American Influence

Granada, Nicaragua – La Cruz, Costa Rica

Yes, we’re in Costa Rica now. But I don’t want to leave Nicaragua completely behind just yet . . .

We loved Nicaragua. Huge difference between what we thought Nicaragua would be like and what we found on the ground. I think we both thought it would be pretty rough. Destitute people. Guns and violence. Danger lurking around every corner. 

What we actually encountered was much different. No real police presence. No real sense of danger. And while I’m sure there are some destitute people in Nicaragua, what we saw were kind and generous people who were working as hard as they could to get ahead. 

The countryside was super nice as well. Yesterday’s ride had more bucolic scenes than probably any day since maybe Arkansas. But every day in Nicaragua has been nice. And relatively flat! With volcanoes and lakes around just to remind you that you’re not in Kansas anymore . . .

All in all, Nicaragua kind of provides the best of all worlds. Ocean, lakes, mountains and volcanoes – but without much in the way of big climbs. Nice roads – with enough chaotic things like horses, horse-drawn wagons, dogs, and bikes, that cars are not going real fast on the roads. Nice hotels and good food – all at super reasonable prices. 

The country feels really secure, but there are not people walking around with guns everywhere – and what police officers are around seem nice and pleasant. Good cities – particularly Leon and Granada – without the megalopolis feeling of places like Guatemala City. 

Two thumbs up for Nicaragua!

But I’m still not quite done . . . Can’t leave a country without at least a little history type stuff. 

As far as I can tell the early history of Nicaragua is a lot like the early history of all the Central American countries. The original peoples were minding their own business when the Spanish came along – about 500 years ago now. The Spanish, along with the Catholic Church, ran things until 1821 – when the Mexicans and the Central Americans booted them out . . .

Don’t know the next 80 years very well – but then in the early-20th century the U.S. started flexing its muscle. I guess even back then there was talk of a Nicaraguan Canal – and the U.S., of course, wanted to be involved. 

Eventually – in the mid-30s – the Somoza family took over, and they ruled until 1979. Starting in the 1960s or so people started to rebel against the Somozas – with the Sandinistas leading the charge. Things started coming to a head in the early 1970s; after an earthquake in Managua foreign aid poured in to the country but the Somozas mismanaged the aid and/or hoarded the money for themselves. This prompted Roberto Clemente – of the Pittsburgh Pirates – to charter a plane to Nicaragua to help with the catastrophe. The plane crashed and Clemente died, but support for the Somozas started to dwindle. 

Don’t want to get too deep into the weeds – and don’t know the weeds well anyway. But eventually Somoza left the country and the Sandinistas took control – with Daniel Ortega eventually becoming president. 

After the Sandinistas came to the fore, things went really south as far as the U.S.’s involvement in things. Reagan authorized the CIA to help the Contras – who were basically the counter-revolutionaries in Nicaragua and did some pretty awful things out of their bases in Costa Rica and Honduras. And then, after Congress interceded – and specifically forbade Reagan from spending money to interfere in Nicaragua – the Reagan administration secretly sold weapons to Iran in order to fund aid for the Contras. (The Iran-Contra Affair).

Being only a teenager at the time, I only vaguely understood all this. But after traveling through Nicaragua and putting this little history together I have a much better sense of just how messed up this was . . . No wonder Reagan denied knowing anything – and, as I recall, let Oliver North take the blame. Seems like something that a president should be impeached for . . . I mean we might differ on whether we should have been involved at all, but if the Constitution means anything this was really bad.

Fast forward a bit and the Sandinistas peacefully gave up power after elections brought in a center right party in the 90s. But Daniel Ortega came back into power in 2006 and has been there ever since. (They had to change the constitution so that he could continue to run for office because the constitution had limited presidents to two successive terms. Kind of like Putin in Russia. Hopefully we’re not dealing with ideas like that in a few years . . . Putting aside feelings about Trump I just think the Constitution is important and should be respected . . . But maybe I’m just naive . . .)

One of the people that we met in Nicaragua says that there is a ton of corruption and that Ortega ends up skimming a fair amount of money. Other than the ridiculous border stuff we didn’t see this – but I could easily see this being true.

I guess the new (old) big thing is the idea of the Nicaraguan Canal. Riding through the country there is a fair amount of Chinese stuff and Nicaragua-China Friendship Society type stuff, and my sense is that the Chinese see Nicaragua as a way to have some influence in this part of the world. 

I guess I don’t know what to do with all this. Complicated place. But it’s beautiful and the people are great, and I hope conditions continue to improve. The canal seems like kind of a dumb idea to me given that there is already a canal a couple hundred miles away – and a new canal would probably have some pretty devastating environmental impacts – but what do I know?

Okay. That was more than I was expecting . . .

Next topic. 

Costa Rica.

First thing I’ll say . . . Did we take a wrong turn and end up back in the States? On so many levels it feels like we have completely left Central America. 

Let’s see . . .

• You can drink the water.
• The roads are perfect. Not that they were bad in the rest of Central America. But there is no garbage and there are no potholes at all. And the grass on the sides of the road is mowed and orderly. 
• Oh, and what’s on the roads? Oh yeah – cars and trucks. Very few mopeds or motorcycles. No horses. No horse drawn carts. Not even many dogs. This is, by the way, a negative. Means that the cars and trucks are going faster because there’s not as much random stuff to watch out for. And who doesn’t like a good horse drawn cart now and then anyway?
• The prices are, it seems, exactly identical to American pricing. They do have what amounts to Monopoly money though. One thousand Colones is worth roughly $2. So it’s like 2,000 Colones for a cup of coffee – what with American pricing and all . . .
• The sidewalks are wide like American sidewalks. They’re not raised up like 4’ in the air. They have curb cuts. And gutters. 
• The grocery stores have milk and yogurt and all the things that American grocery stores have – and they have regular sized aisles and the aisles are not full of boxes and clutter.

I could go on. But basically, Costa Rica’s like the Switzerland or Luxembourg of Central America. Incredibly beautiful – but none of that sense that you have gone through a time capsule or something – like in Mexico, or Guatemala or El Salvador or Nicaragua . . .

Don’t worry. There are still crazy things to report . . .

Like the GIANT iguanas we saw sunning themselves in a tree over a river.

Or our attempt at seeing a nearby waterfall. 

We arrived at our hotel early today because we had an early start, and because the riding was (surprisingly) flat, and we had the wind at our backs. But after a long ride yesterday (65 miles to the border and then another 15 or so to a hotel that was not right on the border) and a not-very-good night’s sleep last night, I was cooked – and went for a nap.

So it was late afternoon – probably 4:45 – by the time we decided to go see the waterfall. Theoretically a mile-and-a-half away. Not bad – especially with our packs off the bikes. It’s dark just after 5:30 these days – so we would need to boogy – but 3 miles in 45 minutes seemed like a pretty easy task.

We head out, and it’s a little confusing at first which way to go. There is some big sign with a picture of a waterfall – but it looks like it is more for nearby development opportunities than it is for the waterfall itself. 

So we keep going.

And now we’re heading through neighborhood type areas – with houses strung along the road. Nice to see. Sometimes you need to get off of the main roads to see more of how people really live. There are a bunch of kids playing soccer (given how American Costa Rica is I don’t doubt that they call it soccer as well . . .). 

There are some turns – but the locals seem to have decided to help tourists find the waterfalls – there are hand written signs pointing the way. Right turn. Left turn across a river. Right turn past the soccer fields. Finally we have gone about 3 miles  – and the road ends. 

I’m starting to get a little afraid of the impending darkness. And it also looks like it might start raining at any moment. But now there is one more sign: “1.2K to the Waterfalls”.

We figure we’ve gone this far – we might as well get there . . .

And now we’re on a dirt road that winds around and up and over . . . and it gets rocky and it’s starting to verge on downright unpleasant. 

The sky is starting to be pink and purple. Beautiful – but a sure sign that darkness is coming . . .

Finally we reach the end of the twists and turns. We’re in a field. There’s a small hand-drawn sign pointing toward the woods on the far side of the field. We head back there – and just as we’re working to find a path, a moped pulls up with two guys aboard. 

“Are you looking for the falls? It’s $5 each,” says one of the guys as he walks toward us. 

No uniform. No pretense of official-ness. So obvious that he is trying to scam us that it’s painful. 

But whatever. I might have paid him anyway just to avoid a conflict. But it’s getting dark and we really have no time to go wandering in the woods now anyway. 

So we just leave. 

Turns out that right in the beginning – where we saw that big sign with a picture of the waterfalls – that was where we were actually supposed to turn. It’s just that it was after 4:30 – and the “official” gate closes at 4:30. I guess there are enough of us that get confused that the locals have decided to run their own waterfall racket. . .

I would say that this type of behavior is a sure sign that we’re in Central America – only this is not the Central America we know. This is the Central America that we were warned about on multiple occasions . . .

”People will try to extort money from you in Mexico.”

”Petty theft is a big thing.”

Etc.

But what I think I know is that this type of thing only happens in places where there are a lot of tourists. In other words, not Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador or Nicaragua. 

So I guess this is just further proof that we’re in Costa Rica – the cool Central American country with all the tourists . . .

But whatever. We will clearly need to watch our stuff around here. Still, Costa Rica is undeniably beautiful. 

And we’ll be back to real Latin America again soon. We’ll just have to think of this as a short, expensive vacation.

We were getting a little tired of the Nicaraguan dogs begging us for food anyway . . .

Can’t forget to mention the fun hotel we’re staying in and the fun guests that we just met. Our host is Marialos. Wonderful lady. She did small business development throughout Central America and also worked in the States for years. She met her husband – who’s from Ohio – about 25 years ago and they built this place from scratch about 11 years ago as their “retirement project.” 

All great. But what’s really fun is that her son married a Minnesota girl and they live in Ham Lake. Marialos visits them every year. She knows the Twin Cities well!

Better yet, years ago Maria-Lisa hosted Ingrid, who’s from Norway, when Ingrid did a one-year exchange program through AFS. Ingrid and her kids and parents are here visiting right now. We had a great conversation about the World Cup and Jessie Diggins with them over dinner. Ingrid’s Mom, Inge, has done four Norwegian Birkebeiners and is totally into ski racing. 

I guess sometimes you need to go to Costa Rica for the important things in life . . .

Tomorrow we push on through Costa Rica – hopefully seeing some sloths and monkeys . . .