And they had left without me. Granted, I was three minutes late but still...I WAS THREE MINUTES LATE! The woman there said they had all left about twenty minutes before, which means...basically I got ditched. Sadness. So, with a whole weekend of nothing to do in this terrible Leonese heat, I went back home, grabbed my Nicaragua guidebook, opened to a random page and decided to go to Matagalpa. It probably would have been a good idea to read into the place that I was travelling to, however I saw several hiking trails and many hostels so I figured it was a perfect place to go. Trading my bathingsuit for my brown pants, that I seem to wear all the time because you can´t tell if they´re dirty...and my towel for my hiking shoes, I headed off to the bus terminal!
Very excited to be off on an adventure on my own ("who needs guides and other foreigners...I can do it all by myself!" I was muttering the whole way to the bus terminal), I ended up having to wait two hours to a bus to Esteli...which apparently would take me to Matagalpa. I didn´t really know how long it would take or where exactly to get off the bus, but I figured since I only paid for the trip to the change over, the bus driver would throw me off when it came time. Now while I am becoming more and more comfortable with speaking spanish, and can have conversations with the family I´m living with and my students with relavitely no problem, it seems I didn´t understand the bus driver when he said my ticket was "de pied" (aka "standing"...I think that was just a problem with "selective hearing"). But I understood soon enough, when I got thrown out of my seat by a big, burly Nicaraguan man. As I´m crammed in the aisle of a big yellow school bus (from Georgia, ironically) with my backpack lying somewhere in the aisle as well...I started to relax. "I´m off!" I thought. Here are some of my other thoughts on the bus ride..."why is everyone falling asleep?", "the ride can´t be much longer than an hour", "I can´t feel my legs", "where´s my backpack?", "I wonder if I lock my knees and end up fainting, someone will give me a seat?", "thiiiiirrrrrssssstttttyyyy", "I probably should have eaten lunch", "the ride can´t be much longer than two hours", etc etc. So it was a pretty fun bus ride, where I was oogled for being the only gringa on the bus. Somehow it seems that every mode of transportation I take (to work, from work, traveling to various parts of Nicaragua), I´m the only white person/foreigner on the bus/camioneta...and people tend to stare. And this is a strange thing, because there are PLENTY of foreign travelers coming through Leon...I have no idea how they´re getting around but I guarantee it´s a lot more comfortable and less dirty than where I´ve found myself. After two and a half hours of standing on a bus bouncing up, down, left and right due to...potholes, of course...I exited with a wave of other passengers to what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. I asked though, and was assured that this was how I got to Matagalpa, and another bus would be by sometime before nightfall (at this point it´s about 3pm). So we all waited at the intersection of two big roads with nothing in sight but mountains and more mountains...and we waited...and we waited. And an hour later the bus came! Finally we boarded the bus, and I got a seat. What luxury! So finally, we´re off to Matagalpa! I settled in my seat and started making a bracelet when a girl a little younger than me bounced in my seat, asking to learn how to make it. We got to talking, she´s studying "how to take blood" in university. I swear that´s not a misunderstanding, but I¨m pretty sure it´s a little more than just that. She showed me pictures of her daughter, and talked about her husband etc etc. She was shocked/confused/a little appalled that I was traveling alone, and it took us over ten minutes to establish that 1) I live in Leon 2) I don´t know anyone in Matagalpa 3)I´m traveling alone 4) I haven´t made reservations at a hotel yet, before I think she decided I was crazy. And by this time I was thinking I probably was...It would be after 5 by the time I got into town, and I would probably have to leave early so as not to miss the last bus into Leon, what was I doing there again??? So I took out my guidebook and tried to explain that there were lots of hostels that I could stay at, and I would find one when I got there. This was not acceptable. She whipped out her phone and called my first choice, verified that they had rooms, and when we got off the bus an hour later, escorted me by taxi to the hostel. While I´m sure I could have done it alone, I was sort of relieved after all that traveling not to have to try to find a hostel too. (By the way, this hostel was my first choice because of it´s excellent "security" rating...so there´s at least one point for me for safe, smart traveling) I almost freaked out after I realized I hadn´t brought a copy of my passport with me, but after some super dramatic "ohh nooo, what am i going to do, i totally forgot, where will i sleeeeeeeeep?", the guy just gave me a room. And not just any room, MY OWN room, with MY OWN bathroom, with MY OWN shower! Ahhh a dream. And cheap too! For this price in most places you´ll get a bed in a dorm with a shared bathroom, that you probably wouldn´t want to shower in. So this was AWESOME.
Finally sitting down to actually read about the town in my guidebook (after realizing hiking was probably/sadly out of the picture) I realized it´s REALLY known for its coffee. The guidebook described the town as caffeine crazed, which was pretty accurate. For a relatively small city, only two real main roads, everyne was bustling and there were about a million stores (every single one of them second hand clothes stores...). Also, it´s built on these CRAAAAZY hills...some of the hills beyond the city looked too vertical for cars to even drive on, I swear they were almost straight up and down.
By this time I´m starved so I ripped the four pages of the city out of my guidebook (smartest thing I´ve ever done, I don´t carry a purse anymore so as not to get robbed, so to have a mini guidebook in my pocket was awesome), and went on a search for food. First treasure I found was BUNUELOS! Ahhhhhh...delicious fried little nuggets of yucca and cheese, drizzled with a syrup that´s delicious. Absolutely horrible for you, but definitely my favorite food in Nicaragua, that I haven´t seen any of in Leon. I went and looked at a few restaurants in the guidebook but finally found this little italian place hiding in a small side street. It really was amazing. I got the most amazing salad, with more vegetables than I´ve seen in the last month....carrots, and olives and lettuce and tomatoes and canned green beans (???), and some great pasta. Delicious, delicious, delicious...best meal I´ve had in forever. It seems silly to go to a city in Nicaragua and eat Italian food but at the same time, I´ve been here for two months, I´ve eated my share of gallo pinto and tacos and tortillas and pollo...it was a nice change. Probably the highlight of the evening was when I went back to the room and realized that not only did the shower have water pressure (!!) but the water was HOT (!!!!!!!). I could rave for hours about how amazing a hot shower was, but that would probably be more boring than this post needs to be. However, it was INCREDIBLE! After washing myself with bowlfulls of water from a big garbage can, ahhhhhhhh HEAVEN.
So I left in the early afternoon, made it back by the same route (with a tempting offer from an old Nicaraguan cowboy to marry him and help him run a farm) but at least this time I snagged a seat on both buses. It´s probably the most uneventful weekend anyone could imagine...I mean I traveled for hours somewhere to eat dinner, shower and sleep...BUTTT it was nice to get out of Leon for awhile and I learned some things...such as to research where you´re going beforehand and bring identification (idiot). However, after sharing this thrilling story, I think this will be the end of my solo, unplanned trips across Nicaragua.
2 comments:
Some stories (like ones about ringworm) are better told once you're safely home and with a glass of wine....mom
Don't worry mom! I'll soon be there to take care of my sis! Then we can get lost without identification all together!!
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