Nicaragua

Well what a beautiful country! Entry was perfect, as I somehow managed to get business class. I sat there waiting as they called business, the groups 2,3,4,5, wondering what had happened to group1 and wondering why it said preferential access on my ticket. Then I thought, ' these are big comfy seats'. When my breakfast arrived with "china and linen and proper glasses, I realised I too had 'arrived'!.

The hotel, El Almirante, is lovely, and as per most of the houses is built around courtyards with verandas for good airflow and cooling. And it is sooooo hot!  On arrival yesterday I had a swim and rest by the pool and yesterday evening ate here in the garden courtyard. I am currently sitting by the pool and planning a swim soon. 

The people are lovely, guides so knowledgeable and the food really good. I have learnt so much about this country which formerly I had only known as rather war torn.  Everyone is very frank and I feel quite sorry, that they have had such a chequered past at the hands of some very corrupt people. 

Consequently they have little money to build infrastructure, to invest in exploring their history or to pay essential professionals decent salaries. They lose qualified people to neighbouring countries and have a very high number of young people so children go to school in shifts, yet they are trying so hard to develop and tourism is increasing rapidly, by 13%pa.  The ecology and geography are very interesting, lots of birds, trees and of course the volcanoes.

Granada is a very small city but exqusite, with brightly painted houses and beautiful colonial buildings, which I saw on my city trip in a horse drawn carriage yesterday. There are some museums but money for research is limited, but everyone wants to talk and tell you what their aspirations for their country are.

My second trip today was on a boat where we went around a couple of dozen of the little islands in Lake Nicaragua. There was abundant wildlife, birds, monkeys and flowers and I was given bananas to encourage a couple of monkeys from the trees which they very politely took from my hand !

Volcano Mombacho overshadows Granada and its last eruption created the 360 little islands many years ago. Volcano Catalina can also be seen from the lake. This is the second largest freshwater lake  after Titicata.

There seems to be a lot to see and lots of open space. It is said to be the safest country in Central America and that was reinforced by the newspaper article I read about the canal. This is something else people have talked about. They too are concerned about the impact on wildlife and the government is discussing its position geographically, however they do need to develop their economy and people need jobs so it is difficult to make judgements from outside.

Yesterday lunchtime I ate guacamole, last night fish with fresh vegetables and today I went to an Art cafe which has a community workshop and had a lovely Ceasar salad. The waiter remembered me looking earlier and greeted me with 'You have come back!' I think I get a lot more engagement by talking in Spanish, and after I did this at the tour office my guide arrived this morning and decided he would do the whole tour in Spanish. 

Tomorrow I travel on across the lake to Ometepe island. I have now booked my tours for there. Oh and I had to contribute to the local economy by buying a new hat, as mine fell out of my pocket this morning. But for both of these I managed to negotiate a price reduction.

It is a bit bizarre seeing a Christmas tree in this environment, but  Christmas seems very low key, although there is a market where people are buying fireworks in readiness for their celebrations.