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Photo Sets » Nicaragua - 2003

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I find myself in Managua, Nicaragua a few hours before Clare arrives on the bus and ask the taxi driver to take me someplace with A/C. A mall. A big, modern mall with a food court. Is this Nicaragua? After her bus comes in, we hightail it to Granada, a colonial town on the shores of Lago Nicaragua. We enjoy the similarities with Antigua, Guatemala, but it isn't completely the same. As I was waiting for Clare's bus to come in a man noticed my inflamed, infected, ingrown toe. He said to me, in Spanish, "Get a green banana, chew it up a bit, and then mash it in your toe overnight" I tried it. I still have my toe. After the toe pictures are a series of shots of our trip to the Island of Ometepe where we stayed on a commune that was left over from the "Sandinistas" movement. Twenty-nine families work the plantations and share the reaps. We feel the least communist of all of our fellow travellers, as we are here for the great hammocks. We also establish our first pact, "We will not climb volcanoes". We are proud of our decision when we see some fellow travellers returning from the top of the volcano covered in what we guess is 17 distinct layers of mud. We leave the island and head for San Juan del Sur, a beach town. We arrive relatively late, and we are hot, so we settle on a hotel room that typically we would not be caught dead in (later we fear we may be!). We walk along the beach and overhear several loud Canadians, proving that it is not always Americans. We hear gunshots during the night and there are such strong winds that it feels as if our flimsy plywood room will soon be at sea. This is not an exaggeration. We leave for Costa Rica early the next morning, but not early enough!

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