Roasting Virgins

Beat the sun up this morning as we assembled in the lobby for a long day in Nicaragua.

A little bit of geography. We're in Central America, south of Mexico. To our south is the last country in Central America - Panama, and to our north is one of the poorest countries - Nicaragua.

A little bit of history. People in Nicaragua trace their ancestry to the Mayans whose main territorial strongholds were up north Mexico way. In the 1500s the Spanish conquered most of central and south America, from Mexico to Argentina. Their great rivals were the Portuguese - Christopher Columbus and all that. Between them, it was a race to gain as much territory as they could, and of course the gold that went with it. After they'd claimed as much territory as they could, they started fighting each other, until the Pope thought it unseemly for two catholic powers to be greedy, banged their heads together, and divided South America down the middle. He could have told them that slavery and looting were un-catholic, but that would be going too far. The Spanish got the Pacific side, and the Portuguese got the Atlantic side, which is why Brazil speaks Portuguese.

After the Spanish had a couple of hundred years to ransack the place, the peoples of the Americas rose up in the 1850s and claimed independence. However, Mexico wanted to rule the whole lot, which didn't impress the other people groups, so they then had another round of wars against the Mexicans, to break free of their control. As soon as this had been achieved, the confederation of Central American states that fought the Mexicans fell apart, and most of the countries we know today came into being.

For a while Nicaragua was prosperous and stable until the Somozas came to power. The first one wasn't too bad, but his son who decided to succeed him wasn't very nice, and by the time the third generation took control, it was positively despotic, with high illiteracy and low employment. However they were propped up by the US in support of US businesses in the country.

Eventually the people felt powerful enough to rebel, under the umbrella of the Sandanista banner. With communist revolutions underway in other parts of Central America, they unfortunately turned to Cuba for assistance. This infuriated the US who hated anything with the word Communist in it. Inevitably the US decided to bankroll the Contra rebel's side, and Cuba and the USSR in return bankrolled the Sandanistas, so the country plunged into civil war. They say that 65,000 died.

Luckily a ceasefire was negotiated in 1988 after Reagan was finally stopped from illegally supplying the Contras in defiance of Congress, and the country has started a climb from the poorest in Central America up to only one of the poorest. I was actually surprised at how much they've achieved. They have decent infrastructure, pedlars are gradually disappearing, children are attending school, tourism is on the up, they have a number of environmental initiatives happening, and are serious about safety and opportunities for women. Seemed to be a safe and stable place - that is apart from the volcanoes.

Nicaragua has six active volcanoes, and the day was dominated by them. First up for viewing was a dormant volcano caldera - Catarina, which was a lovely view. After that we went to see the highlight of the day - peering down into the furnace of an active volcano, one of only a small number in the world where you can do that. Seems that the Mayans appeased the Gods, ensuring that the volcanoes desisted from erupting, by throwing young virgins into them, and in a cruel, ironic twist, Bautista disposed of his political enemies by doing the same thing, although it was a bit easier having helicopters at his disposal.

Luckily the volcano didn't start erupting while we were peering into it, though the cars all park facing the gates just in case. Don't know what we would have done if it had started - there weren't any suitable females on our bus.

Next up was the town of Grenada, one of the largest in the country, but still quite small as it goes. As you can guess by the name, it was founded by the Spanish, and laid out in typical fashion around the city square, with the cathedral on one end, the police station on another, the municipal offices on the third. Had a lovely lunch at one of the hotels, then wandered around the square and through the buildings.

Finally it was down to Lake Nicaragua, dominated by another dormant volcano. However the evidence of it's activity was all around, with lots of 'islands' in the lake actually being conglomerations of lava boulders spewed out by the volcano when it was last active. They land a long way away! After a restful boat trip around some of the lake, it was back on the bus for the return trip to Costa Rica.

Spent the inevitable hour at the border, with yet one more passport inspection after you think you must have had them all, watching the rather spectacular lightning show, and trying to capture a photo of it. Actually, on reflection, an hour in the queues on each crossing of the border seem a minor inconvenience in comparison to the truck drivers. They camp on the side of the road in huge queues as it takes between 2 days and 2 weeks to clear the customs at the border depending on how many trucks there are ahead of them. Then after 24 hours they reach the next country north and do it all again.

Got back to the Riu about 10pm, too tired to worry about the fact that all the restaurants had closed.