A Visit to the Masaya Volcano

Because a youth group had booked the dormitories at Oasis, I had to find another place for a couple of nights. I checked out a couple and, unintentionally, booked what was probably the worst one.

After an exhausting tour of Masaya, the Kalala Lodge didn't seem so bad the first night I stayed there. A dorm bed was only $5. Granted, the lockers, located across from the front desk, were only about 12"x12", and the mattress was almost wafer-thin. But since I had left my backpack at Oasis in anticipation of my return, and had the six-bed dorm to myself, the first night was tolerable. I was able to close and lock the door. Although the Kalala Lodge advertised that it offered free internet access, it did not. The woman at the desk said, "Maybe tomorrow." Right! Even so, I was able to watch a documentary I had downloaded to my laptop, and found a way to accommodate my bones to the metal bars beneath the mattress. Sleep came easily enough. The second night was hellish. All five other beds were occupied. Every time the person in the bunk above me shifted position (which he did often because of the mosquitoes that had easy access to the room through the open door and joyously feasted on us all night)the metal bed creaked ans swayed.

On Tuesday I went on a tour to the Masaya Market and the Masaya Volcano, and went 35 metres below ground into a bat cave. Our guide, Oscar (with Nahua Tours), was wonderful. He was an endless font of local knowledge. At the volcano, we were provided with respirators (because of the toxic fumes emitted from the crater). Oscar told me that people living near the volcano experience many health problems from breathing the fumes. When I asked why they don't move away, he explained that they have been living there for, perhaps, a thousand years, and wouldn't have any idea where to go. They accept their fate, which includes blindness, respiratory ailments and, of course, early deaths.

The market has a wonderful variety of locally made goods for sale at amazingly low prices. These include leather goods, cigars and coffee (some of the best in the world), beautiful paintings, weavings and ceramics, Unfortunately, I have no space in my backpack for anything more than what I'm traveling with now; but I bought a couple of things anyway -- a couple of dolls dressed in Nicaraguan costumes for my granddaughters, and some organically grown coffee beans. My first purchase from a street vendor was an oddly-shaped ceramic piece similar to those sold by the hundreds in all the markets an on La Calzada, but signed by the artist and especially attractive. Peter from Kelowna, who is also staying at Oasis, calls it "the vessel. Some items currently taking up space will have to be sacrificed to make room for these things.) I hope to travel this way again, so after I've left my winter clothes behind in Bolivia, I'll have space for more.

The bat cave was amazing. For this part of the tour we were equipped with flashlights and hard hats. The bats that live there are ordinary bats -- much appreciated in Nicaragua, since they eat mosquitoes. We descended 35 metres below ground to a world of stalagmites and stalactites. Oscar explained that this cave was used as a camp by US-supported dictator Anastasio Somoza's army in his fight against the eventually victorious Sandinistas. The Masaya volcano was also the horrific scene of Somoza's death squads dropping the dictator's political opponents into its mouth from helicopters. So many beautiful places in Central America have such bloody and barbarous histories.

I was happy to get back to Oasis and chat with friends, use the internet and take a nice swim in the pool.

Glitches and Opportunities

I have to move to another hostel, since the dormitorio I've been occupying at Oasis will be taken over today by a group traveling together. I'll see if there's room at the Bearded Monkey, which is also highly rated by travelers. The Oasis has been fun, and I've met some interesting and fun people. Most of the travelers I've met have been Canadians, and most of these have been from British Columbia.

Over the next few days I'll have to focus on editing the video I did of the ex-bananeras at their protest camp in Managua so that I can give them copies when I return. After a couple of days there, I'll be off to Costa Rica and Panama. From Panama, I'll have to find a way to get to Bolivia. There are possibilities for traveling to south America from Panama. It's possible to go to Colombia by boat, although I'd prefer to find a boat going to Ecuador. From there, it's either on to Bolivia (a long, difficult trip over the Andes) or to Peru, and then on to Bolivia (also a long, difficult trip over the Andes, but perhaps at a lower altitude -- according to someone who knows a little about traveling in this region). As always, my itinerary is difficult to predict. I've found that it works well for me to take it step by step and get travel tips from people I meet along the way.

One thing I've discovered is that travel books do not usually provide up-to-date information. Things change quickly, and what was good information when the book was printed has changed in the year or so since its publication. Even online information is incorrect when it comes from travelers blogging about their trips. A lot depends on how adventurous or demanding the writer is. I've stayed in hostels that were criticized by people submitting comments to Hostelworld or sites like Lonely Planet, and yet I've found them to be wonderful places to stay. I've stayed at others that some people found adequate, and yet I didn't find them adequate at all. The best information comes from the travelers you meet along the way.

Well, I'm off to check out the Bearded Monkey. Later today I'll be taking a trip to the Masaya Market and the volcano. More about that (and photos) soon.

Ain't Life Granada!

I like to blog long and philosophically, but my time in Managua was so filled with happenings I had very little time to think about the meaning of my experience. I’m in Granada for a couple of weeks to write, edit videos, relax and get some sun. After investigating (in a minor way) the mining situation in El Salvador, and visiting the protest encampment across the street from the Asamblea Nacional to videotape interviews with the ex-bananeras in Managua, I have a lot of work to do. Somehow I’m not getting to it because Granada is even more interesting.

I'm staying at Oasis in Granada, and an Oasis it is. (t's beautiful, with comfortable beds, free coffee all day, wireless internet, a beautiful (and really clean) pool, an inexpensive and delicious breakfast served in the morning, and lots of interesting travelers eager to share travel tips and perspectives on life in Nicaragua.

At the same time, I’ve been participating in a “lively” (or perhaps “deadly”) exchange on FaceBook about the protests in Vancouver against the 2010 Olympics. I’m fortunate to have a few intelligent, sensitive people, committed to seeking justice “on my side” (although I hate the necessity of having to being on one side or another, and hope that one day we will all be on the same side against injustice, exploitation and the everyday violence of poverty). If it were not for this comradely support, I would be depressed by some of the supercilious comments I am reading about “violent” protesters (and those who don’t take a stand against them, like me). These are the people who seem to live comfortably in that bubble of unreality that is my community. They seem to think there is nothing wrong as long as their own lives are running smoothly. Concepts of justice and compassion do not appear to figure in their thinking. I prefer to think that it is only to their ignorance and fear, rather than hostility toward these ideas, that keeps them inside the bubble of unknowing. Ignorance dissipates with knowledge, and fear can be overcome.

Meanwhile, the realities of the larger world -- those I am seeing in the places I travel to, those I come across in my research and those brought to my attention by people I meet -- keep expanding the range of dots to connect and keep taking me further outside the bubble. Seeing more than most people do, or even questioning my own “received knowledge,” has repercussions that are difficult to predict and sometimes unexpectedly unpleasant, but they always lead to an expanded awareness.

As it is in San Salvador, El Salvador, and the Sunshine Coast, Canada, the daily experience of most people here in Granada is far removed from the machinations of the governments that rule over them. People learn to live with the contradictions, the lies, the corruption, the impunity and the exploitation that surrounds them. People get by to the best of their ability, hoping for better days. The difference I’ve observed in Central America is that the poorer people have a stronger sense of community in adversity than I’ve seen in North America, and they have demonstrated time and again their willingness to rise up together against the powers that be.

The people of El Salvador briefly experienced a sense of collective power when the FSLN won the election last year. Now they are learning that simply replacing a right-wing military government with a left-wing “revolutionary” government has made little or no change in their daily lives. “No matter whom you vote for, the government always gets in,” the saying goes -- and the first order of business for any government is to secure its continuity in power. Power no longer comes from the people, the natural persons. It is conferred or withheld by the legal persons, the transnational corporations and the banking institutions.

In El Salvador, the apparently (and avowedly) moderate left-wing government of Maurcio Funes presides over a country of incredible beauty and an abundance of natural resources, a crumbling infrastructure and rampant gang violence. Although his party, the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) was born out of a revolutionary movement," Funes compares himself to the US president, Barack Obama, who has already proven himself -- to the disappointment of followers who were expecting "change"-- to be decidedly big business-friendly. This is not a good sign.

In the New World Order, big business-friendliness and improving the conditions of a nation's people have a negative correlation. Is that happening here? Despite the recent assassinations of anti-mining activists in the Cabañas region and the death threats being made against journalists keeping the story alive at Radio Victoria, the anti-mining issue appears not to be any way near the top of the Funes government's agenda. Little progress has been made to find and bring to justice those responsible for the killings and there is no ongoing coverage of the anti-mining struggle in El Salvador's mainstream press.

To learn more about the anti-mining activists' struggle and to add your name to a petition calling for the government of El Salvador to: investigate the murders of the anti-mining activists, to provide effective protection to activists organizing campaigns to defend their land from the despoilation of mining, and to make mining illegal in El Salvador, please visit the PetitionOnline site.

My first impression is that the people of Nicaragua seem, in general (and I realize it's a sweeping generalization, based on only the few people I've met and spoken with), a little less oppressed than the people of El Salvador. One San Salvadoran, noticing the number of flag-emblazoned t-shirts people were wearing at Playa El Tunco, asked me if I'd ever seen anyone wearing a t-shirt with a Salvadoran flag. I shrugged, and he said, "That's because we're not proud of our country."

I will be posting on some of my experiences in Managua and Granada over the next while. From now on, my blogs will (I hope) be shorter and more frequent, with more photos. Too much is happening for me to let it pile up and then try to bring it together. That would take a really long essay.