique ecology, containing bull sharks and other species of fish generally associated with the ocean (tarpon, sawfish) and is the 19th largest lake in the world (9th largest in the Americas.)  It also has a reputation for periodically powerful, unnavigable storms.

[edit:  this is actually Lake Managua.  All that stuff I said about Lake Nicaragua is true, but we were mistaken about where it was.  Lake Nicaragua is by Granada.  Lake Managua is still quite huge and very lovely, though.]

We stopped at a kiosk for “batidos” which are blended fruit drinks. 

Sitting in the shade with a cold drink felt really nice.  It was very, very hot and humid today.  

Sal getting a photo of Ana and I with the lake in the background.

School children milling around while they wait for their turn to board a party boat.  We have no idea what kind of field trip was happening, but it sure looked like a lot of fun.  

We ate a late afternoon lunch at a steak house recommended by Adam and Sal’s client.  It was fantastic and we all ate ourselves into a stupor.

Sal and Ana took a bus from San Salvador to Managua last night and didn’t get into the hotel until 3 a.m., so after eating all that food and wandering around in the heat for several hours, we were all ready to head back to the hotel for a rest.  We agreed to meet in the lobby tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. to eat breakfast and head out for Granada.