The Voyage of Padma

We picked up our passports in Managua on Monday morning. Both of us look as if we posed for mug shots from some sweaty Central American prison, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. At least we have legal travel documents now.

As you may recall, we’re supposed to be on our way to Guatemala to help rebuild a hospital. We’ve been thwarted once again. This time by a small coup d’etat that seems to have occurred in Honduras, where President Zelaya was whisked off in his pajamas in the middle of night and flown to Costa Rica, apparently against his will. Something just doesn’t want us to get to Guatemala, and me, being ever superstitious, is beginning to think I should heed the signs and stay put.

We’re monitoring the situation in Honduras and weighing whether it’s safe or not to cross the border. We’ve read in the papers that the army shut down Internet access, closed two pro-Zelaya television stations, and are detaining journalists at the border.

After the coup, Latin American leaders acted quickly where leaders of the ALBA (Bolivian Alternative for the Americas) met in Managua on Monday, the day we happened to be there. Despite his long-winded speeches, I have to give Ortega credit, he’s pretty good at rallying everybody together and making a plan. He was also the facilitator behind an emergency meeting between Central American leaders when the swine flu broke out.

But then again his reasons (and the rest of the leader’s) may be more self-serving, and that really these guys don’t want to see the same thing happen in their countries.

One of the results of the emergency meeting was the withdrawal of several Central American ambassadors from Honduras. Not sure what that will do, but send a message to the current renegade government. Why Honduras didn’t just wait until Zelaya finished his term in six months is anybody’s guess. He apparently only had 30% of the polls. Now that he’s been forced into exile, his popularity has skyrocketed, according to the “El Nuevo Diario”, a left-wing Nicaraguan newspaper.

The funniest thing we read was when Chavez was quoted to have told Zelaya to talk to Obama “to get them to do something”, and Nicaragua agreed.

Times have certainly changed.

I’m amazed at the rapid response of the entire world and their condemnation of the act.You just can’t get away with overthrowing a government like you used to, even in a former banana republic.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens next. The politics are fascinating.

So far travel advisories have only been issued for the capital city, Tegucigalpa, where I have read in Nicaraguan papers that protestors have been killed and injured. The borders have been closed to all commercial traffic for the next 48 hours. This doesn’t apply to buses, but I can only imagine what the roads look like with all of those trucks backed up. I think for now Chris and I will hang out in San Juan del Sur for another week or so and then reassess the situation.

While we’re waiting for our passports, we thought we’d take a detour from San Juan del Sur on the coast to the inland city of Granada located on beautiful Lake Nicaragua.

Granada is picturesque with its grand churches and restored colonial architecture, nestled amoungst towering volcanoes, some of which are still active. The town was originally established by the Spaniards as a means to transporting looted gold from the pacific coast to the Caribbean. Ships landed in San Juan del Sur where the goods were carried 18 miles over land to Granada. From there,  it’s a short hop across the lake and down the San Carlos River into the Caribbean sea.

At the turn of the century a steamship company brought wealthy US tourists down the pacific Central American coast to San Juan del Sur, where they travelled the same route across to the Caribbean on to another steamer that took them up to New York City. This trip in the 1850s must have been pretty adventurous. Mark Twain, who wrote about Nicaragua in his travel diary was one famous tourist who made this trip in the late 1800s.

In fact, Nicaragua was originally going to be the site of the transoceanic canal, but for political reasons, that never happened and instead it was built in Panama.  But recently, there’s been talk about building a Nicaraguan Canal again, however with all of their funding being cut, I can’t see that project happening anytime soon.

We’ve been enjoying strolling through the historical streets and lounging at some of the open air restaurants.  We were sitting at one such restaurant when a young lady approached us. She told us that she is a student at the music conservatory in Managua, about an hour away from here, and that she offers an opera-singing historical tour for a small fee.

Granada from the bell tower

She’s a lone soldier in the land of salsa and meringue, so we didn’t quite know what to expect. Intrigued, we told her meet us at our hotel the following the day. The next afternoon she showed up dressed in a native nicaraguan gown and with a horse and carriage, which took us around the entire city. The tour lasted three hours, and this woman has an encyclopedic knowledge of both the prehistory and the history of the region.  This was hands down one of the most unique tours we’ve ever been on. Every church she took us to, she stood at the pulpit and sang us a beautiful aria. It brought tears to my eyes, it was so wonderful. What an incredibly creative young woman — worth every penny we gave her.

Gioconda--Soprano

Our time spent with her also enlightened us to the deep political divisions that exist in this country. Granada, of course, is where the rich live, and as you can imagine, they are not Sandanistas and have a very different take on the whole revolution. She showed us around the cemetery, pointing out the looted family crypts, some reused for the ‘heroes’ of the revolution (a black and red flag marks them), some still empty from families who fled and who have not returned. These heroes she says were only 16 and 17 years old and didn’t know anything about war or even why they were fighting.

Nice to hang out here for a few weeks.  The lake contains many small islands, in a couple of days we’ll likely make our way over to the Island of Ometepe, and the twin volcanoes that poke up through the centre of the lake.

Abandoned neoclassical hospital

A famous Zarzuela: a type of Spanish Opera

Interesting article in the New York Times by travel writer Pico Iyer called “The Joy of Less” . He hits the mark with so many things said in here. I’ve also wondered why people from nations who literally have absolutely nothing, some have even gone through terrible wars, like this place, yet on the whole seem much happier and more content than we are. I still don’t have the complete answer to that question, but I do think our love of consumerism may have something to do with it; the accumulation of things is almost like an addiction that never truly satisfies us.

Addendum: Actually having a sailboat does not make your life simple. Sailing the boat, which entails a lot of weather monitoring, route planning and stamina, as well as maintaining the boat are all consuming. We do have much less stuff though, and so far, I haven’t missed any of the things I gave away or sold before our trip.

Pico Iyer’s article generated a lot of comments from people who didn’t agree with his reasoning, mostly from those who didn’t chose to live a ’simpler’ life, but rather were forced into it by the recession. I think many people are missing his point entirely. It’s not about choosing a life of poverty, it’s about scaling back on the unnecessary clutter and noise in your life. Interesting to read people’s reactions.

Prayer Flags: photo taken when I was in Sikkim, an Indian state in the Himalayas, and the home of the Black Hat Tibetan monks

We hoped to be in Guatemala by now, but we’ve run into a small problem with our passports. Our passports are set to expire in November, six months from now. We can either renew them in Managua, Nicaragua or spend the extra time in Guatemala City. I’m not really keen on either of those places to be honest, but since the boat is only two hours from Managua, we thought it might be easier to do the renewal from here before we continue on our travels. Also, most countries require a passport that is valid for more than six months, so technically, we could be denied entry to Guatemala with our current passports. I really wish Canada had passports that lasted longer than five years. So far it hasn’t been too difficult, the Canadian embassy has been really helpful, but still, it is rather inconvenient.

What kind of images come to mind when you think of Managua? For me, it’s steamy, and tropical with a bustling colonial centre. I guess I must have visited Managua in another lifetime. It’s the strangest city. Instead of steamy, tropical and colonial, it has this post-apocalyptic emptiness to it. The city was completely flattened by an earthquake in 1972 where at least 10,000 people died. Fearing more earthquakes, the city centre was abandoned, leaving behind an empty set of ruins at the end of a former boulevard.

None of the streets have names or signs, and getting around in a taxi is an interesting exercise made especially more so with the way Nicaraguas give directions: a lago (to the lake) means north, a la montaña (to the mountains) means to the south. Arriba (up) is east and ‘abajo’ (down) is west. Also, people refer to monuments that no longer exist, as landmarks. We stayed near the Tica Bus station (in Nicaraguan* this is pronounced ‘Ticabu’), a commonly used still-standing landmark, so we were able to get from our hotel to the embassy fairly easily.

Augusto Cesar Sandino

With the war and the oppression these people have suffered, it just amazes me how jovial and hospitable everyone is. One does have to watch where you’re walking and which cab you’re getting into though, as tourists have been robbed. Chris and I learned that it’s usually best to take a cab with an old guy driving it, they typically won’t over charge and you’re also less likely to get robbed.

We couldn’t resist a stroll around the ruined city centre. The only buildings left standing are the Santiago Cathedral, which must have been magnificent, and the **Ruben Dario Theatre. The church is covered in cracks and several workers were shoveling out debris that continually crumbles from the frescoed ceilings. Across from the church is the Plaza de la Revolución home to several monuments, honoring the sandista heros: an eternal flame marks the tomb of Carlos Fonseca, a sandinista commander and founder of the FSLN party, and a fountain ‘tears of the martyrs (?)’, springs to life at six pm, to the tune of a Strauss waltz. We didn’t stick around for the waltz, several characters lounging about on park benches, took notice of our presence and we thought it best to leave before dark.

Ruined Church

The aspiring dictator. Posters like these are ubiquitous. The Economist has an interesting take on this new era in nicaraguan politics here

Nicaragua’s martyr and original sandanista, Sandino. He was the lone farmer who led a small army against US Marines. He was assassinated by Samoza then head of the national guard, after leaving the presidential palace for peace talks in 1936. You can read more about Sandino here

Looking out across Lake nicaragua from the Sandino statue and the Commandante’s palace.

*The Nicaraguans speak spanish with a dialect, often dropping consonants in the middle and at the ends of words. Sometimes it’s a little difficult to understand people, but it also has advantages, where you can get away with less accurate verb conjucations and people still seem to understand what you’re saying — bonus.

**Nicaragua is often to referred to as the ‘land of poets’. Ruben Dario is a widely read and much loved, well known spanish language poet. His writings have inspired literary movements and trends throughout the Latin world.

It amazes me what you come to think of as normal. Here’s a small regiment of the Nicarguan Navy singing the national anthem outside of our cockpit. They have these briefings twice a day. Sometimes Chris and I feel as though we should line up there with them, as second rank with wine glass in hand.

We’ve been referring to them as our personal security detail.

Nicaraguan National Anthem

Since this is it for us sailing-wise this season (until early November) I thought I’d list our stats for the year:

Nautical Miles sailed: 1057

Number of overnight passages: 5

Days with wind > 30 knots: 15

Days sailing in >30 knots: 2

Days with wind >40 knots: +10

Days sailing in >40 knots: 0

Days with wind <10 knots where we motored-sailed: too many to count!

Number of oil changes: 8 (4 per engine)

Number of coolant changes: 1

Sharks seen: 3

Humpback whales spotted: 2 (mom and baby feeding in Panama)

Sea Turtles dodged: 100’s

Leaping Manta Rays spotted: at least 50

Swarms of Killer Bees hosted: 1

Fish caught: 4 (If we had to survive on fishing, we’d likely starve.)

Days with line in the water: every day. (Next season, we may be forced to cheat and carry bait.)

Even though we didn’t get very far this year, I thought some of the places we did get to were spectacular. For us, the highlights included: transiting the Panama Canal, anchoring in the Western Panamanian deserted pacific Islands, picking fruit from the trees in the jungle, and anchoring in San Blas Islands home of the Kuna Yala. But then Costa Rica was beautiful as well for different reasons, and we quite like Nicaragua so far, ah heck, it’s all been fabulous. Beauty really is a relative thing.

Buff, buff, buff

Our spanish teachers

Spanish school and laundry by the teacher’s mom next door.

As we’re laying up the boat for the summer, i.e. hurricane season, Chris and I are taking another Spanish class. We’ve finally moved on from present tense and spent the week learning the preterit, and the imperfect tenses. My head is swimming with all of this new information. It’s going to take a few days to sink in. Slowly, we’re getting more comfortable with the language.

We took our lessons at “The Nica Spanish School”, who provide one-on-one instruction with Nicaraguans. Chris and I both had private instructors. In addition to the new tenses, we learned a ton of new vocabulary. Now, we just need to figure out when to use preterit and when to use imperfect and put that new vocabulary to use. The school offers classes over skype, so if any of you out there want to take some cool Spanish classes over the web, I highly recommend these guys. By taking these classes, you’re also helping out a fair number of locals. Did I mention how cheap these classes are?

Nica Spanish School

Nicaragua is pretty famous for its unspoilt surfing spots all along the pacific coast. Last weekend we attended a ‘surfing competition’ at Play Madera. I had no idea what to expect. Having come from a land-locked city, my experience with surfing consists of music like “Shadowy Men from a Shadowy Planet” and movies with Annette Funicello in them. Anyway, we hopped on to a bus and took the dirt road about an hour north of San Juan del Sur to Playa Madera. The countryside is parched and dusty with the tropical forest the same shade of beige as the sand. Hopefully the rains will soon come, where I expect everything to turn green again.

When we arrived at the beach, there were two small tents set up. Everybody was huddled underneath, trying to get some respite from the sun. I wasn’t sure if surfing would be a very good spectator sport, but it was definately worth the trip. The whole event had this ‘ski lodge’ kind of feel to it. I guess that’s the only thing I can relate it to, having never been to one of these before. Anyway, after watching this both Chris and I are keen to take some surf lessons. It really looks like fun and is definitely a great way to stay fit.

As far as boat tasks go we managed to pickle the watermaker. I love that watermaker! Once we got it working (back in Panama), it’s operated like a charm. Chris fixed it by replacing all 170+ o-rings, a tedious, but otherwise easy thing to do. I believe we pretty much replaced everything else on that thing before we figured out our problem was with the o-rings. Learning things the hard way should have been our motto for this journey. Now I don’t expect anything to be easy, that way you’re never disappointed.

We also managed to buff half of the boat. Still much left to do with regards to buffing. Lot’s of work in the hot sun. We thought of hiring some people to help us out, but we’ve also come to another stunning revelation…’if you want something done right….’ I think you know the rest.

Yesterday was haul-out day here in San Juan del Sur Nicaragua. We had originally arranged to take the boat out last week, but ‘la gripe porcina’ seemed to change all of those plans. There were many cruise ships whose itineraries were diverted to Nicaragua instead of Mexico. I’m not a huge fan of those cruise ships, but I saw how they brought some money into the small community here. When a cruise ship plans to come here, it’s a big deal and gets announced in the local newspaper. You can literally feel the excitement in the village the night before as people are setting up their tables to hawk their wares to the masses. Not a pretty form of tourism, but then, what is a better form of tourism, really?

Anyway, back to the haul-out. The dock and the shipyard in San Juan del Sur is run by the government. They have a small crane, which they claim can handle about 10 tons. Our boat, dry (without water and fuel), weighs about 6.8 tons; with all of our stuff on it, we estimate our weight at about 7.5 tons. This is the same weight as our previous boat, the C&C 30. Amazing how light we are, and we’re considered rather heavy for a cat. The 38 Catana that came out the week before weighs even less than ours, but they can also sail upwind at 14 knots! We can only do about half that speed on the same point of sail.

It was pretty scary looking at that crane, our boat and the concrete wall. I was beginning to think that our decision to haul out here might be one of our crazier schemes. Everything though went smoothly. The crane operator was really skilled and he very gently lifted our boat out of the water and set it on land. We also had several guys from the village help hold the boat off of the wall as it was being lifted out. They brought logs to block the boat and also scraped the hulls for us. I’m really glad we decided to do it here. I have so much admiration for the Nicaraguans: they’re strong willed, super friendly and hardworking people. What we’ve encountered so far has been nothing but professional, and efficient.

So, you might be wondering what we’re up to this summer. We do of course have a few projects to finish up on the boat: buffing and polishing, transmission fluid renewal, repainting the hull…etc. But after we complete the bulk of those tasks, Chris and I are heading to Atitlan, Guatemala, where we’re going to be volunteering for two months with ‘The Hospilito Atitlan’. We’ll be helping them rebuild their hospital that was buried in a landslide several years ago. We’re really looking forward to seeing the Mayans in Atitlan and having this awesome opportunity to work alongside them.

It’s certainly true that you can’t stick to or make any concrete plans when you’re sailing. One has to be flexible when it comes to weather, finding parts and provisioning. It’s all part of the fun in cruising.

We had planned to haul Padma out in El Salvador so that we could give the bottom a new coat of paint. It’s been about two years now and that seems to be the limit on how long the bottom paint can do its job here in the tropics. (Chris’ weekly dives on the hulls have revealed a stubborn layer of barnacles that are more difficult to remove each time.)

We started talking to one of the other cruisers in the harbour and he told us his story of trying to get his boat hauled in Barillas, El Salvador. He said that the original owner of the haul-out yard died recently, and the new owner, his son, just isn’t interested in hauling boats at all. He mentioned to us the possibility of getting the run around and then after finally agreeing to do it, the yard will attempt to charge you thousands of dollars for the service. I don’t know if this story is true, but I certainly don’t want to risk that possibility, since the only other place that can haul a cat like ours is maybe Huatulco, Mexico, about 500 miles away.

San Juan del Sur has a boat yard and a crane and they just recently hauled a “Catana 38” which is about the same size as our catamaran. We talked with the Aussie on the Catana and he was happy with the service he received. We can basically have our boat hauled for $250.00 and then only $100.00 a month to keep it the yard in a super-secure area of the port (guarded by the Navy). This allows us to get off the boat for a while and travel during rainy season. It turns out to be a much better deal than if we’d stayed in El Salvador on a mooring ball up an estuary (notoriously hard on your bottom paint) only to be cornered into paying an outrageous sum for a haul-out.

Also we’re out of the hurricane zone in this location, and we’re not that much further away from Mexico then if we stayed in El Salvador. In fact, it’ll only put us about two days behind. What a relief to have that solved!

And, we like it here. The town is quite a surprise. I wasn’t sure what to expect. It is a beach resort, but the difference is that it has a history and it’s not just this manufactured tourist place like some beaches in Costa Rica felt like. There are fishermen going on with their daily business. Many Nica’s (that’s what they call themselves) hang out on the beach after work and on the weekends, so even though there are a few foreigners here, the place feels more like a quaint little village.

Our check-in into this country was the easiest one we’ve had to date. When we sailed into the harbour, the Navy panga waited patiently for us to anchor in the 30-knot wind (yes, those shrieking, howling winds are following us). The Sergeant then came over to our boat, politely asked if he could come aboard, briefly checked around inside and looked over our documents. I didn’t have to give him 16 copies of everything. How modern. Then he took us over to the ‘Capitania de Puerto’ office (also run by the Navy), where the Port Captain himself phoned Immigration and set up an appointment for us that evening. An appointment? What’s this about? It turns out that we were to meet ‘Migracion’ at her house after she got back from her regular job at the border, about one hour away.

So there we were at madam migracion’s house sitting at the kitchen table, two kids in diapers were running around, the television blared the latest ‘tele novella’ episode in the background and grandma lounged on the couch in front of the fan, while immigration dutifully stamped our passports and phoned our names into the central computer in Managua. So refreshingly relaxed. We do like it here.

Defeated the killer bees, sailed through the papagayo winds. What new experiences await us in Nicaragua?

As we pull into our first Nicaraguan harbour, I can´t help but be reminded of songs from my youth.