The ride from hell
Trip Start
Feb 01, 2006
1
19
33
Trip End
May 01, 2006
Managua,
Nicaragua
Thursday, March 9, 2006
One was nine hours and the other was twelve...no air conditioning, a disgusting and unusable bathroom, unbearable odours, and three border crossings made them much much more of a challenge than climbing Pacaya...
The border crossings can be ridiculously chaotic...and funny...and overhwleming. One example would be the money changers crossing from Guatemala to El Salvador. We have never geen claustrophobic or agorophobic, but this was unreal.
Many many people grabbing you, shouting at you, showing you wads of money in all currencies and all denominations. You just know some of those transactions have to be problematic. And then a similar experience, although not as frantic as we crossed into Honduras.
Getting to Managua,Nicaragua was great, but after what we had heard about the city we wanted out...of course the bus stations are always in the seediest parts of town and this was no exception. The area was called a barrio and it surely was one. Then again, the idea of getting on another bus was more than abhorrent to us.
So we settled into a little spot and had a massive explosion nearby during the night. The next day no one seemed to be sure whether or not it was a car bomb,but it was something violent to be sure. Our little seņor walked us to the restaurant and had us guarantee we would return to the hotel the very same way and by dark.
Hard to know if this is just scare mongering, but when the locals say it, there must be some truth to it. We will explore the city in daylight when its supposed to be safer....and soon we will move on to Leon or Granada.
