| Jeff Poulter & Graham Tillotson: 24th August 2004 |
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Leon, Nicaragua
We've arrived in Leon, Nicaragua which is supposed, according to the Lonely
Planet guide, to be one of only two places worth visiting in this country.
(The other is Granada, where we hope to go tomorrow.) Well, so far we ain't
deeply impressed. Yes, nice enough colonial town but we're all colonialed
out; as we are with markets and cheap eats places in which you sit on plastic
garden chairs in insufferable heat and humidity. Weary old traveller, me.
But there are no museums here nor anything to see other than a long list
of churches and outsize cathedrals with all their opulence alongside such
poverty and squalor. Makes you want to throw up. The big cathedral here
has a 'masterpiece' painting of three floundering galleons, Protestantism,
communism and atheism, each having been destroyed by the good galleon Catholicism
which is sailing off unscathed from the battle, into the sunset. Really
funny. Still, there are plenty of wall slogans accusing Bush of genocide
and there's a beauty of a doctored photograph of Bush in Nazi uniform with
Hitlerian moustache. Naughty.
Wow! a tropical rainstorm has just started outside the large open door next to which I'm sitting: huge drops, making one hell of a noise, and within seconds the gutters are eight inch deep torrents a yard wide. No, make that a foot deep and a yard and half wide. Hang on, we're likely to get flooded in here any second now! And the noise! Now the whole street is flooded and cars are creating bow waves, and it's only been raining a couple of minutes. Maybe this will wash some of the crud off the bikes. It's an ill rain...
Going to Granada
We left Leon this morning and have rocked up in Granada, a town of 125,000
souls on the shores of Lake Nicaragua, which is very large lump of water.
Although it's still steamy hot and humid, this is a much nicer place than
Leon. Strange, and the Leonnites hate this place and t'other way round.
In fact the two cities once started a war over who was top dog and governed
the country. Nobody won so to avoid further competition the capital was
named as Managua (just like Bonn and Canberra got elected!). Everyone agrees
that Managua is a dump so we missed it out. However, Leon is supposed to
be the liberal and intellectual centre of the country, the place where
the uprising against the Sandinistas started which is why Leon has several
monuments to the event (the largest of which is a mural paid for, and partially
painted by, the inhabitants of Hamburg); on the other hand, Granada is
supposed to be the conservative lot. But, it must be said, both GT and
I are of the opinion, Leon stinks and Granada is a rather cool joint. Leon
is grubby and smelly, has no restaurants or decent bars and a huge cathedral;
Granada has guys playing volley ball in the street with nets and umpires,
great-looking eateries and is clean and well cared for. However the lakeshore,
which should be its glory, is a ruin, thick with mosquitoes, midges and
the smell of sewerage. So we abandoned the lake and are now in the centre
of the old town drinking beer writing. Hey! it could be worse. And outside
there is a bedlam noise of exotic bird - including parakeets - singing
their hearts out.
As we left Leon we were waved over by a couple of cops looking for a take.
They checked our documents, which were scrupulously in order and tried
to inform us that we had taken the wrong lane when we turned at the previous
junction. We played stupid and asked him to draw the offence, which he
did. His version would have us riding directly into on-coming traffic,
so we both burst out laughing, at which he sheepishly handed us back our
papers and we hightailed it outta there. Cheeky sod! Don't these guys know
we got gunboats?...........
Inside Costa Rica
Well, we're in Costa Rica, about 70km inside the border which we crossed this morning. We had hoped to make San Jose today as the roads have turned out to be very good so far - far from the horror stories we had heard about Costa Rican pot holes. However, we stopped early for lunch since the sky ahead was black with rain. As it turned out, it didn't stop raining for six hours so we've holed up in a place called Liberia. It's not bad either: clean, pleasant and with no obvious poverty or bad smells. But we haven't really explored it, again, because of the rain. And we'll be off at the crack of dawn to recover the lost day.
We need to have the oil changed in San Jose and get some laundry done. And the latter is necessary since we've been using two T-shirts a day in the very hot and humid lowlands we've been travelling through for the last few days. Every now and then one needs a few days just to sort things out and do all the little things that don't get done when you're constantly on the run.
Costa Rica looks a nice place. It's very lush and, as you probably know,
has a very enlightened conservation policy - something like a quarter of
the land area is national park. They also don't have an army here which
is a refreshing change in this part of the world. There are still police
on the road doing spot checks, of course. And, at our first check today
the guy with the wrap-arounds spotted that the customs official had inaccurately
detailed Graham's number plate - using a Y instead of a T - so protracted
frowning ensued. GT was just starting to get angry, so I started taking
the Mick out of the dumb fuckwits in customs and this clearly goes down
well with the cops who share the joke, laugh and wave us on. Phew! We could
easily have been sent back to the border to have the paperwork renewed.
Jeff 24.08.04 |
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