NICARAGUA BLOG: No Keys, No Pants & No Luggage

After 23 hours back at our apartment, I already felt like I needed another holiday. My passport expires next year, and I am getting nervous at the prospect of not quite filling it up. The destination for our 5-day break was Central America’s largest country by area: Nicaragua. Sandwiched between Honduras and Costa Rica, Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in the Americas, which added to the attraction, as we don’t opt for holiday destinations unless they are poor, war torn, uninhabitable, disease-ridden, or afflicted by natural disasters. It was also represented a milestone trip for me as I notched up my 50th country visited (only 146 or so left to go).

Isla de Ometepe was the first stop on our itinerary. We had taken 3 subway trains, an Airtrain, two planes, 2 taxis, a minibus, and a 2-hour public bus (standing all the way) to get there. Add to that was the ferry, which I am told took an hour over rough water. Thankfully I had taken some drowsy travel sickness medicine, so I swore the journey took less than 2 minutes. Anyway, after a long day travelling we were delighted to finally arrive at our authentic Nicaraguan guesthouse near the village of Santa Cruz.

Concepcion Volcano, Isla de Ometepe

We barely caught our breath on our arrival when word from other backpackers spread of a full moon party that night. Proceedings were already underway at the island's notorious party hostel, Little Morgan's. The month's fancy dress theme was "no pants." Thankfully it was the American meaning of the word rather than the British. The party was in full swing already by the time we arrived at Little Morgan's at 6pm. By 11pm they cleared the hostel and everyone was sent packing down to Santo Domingo beach to dance the night away under the full moon.

The island had been formed by two vast volcanoes - Concepción and Maderas – which sprung out of Lake Nicaragua creating the figure eight-shaped island. The two volcanoes dominated the island and were joined together by an isthmus. The lush greenery that flourished in the island’s fertile soil that surrounded the volcanoes made it very tropical looking. The fluffy clouds that blew over the peaks of the volcanoes by the notorious off-shore island winds made it very picturesque.

Just call me Valentino Rossi

We rented a scooter and buzzed around the island, taking in breakfast at a hippy hillside organic farm of El Zopilote, the green lagoon of Charco Verde and lunch at beachside restaurant. We kept to two wheels the following day as we cycled down a cobbled road (one of the better roads on the island) all the way to El Ojo de Agua (Eye of the Water), joining two clear water swimming holes shaded by a lush tropical forest.

 El Ojo de Agua (Eye of the Water)

Sunday Funday

Our next stop - San Juan del Sur - was a real gringo (referring to white travelers in Central America) town. The small, beach-side community is home to numerous gringo hostels, gringo bars, and travel shops selling gringo tours to nearby gringo surfing beaches or turtle watching. Even the locals’ favourite restaurant has been gringo-fied with Aussies, Americans, and Canadians devouring the famous $5 grilled lobster special that we sampled (and very nice it was too!). But Sunday in San Juan del Sur is all about Sunday Funday. The name speaks for itself. For $15 you were driven on the back of 4x4 trucks to three pool parties at various hotels, complete with a DJ, and enough alcohol to satisfy an army of Scotsmen. The admission fee also bought you the famous “Sunday Funday” vest, which was obligatory to wear unless you possessed a ridiculous costume. It was reported that backpackers through Latin America had spotted the t-shirt as far north as Mexico and as far south as Argentina. I’m guessing it’s as essential as the “Same Same But Different” or “Beer Lao” t-shirts are on the Southeast Asia backpacking circuit. At Sunday Funday we made friends while slurping cocktails, laughed at revelers getting thrown into the swimming pools, avoided the MTV cameras, and watched sunset from high up over the half moon-shaped bay.

Chilling out on the ferry back to the mainland

Staying in San Juan del Sur had come at a price. We had procrastinated our cultural visit to the impressive colonial town of Granada, mainly due to Sunday Funday. Instead, we decided to head back to the airport for our flight to Houston in a private taxi. As is the case in many of these countries, it’s the distance driven that is the cost rather than the time it takes. In other words, there is no extra cost to stopping en route. So we decided to make the most of it, and we negotiated with our driver to travel through Granada and stop for two hours prior to heading to the Managua airport. We had time to gobble down a bowl of fresh fruits, drink coffee, roam the Granada town center, climb the church bell tower, and get a feel for another one of Latin America’s picturesque colonial towns to put on our list which already included: Cartagena, Colombia; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Antigua, Guatemala.

US Immigration isn’t exactly my best friend at the moment. It’s nothing to do with their obnoxious questioning and envy of my well-stamped passport, rather their inability to deploy a sufficient number of staff to work the desks. I waited 2 hours at JFK the previous week, which paled into insignificance in comparison with the farcical scenes at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Houston. It is one of the major airport hubs in the US – mainly to Central and South America – yet the staff had implemented a policy not to expediting the queue for anyone who is dangerously close to missing his connecting flight. Worse still was their laissez-faire attitude. Fellow travelers eventually took pity on my tricky position and ushered me to the front of the line only for the jobsworth immigration officer to tell me off because I didn’t ask his permission. “I’ve been waiting in this queue for ages. My flight leaves in under 20 minutes. So, if it’s all the same to you, can you please pull your thumb out of your arse and stamp my passport? And make it pronto,” I didn’t say.

Looking at the customs line, I decided to abandon my luggage on the carousel in Houston and run for the gate. It was either my luggage of the slim hope of making the flight. I almost gave myself an asthma attack running at top speed to the furthest gate imaginable gate in the vast airport (note to oneself: must join a gym forthwith). I was greeted on my arrival by the airline staff who appeared to take some perverse pleasure by informing me that I had narrowly missed the flight. Great. No flight and no Marina as I had sent her off to the US citizens line at Immigration in the vain hope that it was faster than my line. We hadn’t brought our cell phones on the trip and had no wifi, or a way of contacting each other.

I caught a ride on one of those airport cars to customer service in another terminal who were able to tell me Marina hadn’t made the flight either. But there was no sign of Marina anywhere. Worse news was to follow when United told me the last flight back to New York that evening was fully booked and I’d be sleeping at the airport, as United wouldn’t provide accommodation. What had started out a lovely day sipping coffee in a beautiful old colonial town had suddenly gone decidedly Pete Tong. I rebooked us on the next available flight – some 13 hours later – and bolted to the other end of the airport to another terminal to try to get on the standby list for the last flight back to LaGuardia (New York). We were 5th and 6th on the standby list, but I knew we had a chance of getting on as there must have been others in the same predicament as us, and I could only hope that the Immigration hadn’t decided to improve their glacial pace in the past hour. There was one slight flaw in my great plan: I had no idea where to find Marina. I had to stand at the gate and hope she had the same idea as me. About 45 minutes past as I paced around the gate holding our position on the standby list. I was about to give up shortly before they allocated the standby tickets to the spare seats when Marina suddenly honed into view looking warn out from running around the airport, yet nonetheless pleased to see me. We were the last people to get called off the standby list onto the flight and managed to get seats in Economy Plus. Our luck had changed. Or had it?

The euphoria we experienced when we ran onto the plane was quickly extinguished at the realization that we had somehow inexplicably packed our only set of apartment keys in our luggage. Yes, the same bag that was still at Houston after we had been forced to abandon it in pre customs in a desperate attempt to catch the flight. We spent most of the flight formulating a plan of attack for the night, which included staying at a nearby hotel, turning up at a friend’s apartment unannounced after midnight (as every friend’s phone number is stored in our phones which we didn’t bring on the trip), or simply scaling the fire escape to try and break into our living room window.  Instead, we opted for the simple plan and tailgated a skeptical old lady into our building. We knocked nervously after midnight on the door of the owner upstairs, who greeted us in her pajamas looking a little disheveled amidst our constant apologies. We breathed a huge sigh of relief when she returned to the door holding up a key. We took it and raced downstairs. I put the key in the hole and tried it turn it. It seemed stuck. Then my heart dropped as I realized that we changed the locks last year and this must be the old key. D’oh! A few seconds later the owner leaned over the balcony dangling another key. This time it was the real one. We were home, at last. It had never felt so nice to be home. The bag arrived turned up 2 days later, but we weren’t complaining.