I wish all turtles carried nunchucks and bo-staffs

It'd been raining for days. The roads were awash with pools, mud splashing through or over the sides of our flip-flops with every step. It was as black as a hallowe'en cat when we set out, and somehow seemed to get darker as we got closer to the beach. It was 7:30 pm, and we were heading toward something amazing, not that we really knew it at that point.

We stopped for a minute and turned out the flashlight, to admire just how dark it really was as we walked along the deserted road toward Playa del Flor. But when we shut off the torch, the most amazing display of fireflies that I've ever seen was found to be lighting up the night sky. Hundreds of them, dancing, shining, playing in the night, like shooting stars making magic in a dreary sky.

We kept walking, until the bus came by and told us how incredibly dangerous it was to be walking on that road. We boarded, on their insistence of danger and distance to the beach, even though we figured we were fairly close to the destination. Two minutes, and the price you'd normally pay for a 1 hour ride later, they dropped us off at the entrance.

We had arrived at Playa del Flor, famous turtle nesting ground, on the night that marked the quarter before the new moon.

It was sheer luck that it was the quarter before the new moon, we really had no idea. And even if we did, we wouldn't have known the significance. We were later told that the turtles only come to nest during that part of the moon cycle, once a month, and we just happened to arrive at the perfect time.

When we arrived, the rules were clearly explained to us:

• you can only take one photo per person (with flash)
• never shine your light in the face of a turtle
• don't surround a turtle
• don't get in the path of a turtle
• don't touch the turtle
• don't use yellow light, all lights were covered in red paper before being allowed on the beach
• no more than 5 people around a turtle at any given time
• be quiet

Simple. Any buffoon or set of buffoons could follow these rules. And it's not like these rules are just for fun or to exercise power, each one exists to project the turtles. And they need protecting, as buffoons are more civilized than humans a lot of the time.

When we went down to the beach, there were only a few other people there, and the two guards patrolling up and down the beach keeping an eye both on the tourists and watching out for any poachers that might be trying to get the turtle eggs. Turtle eggs, sadly, are a delicacy in Central America.

We immediately spotted a turtle, and then another, and another. Three turtles! Awesome. Then the guard came over and summoned us to come with him. Shit. Did I flash my light in the face of a turtle? Did I accidently get in the path? What gives?

Well, he guided us over to another turtle who was digging her hole. Then he scooped all the sand out from behind it, and we sat there, watching this amazing woman give birth to about 100 eggs. Each contraction, one, two, or three eggs would fall down into the pile in the whole. Each contraction requiring a tremendous amount of effort and energy, the turtle breathing heavily, and making some "I'm really given'r" noises.

Finally she had dropped them all. Tired as all else, she then proceeded with her giant flippers to fill in the hole, and pound the sand down for protection. About 20 minutes later, when she finished this, she slowly crawled back into the ocean.

That took quite some time to witness, by which point, some other tourists had arrived. But this time, in a tour group organised by one of the hostels, notoriously bad for their turtle tours and lack of care. Honestly, I think that monkeys would be smarter. There they were, standing in a group around a turtle, occasionally flashing lights in its face (curiousity and stupidity are oft cousins), touching it (granted, they were trying to remove some fishing line that had twisted around the flipper), stopping it from going where it wanted to.

We wanted no part of this, so we went for a walk to the far end of the beach, where there was only darkness. On our walk, the storm over the ocean started to gather steam. The lightning started to get closer and brighter, and what a show!! Every time the lightning would crash you could look down the beach and see hundreds of turtles coming and going from the ocean, lit up by the storm! What a spectacular sight!

I'm sure we're not the first to witness this event, I mean, the turtles have been around for 200 million years.



(my one picture!)

The next day, we went down to the beach to do some swimming. When we got there, there was a turtle coming out of the ocean and some locals were going to get it. It was so big and beautiful!

And dead.

We learned from the locals that what happens is poachers have boats and catch turtles before they come to sea. Then they cut them open, take the eggs, and drop them back in the ocean to bleed to death. What a waste. By the time it washes up on the beach, it's too late to use the meat as it's rancid, and the locals didn't have any use for the shell. So the turtle, which they estimated was over 100, was left to die for the eggs. The eggs sell for about 220 cordoba ($12) in Managua (the capital of Nicaragua), but I'm not sure if that's per dozen or per turtle, although I got the feeling it was per turtle.

(sad, empty eyes)

There was nothing we could do but bury it. The locals had a shovel, and we all buried it on the beach. They said this was the first of the season, but certainly not going to be the last.


(a grave sight)

Don't buy turtle eggs. Or for that matter, any part of any endangered or protected animal: all you're doing is making behaviour like this profitable. And for what? To say you ate this or that? Or to have a silly souvenir to show to your friends that will no doubt, when the world is a little more conscious, just reflect badly on you? We all have a chance to make the world a little better place with all of our decisions.

Central American Snippets: Transportation

In a previous entry, I had talked a little about the over-crowded minivan that I took in Guatemala. I feel like I should explain a little more about the adventure that awaits every time you try and take public transportation, because it IS an adventure.


(standing in the aisle: age and sex are irrelevant, timing is everything)

Although the exact details of the transportation varies from country to country, I'll do my best to give you a basic understanding of what it's like getting around.

The smallest trip anywhere, when taking local transportation, can take you all day. Here in Nicaragua, with the schedule-less microbus system, things have been a little easier, but it's still always a challenge. I say schedule-less, but it's a little more ordered than that: microbusses, which are really just minivans, leave whenever they fill up. And that's pretty often, because getting around is necessary and cheap. You can take a microbus for an hour and pay between $1 and $2.

The microbusses are the faster, more expensive option. For a few cordobas less (Nicaraguan currency), you can take a far slower and more adventurous local bus. Here, as everywhere else south of Mexico, the busses are old school busses, privately owned and operated.

I almost never check bus schedules. Why? Well, unless I'm going a long way, the information, if you can access it, will almost certainly be wrong. And it will be different from each person you ask, or sign you see... all that you can assume is that it's probably not accurate. In the end, I figure I save time and frustration by not going to the station in advance and trying to track down the correct information, and just going and waiting for a bus to leave toward where I'm going. And always, this works out.

Luggage, that's a whole other issue. The microbusses are hit and miss for luggage storage. Sometimes they'll throw it on the roof. If you're lucky they'll tie it down. And if you're REALLY lucky, like, winning the lottery kind of lucky, they'll throw a tarp over it to protect your gear from rain. The other half of the time, you and your bags are crammed in with the other 14 passengers, sometimes it's behind the seat, sometimes it's in the precious space allocated for your legroom, and sometimes, it's on your lap. And that's just the way it is, so people smilingly accept it.


(bed on a bus)


With the local busses, it's a great transport system. They take your cargo, whatever it is, and hike it up onto the roof. I've seen guys carry 100 pound sacks of rice up the bus ladder, balanced on the back of their necks, and chuck it on top like it's nothing. Amazing. And they'll take anything. ANYTHING. So with our bags, although I initially felt a little guilty about the weight, until I realized that our bags are like feathers, perfectly packaged feathers.

Other local modes of transportation include...



(horse and carriage: something you see here, and don't even flinch)

...and the ever popular...

[pictures to come... on a DVD]
(two person bike!)


Of course, there are cars, trucks, and motorbikes all over the place too...


I thought I'd mention one of my least favourite things about Central America in this section also, even though it's not directly related to getting around.

Garbage disposal.

It's disgusting. Look at this photo that I took at the "bus station" (where all the buses park on the side of the road in the market) the other day:


(note that there IS an almost empty garbage can)

This is unbelievably common. There is just no social consciousness when it comes to pollution and littering here. None. When you finish something -- plastic, rubber, styrofoam, glass, whatever -- all you do is drop it, or pitch it out the window if you're in a vehicle. It's the norm. And it's sad, because you see the littlest of kids see their parents doing it, and then you see them turning around and do it. Okay, this is a small problem relative to some of the other problems here, but one that's so easy to fix. But alas, that would take public education, and government funding, and I'm pretty sure that it's not way up there on the 'to do' list.

Central American Snippets: The Weather

As previously promised, a few more snippets from "daily life" in Central America.

The Weather

Right now, it's the rainy season. It has been for more months than I can remember. Although what exactly that means varies from location to location, depending on various factors like proximity to the ocean, latitude and altitude (among others I'm sure, I'm no weatherologist), I can give you a general approximation of what that means.


(that's two kids, playing in the rain coming off the roof)

It means that it rains. A lot. And it means that you sweat. A lot. During the days, I never stop sweating. Thanks partially to the hairshirt I wear, and partially because the relative humidity is never less than a million units of humidity. And all that humidity builds up and up until the sky releases. Sometimes it rains all day, but those days are very rare. If it does rain during the day, it's usually a quick downpour. Most of the time it rains in the late afternoon and/or overnight, which is great because it cools down, but doesn't stop you from enjoying the days. This was the case all through southern Guatemala and El Salvador, and for the most part, here in Nicaragua. Although sometimes, the rain just blows in with very little warning. And HOW it blows in! Full force! Within minutes there will be rivers or ruts in the roads, and the dry will be a distant memory. The duration varies, but is usually about 20 minutes to an hour, and then it passes by.


(sometimes is rains)


(and sometimes, you're not ready for it)

My full moons on this trip have been fairly spectacular events. This one was no exception, and I'll mention it here because it was highlighted by the weather. I spent this full moon playing guitar in my cabana on a deserted beach in northern Nicaragua, in the middle of the biggest thunder and lightning storm I've ever witnessed. It was a prototypical day on the beach: beautiful clear skies all day, a spectacular sunset over the ocean, and a WILD thunderstorm at night. The lightning and thunder were observable almost at the same time, with the flash and the crash lighting up the sky and shaking the ground all around us. This is something I won't forget for a while.

My Nicaraguan experience

(welcome to Nicaragua)

I've been in Nicaragua for almost two weeks now, and I've got to say, the experience hasn't been the greatest of all the countries so far. In fact, I' d go so far as to say it's been my least favourite Central American country so far. There are a number of reasons for that:

• I've been injured and doing rehab.
• The people.
• Expectations.

I left El Salvador with injured knees from my body surfing mishap. Your body and mind are so inter-related, whenever one is out of balance, the other is surely going to be also. So, I must admit that my temperment has not been the best, and the glasses that I've been watching the world from here have been a little injured. I have gone to physiotherapy in the two towns in Nicaragua that I've been to that have physiotherapists. The quality of the treatment has been a little suspect. The first doctor I went to was a little 70 year old man who, without personal assessment, went straight to his generic "knee problems" sheet, and gave me some generic exercises. Ohhhhkay. They actually did help. The second doctor, God save him, again without personal assessment, gave me some generic physio, a massage, and a spinal adjustment (who was also a chiropractor). Thank you sir, but I've never had such bad back pain in my life, and have been bed-ridden for four days. Right, so this has obviously affected things.

Secondly, the people here are not nearly as polite as other places I've visited. This came as a big shock, given the fact that all the traveller's that I'd met had said Nicaraguans are such hospitable and nice people. Well, so far, I've been lied to, stolen from, cheated, and treated like a money object constantly. A few times I've been asking simple questions, like, "what's this food made of?" or "where does this bus go?" and just been completely ignored and looked at with disgust, like I should just know. Weird. Maybe they don't like bearded people.

And clearly, I can't overlook the roll of expectations in my disappointment. I expected great things from Nicaragua. People have been talking about it so highly: the people, the scenery, the culture. I suspect most of those people did a lot of drugs, or came from places I never want to visit. With grand expectations, come grand disappointments. Having arrived from El Salvador, which was such an amazing experience, Nicaragua had big shoes to fill, and little feet.

Of course, even though the experience hasn't been the best, it hasn't totally been the shits either. There are always silver linings on dark clouds.



I've made my way from the northern border with Hondurus, down the West coastal region, to Granada.

I spent a few days in the north, in Esteli, a city that was a stronghold for the revolutionary group, the FLSN (aka the Sandinistas), that overthrew the Somosa dictatorship in the late 1970s. I could feel a certain coldness and tension in the people up there. The war and it's realities is not so far removed from the people. Check out the waterfall near Esteli, it was one of the highlights (not so much because of the waterfall, but because of the really great people we met there).



(A waterfall near Esteli, in the north)

From Esteli we headed south to Leon, one of the two old colonial jewels of Nicaragua. It was touristy. Coming from El Salvador and northern Nicaragua, this was quite a shock. There were white people everywhere, and with them, the generic white-person treatment you get from the locals who deal with the tourists every day. But Leon itself is quite a nice city. It is a city of art and culture, with a mix of the old and the new everywhere you look. It had a number of beautiful murals, some so big that I couldn't capture them with my camera.


(mural numero uno, the full length of a basketball court)


(mural numero dos -- Leon is Culture)


(mural numero tres: Bush Genocide, Enemy of Humanity, Death to the Imperial Invader)


(Leon: bike shops are a common site in the markets)

From Leon, we took a day trip out to San Jacinto, famous for it's bubbling mud pits. When we arrived, every kid in the town was there to greet us and offer there guide services. It's pretty cute when a 4 year old kid is touting his professional guide service. Unfortunately, we didn't have any money to give them for tips, so we walked into the mouth of the dragon alone, with them yelling warnings of great grave danger behind us.



(boiling mud pits of death and destruction)

At one point, a little girl ran up to me because I was getting too close to the soft spots in the ground. She told me that just recently a cow had fallen into the pit beside me, and died. After learning I didn't have any money, she quickly made her exit.


(cow killers)

From Leon, we wanted a break from it all (that being the Gringo Trail -- all of the places you can find in the Lonely Planet guide book), so we headed up the coast for a few days to Jicalillo. We'd seen an advertisement in a hostel for a place owned and operated by a Californian woman that wasn't advertised in the LP, touting and empty beach with "nothing to do". She sounded like a hippy. Hippy gold. Was I ever right, dude man guy. But she was absolutely lovely, as was her place. There were only a few people, and the locals were not overly touristed and were lots of fun and happy to have us there. This is where we watched the full-moon thunderstorm.


(our shell-filled deserted beach)


(only us)


(okay, not ONLY us)

We didn't have much to do but read, enjoy the water and the beach and watch the sunsets. With the thunderstorms at night, there wasn't electricity (how ironic). But that was no problem, we just lit candles, and enjoyed the shows.


(I love the big skies)


(admiring a sunset)

From Rancho Tranquilo, we headed for the other colonial jewel of Nicaragua, Granada. And I thought Leon was touristy! This place is probably tied for the most touristy city I've seen on my trip, with Antigua, Guatemala! Very picturesque, it's a nice place to stroll around and take in the architecture, or walk through a bustling market. This place has an unbelievable number of Westernised eateries, to cater to tourists. It's actually been tricky finding a place where locals go to eat!



(Granada, from the church bell tower)


(God loves a nice sunset)

When my back is good enough, we're outta here. We're heading for a less touristy area, and apparently one of the most beautiful spots in Nicaragua: Isla de Ometepe.