Greg and Mandy's Travels

Look who we found in Boston

Snuck out of our room in the dark about 5:30 so we didn’t disturb anybody else, which was all a bit pointless because there was nobody else in the hostel apart from us anyway. Too early for breakfast, but we grabbed some orange juice on the way out.

Our driver was actually waiting for us, so we were on the road far earlier than our expected departure time, and at that time of the morning with no traffic we had a very easy run to the airport, so we ended up there with hours to spare.

Printed out our boarding passes and bag tags at the machine, then wandered down to the food court to grab some coffee for breakfast, and spend our last cordobas.

You’d have to say that Managua airport is a fairly sleepy airport. There seems to be only two international flights going all morning, both them to Miami, but with different airlines. Even so, we had a boarding gate change. Goodness knows why, there’s nobody else in the terminal.

Talking of nothing else in the terminal, there was not one display board in the whole of the terminal telling you flights and times, and there was no wifi either to check the flight status. Made it all a bit hit and miss, but we figured with only one lunchtime flight we couldn’t fail to find it.

So now we are in the air, perhaps I can comment of the political situation in Nicaragua. I’ve made a bit out of their chequered history of occupation and revolution. Our guide mentioned that they really only had had democracy for about 5 of the 200 years after their independence from Spain, and is not truly democratic now.

Their current president has done what the two current biggest autocrats in the world have done (and probably others as well). He’s changed the law in his own country to abolish the ‘two term limit’ on being president, and will now be president indefinitely, presumably until he is overthrown like the previous dictators. He has appointed his wife as vice-president, and his sons as cabinet ministers in charge of the important departments. As our guide said, ‘there goes any chance of democracy’.

The country is poor and inefficient, and the bureaucracy seems to do things ‘because that’s the way they are done’ rather than because its efficient and effective.

We had a good time there. We never felt in danger or unsafe. Individually the people were really nice to us. But the country isn’t climbing out of its hole, and there’s really not much reason that we can think of to hurry back. As an indication of how it works, the borders are a good example. Crossing the border by road took 3 hours. Then at an airport, normally when a plane is pushed back for takeoff at the airport, there will be a tug operator and a guide. Some airports have two guys on the wings. That’s a maximum of 4. Today we counted a party of 12 guys wandering around the tarmac under our plane as they pushed us back, and there were an additional 8 staff inside the terminal at our gate. Sums up Nicaragua really.

So, what did we think of Central America? Well, there are some lovely sights and some great things to do. The history is rich, if also depressing in the main, mainly because of others who have exploited them.

Belize is a spot that lots of people are going to. It has lovely reefs, snorkelling and diving. Great for young couples who want to party. But there’s not that much to see if you don’t like going underwater. Not a bad beach retreat for US citizens with only a short time to get some sun, but Australians have much better options at home for that.

Guatemala was better than we thought. Good infrastructure and facilities in the cities, though pretty average roads elsewhere. Be warned that it takes forever to drive to any destination in the countryside because of the mountains, so it takes for ever to get to any Mayan ruins. Some nice tourist spots like Antigua. You probably wouldn’t travel half way around the world just to pop in, but if you are in the neighbourhood it’s certainly worth stopping for a few days. We enjoyed it.

We didn’t really spend enough time in Honduras to give a fair opinion, but nothing that we saw was impressive, and it still has some of the highest crime rates in the world, which drives decent locals to despair. You’d probably only go to say you’d been there.

El Salvador was the surprise packet. Not all roses I’m sure, but I was super impressed with what I saw, and the obvious efforts of the current president to genuinely improve things. We had a great time there, and would be very happy to go back if we got the chance. If you are in to beaches, surfing, volcanoes and papusas you’ll really enjoy it.

Nicaragua – I think I’ve said enough.

So that’s it for another adventure. Safely made it to Boston on time, and I can now try to break that habit of saying ‘gracias’ to everybody.