A goat's tale on the Tits of Nica

Sooooo......it 's been much too long! I cannot go over everything all at once, but will rather try to stay chronological with small installments every so often to catch up.

So, last you heard I had just gone over my adventures in El Salvador and was making my way southward into Nicaragua.

Well I arrived in Leon, Nicaragua on November 15th. It is a dirty colonial town with a gigantic cathedral at its heart and political graffiti on its buildings. Actually, the second day there we saw truckloads of people with red and black flags passing by the hostel and it turns out that there was a protest going on in the main square over the argument of a recount in the recent elections. Mostly it was the leftist socialist party FSLN who took over the streets of Leon protesting that their candidate, Ortega (best buds with Venezuela's Chavez), had won fair and square.

Of course, I had to go investigate. I had to take my laundry to a lavanderia anyway. I was only a little concerned when I seemed to be one of the only gringos in the square and when I passed burning tires in intersections and people waving flags with bandanas over their faces. I felt safer after passing by anti-Bush graffiti (not anti-American) and talked with a few Nicas about the situation, which they were more than willing to do. They were a mish-mash of young men, old women, teenagers, transvestites, and very liberal middle-aged men. All wanted to share their side of the story and for once, I felt like I understood the situation better than I ever could have from any news source. I even spoke to one of the guys at the hostel who was on the other side of the issue. It wasn't until the young thugs showed up in their neo-revolutionary bandanas carry slingshots and big sticks did I get concerned about safety. As it was, only a small riot broke out with rocks being thrown at police, but my newfound Nica friends protected me and brought me further away from the action. The young guys were just full of bravado, with the itch to fight but not necessary caring about the actual politics behind the protest.

From Leon, I moved down to Granada--a beautiful brightly colored city that was cleaner, if a bit more touristy than Leon. I spent a few days there with two new friends from Quebec, Assia and Maxine, taking a day trip to Lago Apollo with them. It's set in crater formed from the ancient volcano imploding on itself after a major eruption thousands of years ago. After meeting up with Celeste and some of the friends from El Roble in Granada, we all went as a big group to explore Isla de Ometepe--a volcanic island set in the middle of Lago Nicaragua which is as big as a small inland sea in the middle of Nicaragua. Because of the island's shape, made of two volcanoes connected by a thin strip of land, I call it "The Tits of Nica".

And thus comes my Ometepe story....

Well, after already climbing up a volcano and seeing lava in Antigua, I decided that instead of climbing one of the volcanoes I'd bike around it. Firstly, Ometepe doesn't have very good roads. Some are hardly passable even with four-wheel drive. There are huge chunks missing, areas that are flooded and/or washed out and some pretty steep inclines. And on top of that, there were only rickety bikes to rent for the day and no helmets. Yikes. But, a friend of mine was up for the journey, so we headed out on the bumpy road and made it all the way past were gringos usually go up to tiny pueblos where chickens and cows wandered along the road with no fences or ropes to tie them down. Children giggled at us as we passed by, sweaty and dust-covered on our long trek uphill. The bumpy downhills turned out to be the bane of my existence as that caused my kickstand to fall and my brakes proved more and more unreliable..... I started to get exhausted and worried if we would make it back around by nightfall. After a particularly strenuous climb, wherein halfway up my gears joltingly shifted and knocked me off the bike, making it even more difficult to get going again.....as soon as I started down hill and felt the breeze run through my hair.............I ran into a goat.

Yes, it's true. Yours truly rammed her bike into a small white goat. We both played chicken with each other and finally decided on the same direction with the ultimate consequence. Luckily, even though my brakes failed to slow the momentum, I was able to fling myself to one side and go into a slide stopping the impact from hurting the goat too much or sending me sailing over the handlebars. So, even though both stunned (the goat promptly disappeared) and gouged up a bit, we ended up okay. The shock of it though, sent me into hysterical sobbing until my friend casually mentioned the ridiculousness of hitting a goat on an island in a small Central American country with a mountain bike. Enough said. I broke out into gasping laughter and broke through to the other side of the brick wall of frutstration and exhaustion to make it home safe and sound. Although, we didn't make it back by dark, we managed to use the light of fireflies to find our way to town and then a random local with a lit cigarette helped us walk up the rocky 1km path to the finca, or farm, we were staying at. One look at me, and our entire group of friends busted up laughing....only to do so again later after relating my tale of woe.

So, to finish up Nicaragua, we went to the touristy beach town of San Juan del Sur before both Celeste and I headed down to San Juan, Costa Rica. For me, to fly back home for a few days for Thanksgiving.....and for her, to meet up with her friend Cora, who is to join us on the rest of our travels....