2019: Nicaragua

Mar 2, 2019.  Albergue Ecológico El Porvenir, Santa Cruz, Isla de Ometepe, Nicaragua 

• Nice call with Caren this morning - her crew had arrived, and they were about to head for St. John’s for a test sail.  She’s still trying to arrange a sail to the south coast of Cuba, but not she’s not there yet.  Also, there is a two week limit for sailboats.  Good luck Caren!

• I, on the other hand, booked flights MEX > HAB for a two week stay.  Contacted ViaHero with some questions, but no deal yet ($40 / day is a bit steep).  Maybe I’ll just do 4-5 days in Havana with them...

• Finally got a bus ride + taxi + ferry to Moyogalpa on Isla de Ometepe: long, tiring, no seating in the bus, then half hour walk to this truly remote, quiet, lovely, virtually empty hotel with no restaurant (but breakfast & beer!) on the side of Volcán Maderas.  On the last kilometer walk up, I passed some really fine petroglyphs beside the road.  Apparently there are more on the property, with a nice trail leading to them.  Plus lots of great flowering plants.  Goddam paradise.

• The manager, José, asked me to tell him what I should pay for a room.  I hazarded  “$40”, hoping I could get something that cheap.  He laughed.  I got nervous - because there isn’t another place to stay nearby, and for maybe the first time for me on this Central America walkabout, it started to sprinkle (the volcano is covered with threatening clouds).  Then José told me the actual price: $10.  For a lovely room, private bathroom, and nobody around.  Woo woo!  

• They don’t do dinners here, but they do have cold beer and cokes, so I ordered one of each for my dinner, and will now continue to sit on the porch in my rocking chair, look at the lovely flowers, listen to the birds, and maybe read a little more of The Cartel, the second volume by Don Winslow.  Good stuff, and based on real events in the drug war.  It points out what a stupid, wasteful, tragic program our War on Drugs has been (and continues to be).  

• I can hear a woodpecker.  And this lake has “bull” sharks.

• OMG: this place has WiFi too!

• Lost my hat - left it somewhere.  That makes about four in all.