Misadventures in Managua,
Noel, a friend of Shannon’s, was in Managua for a quick 48 hour stint before returning to his job as a teacher in Honduras. To try to maximize his Nicaraguan experience we decided we’d rent a car and treat him to a tour of Nicaragua. We plotted our course: Masaya, Mombacho (A volcano), Laguna de Apoyo and finally ending with dinner in Grenada. On the surface it seems rather ambitious, but everything in relatively close in Nicaragua. First stop Masaya. Should be no problem, right? Wrong. There are very few highways in Nicaragua and, the one we were taking leads us to all 4 locations. Arriving to Masaya was a piece of cake or, as they say in Nicaragua ‘pan hecho’, navigating Masaya’s one way streets…not so much. The purpose of stopping in Masaya was so that Noel could check out the cool, little market located in the center of the city. Now, finding the market should have been easy enough since I had been taken (the key word being taken) there on a number of occasions. Anyhow, after searching, unsuccessfully, for the better part of a half hour and driving the WRONG way down a one way street we concluded that getting to Mombacho ASAP was the best idea. As we were leaving Masaya we looked to our left and out jumped the market we spent the last half hour searching for.
After (finally) finding the exit out of Masaya and receiving directions from a handful of people we were off to scale Mombacho. At one point, lost again, we took a wrong turn into a small town and proceeded to get more directions, except this time our question was greeted with chuckles as we were WAY off the beaten path. We pulled a quick 180 and reached Mombacho only to discover that the next transport to the top wasn’t for a couple of hours, totally throwing a wrench into our (ambitious) plans. But wait, a stroke of good luck. One of the park employees was heading up the mountain in his pickup and offered to take us up if we wanted to sit in the back of his truck. Deal. Sweet, we’re back on schedule. (I should probably mention that the path up the Volcano is steep; I’m talking 60 degrees steep. Needless to say, we held on for dear life.) Unfortunately, our good luck quickly evaporated into a dense mist that instantly covered the entire peak of the volcano. We ventured out onto the path to see if we could, in fact see. We couldn’t. The mist was so thick it was limiting our visibility to the point that Noel thought we “have reached the end of the world”. Normally, on a clear day, you’d be able to see just how beautiful Nicaragua is. The view offered of Grenada and all its islands is fantastic from the peak. All we saw was white. Considering we had to wait an hour for the next transport we scrapped the lagoon idea and decided to salvage what was left of the day by spending it in Grenada.
Without a hiccup we arrived in Grenada where we ran into a couple of friends. Thankfully, Noel was able to capture some (mist free) photographs before we sat down for a nice meal. The drive home was surprisingly easy, not a single turn to make. I wish I could say that we took a different high than the one that confused us on the way up, it wasn’t. I’m hoping I’ve learned from my mistakes because I’ll be making the same trip this weekend.
Noel, a friend of Shannon’s, was in Managua for a quick 48 hour stint before returning to his job as a teacher in Honduras. To try to maximize his Nicaraguan experience we decided we’d rent a car and treat him to a tour of Nicaragua. We plotted our course: Masaya, Mombacho (A volcano), Laguna de Apoyo and finally ending with dinner in Grenada. On the surface it seems rather ambitious, but everything in relatively close in Nicaragua. First stop Masaya. Should be no problem, right? Wrong. There are very few highways in Nicaragua and, the one we were taking leads us to all 4 locations. Arriving to Masaya was a piece of cake or, as they say in Nicaragua ‘pan hecho’, navigating Masaya’s one way streets…not so much. The purpose of stopping in Masaya was so that Noel could check out the cool, little market located in the center of the city. Now, finding the market should have been easy enough since I had been taken (the key word being taken) there on a number of occasions. Anyhow, after searching, unsuccessfully, for the better part of a half hour and driving the WRONG way down a one way street we concluded that getting to Mombacho ASAP was the best idea. As we were leaving Masaya we looked to our left and out jumped the market we spent the last half hour searching for.
After (finally) finding the exit out of Masaya and receiving directions from a handful of people we were off to scale Mombacho. At one point, lost again, we took a wrong turn into a small town and proceeded to get more directions, except this time our question was greeted with chuckles as we were WAY off the beaten path. We pulled a quick 180 and reached Mombacho only to discover that the next transport to the top wasn’t for a couple of hours, totally throwing a wrench into our (ambitious) plans. But wait, a stroke of good luck. One of the park employees was heading up the mountain in his pickup and offered to take us up if we wanted to sit in the back of his truck. Deal. Sweet, we’re back on schedule. (I should probably mention that the path up the Volcano is steep; I’m talking 60 degrees steep. Needless to say, we held on for dear life.) Unfortunately, our good luck quickly evaporated into a dense mist that instantly covered the entire peak of the volcano. We ventured out onto the path to see if we could, in fact see. We couldn’t. The mist was so thick it was limiting our visibility to the point that Noel thought we “have reached the end of the world”. Normally, on a clear day, you’d be able to see just how beautiful Nicaragua is. The view offered of Grenada and all its islands is fantastic from the peak. All we saw was white. Considering we had to wait an hour for the next transport we scrapped the lagoon idea and decided to salvage what was left of the day by spending it in Grenada.
Without a hiccup we arrived in Grenada where we ran into a couple of friends. Thankfully, Noel was able to capture some (mist free) photographs before we sat down for a nice meal. The drive home was surprisingly easy, not a single turn to make. I wish I could say that we took a different high than the one that confused us on the way up, it wasn’t. I’m hoping I’ve learned from my mistakes because I’ll be making the same trip this weekend.
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