We started in Diriomo, which specializes in cajeta (a milk based candy) and witchcraft. We bought a bit of the candy, but steered clear of the witchcraft - we think we've toed the line of our religion quite enough for this trip. This town also has a church. We looked at it. The we did the unthinkable and got into a tuk-tuk (even though I once swore I never would again) to take us to the next town.
Our next stop was San Juan de Oriente, the smallest of the Pueblos. This is an entire town (some 4000 residents or so) dedicated to pottery. It's all they do. Some of it was really cool looking and different (when your whole town exists only to shape clay, it gives you some time to come up with creative new ideas), but I think you have to be a bit better at Spanish than we are to invited yourself into their workshops to watch them work. Though they were gracious enough to welcome us into their regular shops and invited us to buy many things.
Across the street was our next town, Catarina, whose residents are obsessed with flowers. Most homes have a garden out front and sell flowers, plants, and cacti right there on their front porch. After walking up to the town overlook (and wishing we had caught a tuk-tuk up to the top) over lake Apoyo, we sat down and ate our PB&J amongst the growing crowd of Nica teeny boppers on a school trip.
From there we took the bus (after a taxi driver wanted an astounding 8 dollars) to Masaya and visited the super sketchy lakefront park before heading to the hammock district. Masaya is apparently the hammock capital of the world, and in one particular neighborhood every house is a hammock workshop/store. After checking out the artisan market in Masaya we headed over to the entrance to the volcano to meet up with our tour from yesterday.
The volcano was one of the high points of the trip. You know a tour is good when even though the two main selling points don't happen (we didn't catch and parakeets heading to their nests inside the steaming crater and the lava glow was too faint to see because of the moonlight) every one still walks away raving. After making it up to the same lookout point as yesterday (right before it started raining) we continued from the smoking crater to the extinct ones that are lush with vegetation (making an awesome contrast to the desolation of the active holes). While Adina did not appreciate walking along the narrow lip of the crater with pretty steep drop offs on both sides, naturally I loved it. We then headed into a couple of ancient lava tubes. One to walk deep into the blackness and the other to sit at the mouth of and watch the bats fly around and over us. We also found a boa constrictor at the entrance to the cave that had just eaten a bat. Or so we were told - it's easier just to trust them when they say this stuff. We headed back to the active crater and tried to watch some lava flow, but the night was a bit too bright and the lava a bit too sleepy, so no one (except my camera) was able to see much. Of course what we missed with our eyes was more than evident to our ears, as the volcano was consistently burping up mini explosions the whole time we were sitting there.
Friday morning we finally did a few of the Granada sightseeing stops (nothing to write home about. Although I suppose that's exactly what I'm doing right now.) and then headed to Laguna de Apoyo, a pristine crater lake which is also the deepest spot in Central America. Or at least the bottom of the lake is (70 meters below sea level). We did not make it that far down, but we did find ourselves some hot spots by the shore while we were kayaking. Since the last major earthquake there in 2000 there has been an upturn in thermal activity, making Apoyo our fourth active volcano of the trip (and fifth overall). The waters of the lake are the type of clear that we've only ever seen in Lake Tahoe - if there was a bit more light you'd be able to see all the way down. Adina also enjoyed a pedicure by the lake, the woman was able to reduce the size of the golfball blister she had developed wearing crappy shoes, just one more way the little bastard on Ometepe messed with our trip. The place we stayed in was a small little group of cabañas on a steep slope leading to the lake. The first night there were only 4 other people staying there (including Josh and Gavriel who were happy to join us in Friday night kiddush). The manager of the place is American woman that has either led one of the most interesting lives on the planet or is so whacked out of her gourd that the line between fantasy and reality mean absolutely nothing anymore. My guess is it's somewhere in between. But closer to the gourd side. We were the only people there Saturday night, so we got in some nice quality time with before dinner. Her 'husband' was 'out of town' so we didn't get to meet him and verify some of her stories. The woman was once married to a Seventh Day Adventist, so she was super accommodating about Shabbat. The only thing I knew about 7th Day Adventism was that they also took the SATs on Sunday with us, so it was a little interesting to hear about it. Overall it was the perfect place to spend Shabbat and we felt quite rested after a day rotating back and forth between hammock and lake. Well, until we had to wake up at quarter to 4 on Sunday morning to get to the airport. But it was nice while it lasted and a great way to end our time in Nicaragua.
Overall we really enjoyed Nicaragua and the truth is that other than the little madre fuckers who stole our stuff on Ometepe the people here really were quite friendly. It was a little harder for us to see that because of the enormous language barrier (thanks for nothing, 4 weeks of Rosetta Stone 3 years ago), but the people we were able to communicate with were generally friendly and open. Our guide on Masaya spent the entire way back to town translating Nica revolutionary songs that were playing and explaining the national political scene to Adina. Apparently he hasn't appreciated my reign as president and believes I'm a bit of a corrupted power seeker that lives off of cronyism. Oh well.
On to Panama!
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