Managua (March 28, 2008) -- Well, the most dangerouspart of my trip is over.
That being the two-hour ridefrom San Juan del Sur to here in the Capital of this third-world-country. And there is little doubt that it is that.
Traveling certainly makes it clear how nice even the poor people in the states have it. The shuttle ride here was harrowing because the road from San Juan to here was on a one-way road(sometimes paved!) that was thankfully less crowded than when I was last on it on Sunday.
But there was still the kids on the bikes that we almost hit, the two cows hanging out in the middle of the road, the time we almost fell off the road and into a ravine and, of course, the passing of slower traffic.
There was only once when I thought we were going to get hit by on an oncoming truck while trying to get to around a slower one. Amazingly, the car behind us was not hit. A matter of inches would be generous.
I have not decided whether it is better to see it coming or to be ignorant of what risks are being taken. That probably speaks to a higher, philosophical question.
Of course as my stay in San Juan neared the conclusionI became cocky and was proud about how my immune and digestive systems were not hurt by the strange food or water.
But there seemed to be some kind of bug going around the bed and breakfast I stayed at during the middle of the week and I appear to have have come down with that.
I say a bug, but I think it might be one of the many dragon flys I saw flying around who is now pissed off and residing in my abdomen, insisting on the evacuation of everything in my body.
Thankfully on the shuttle ride there was a girl from Santa Barbara who had some kind of super-duper medicine that she carried around from her time traveling around East Africa. So she gave me two of those and I am feeling much better already.
It was going to be a long flight back to Paris.Things here at the Best Western Managua are really rocking tonight. There is a wedding or something going on and that is fine because there is no way I am leaving this hotel.
That same surfer dude who told me not to write the article about the area also told me about how if I went to the Chinese Market here I would be lucky to leave with my clothes on. I have no idea where this market is or who might want my thrift storeshirt from Paris and the pair of torn shorts I have on or what his drug addled brain was talking about, but Iam going to trust him when he says that this town is super shady.
I have heard from plenty of others bad things about this town. You may wonder what kind of poverty I am talking about. It is mostly shacks along the road, for miles and miles. You see a small house and you think, oh, anabandoned house. But it is lived in and full of a family of five or more.
For those of you who have traveled the Frankfort turnpike on the way to theKeeneland horse races might remember that there is one shack by a turn on the way where there is a house where they have chickens in the yard and chairs outside where they can watch the cars go by. There is no grass is growing on the lawn. Yeah, Nicaragua is like that. Everywhere.
So the last treacherous portion of my journey is simply crossing the road from this hotel to the airport across the street, an airport that makes Bowman Field in Louisville look like LAX. Assuming I can successfully play Frogger against these people, Iwill leave in the morning on Saturday and land inParis on Sunday morning. And how bout them Cards? I will be in the air when they play, but I will hoping that news of a victory greets me when I land. And not a bad showing by the Toppers either, eh? (Sorry, San Juan was filled with snow-escaping Canadians saying eh all the time.)
Take care,
Brett
