Nicaragua Part One.

           This past week has been one of the most amazing weeks of my life. We went on our mid-semester trip to Nicaragua, which was completely different from anything I was expecting. We had several lectures on the history and current socioeconomic status of the country before going on this trip. Nicaragua is the poorest country in Central America, and second poorest in all of Latin America. Their education is incredibly poor (most children only go to school for about five years), and twenty-two percent of all people above the age of fifteen are illiterate. They have been dramatically impacted by political upheaval and governmental corruption. Almost half of their land has been converted for agricultural purposes, and more will most likely be converted in the next few decades. There is little incentive to protect their natural resources, and most national parks are considered “paper parks,” which exist in name only. There is no enforcement of regulations, and people are basically allowed to do whatever they want. I was expecting to be horrified at the horrendous environmental degradation, and prepared myself for the worst. Although many places in Nicaragua were obviously poor and not the best in terms of environmental stewardship, I was blown away by the beauty the country had to offer. Since it was a rather long trip, I’m going to break it into two different parts. This first part is on the first half of the trip.

            Our first few days were spent on Ometepe Island, which is the largest island on a lake in the world. It was a two hour ferry ride from the mainland, which was incredible. It was pretty windy that day, and so the waves were pretty intense. I got to stand at the bow of the boat for the whole ride, and it was like a rollercoaster. I personally loved it, but many friends got pretty sea sick. As we approached the island, I was blown away by how beautiful it was. Ometepe is a volcanic island that was formed by two different volcanoes on either side of the island. This island is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. We stayed in a hostel on the beach which was the nicest place we had stayed at up to this point. It was honestly one of the most beautiful places I have ever stayed in. Every night we watched the most brilliant sunsets, had amazing food, and then played card games with everyone there. Once it got dark enough, I would go out on the dock, sometimes by myself, sometimes with other people to go star gazing. There was no light pollution on the island, and the stars were brighter than I have ever seen them. You could see the Milky Way painted clearly over the entire night sky, and every night saw several shooting stars. I spent many hours on that dock in awe of the beauty that surrounded me. If you asked me to go back to that place, I would go in a heartbeat.

The Captain of the ferry's chair.

Our view from the hostel's dock.

Some of the hammocks in the hostel.

My view from just a few steps outside my room.

            On our first full day on the island, some students went on the nine hour hike up the Maderas Volcano. Unfortunately, I was still not fully recovered from my illness, and couldn’t go. I was very bummed at first, but had a lovely time on the alternative trip, which was to a coffee farm that was on the island. It was a fairly popular tourist place (considering how few visitors they got) because it had several trails with petroglyphs. They reminded me a lot of the ones we saw on a family trip to New Mexico a few years ago. They varied in subject, from various animals to people to unknown designs. After, we ate a delicious lunch overlooking one of the volcanoes. We then went to a beautiful natural watering hole and got to swim for a few hours. All in all, it was a really nice break from our normally insane schedule.

One of the petroglyphs on the trip.

Our view at the farm after the hike.

Our view during lunch.

One of the flowers in the garden.

The swimming hole.

            The other days on the island were spent in similar fashion- hiking, classes and traveling around the island to get a better feel of how the people lived. The people on the island were incredibly poor. It was the first time I saw this level of poverty in person, and it was very upsetting for me. As we drove around the island, we passed many houses that were little more than shacks. Several homes had walls made out of plastic garbage bags and thatch roofs. Most clearly did not have indoor plumbing, and had to rely on an outhouse that was also made out of garbage bags. There was a huge disparity between the incredible natural beauty of the island itself and the overwhelming poverty of the people that lived on the island. It was very hard for me to see such a large number of people who were barely able to put food on the table when I am so incredibly lucky to have access to virtually anything I wanted whenever I wanted it. I felt guilty for ever complaining about any “issue” I had in my life, because it could not even come close to comparing to what these people had to go though on a daily basis. The island didn’t even have a hospital- if they ever got sick, they needed to scrape the money together to go on the ferry and then take a bus to a nearby town. In addition to poverty, there is an issue with general health issues and sanitation. Stray dogs wandered freely throughout the outdoor part of the hostel, which we were not allowed to touch. They often carried parasites that could be transferred to humans and give you disgusting diseases you definitely didn’t want. I have to say, that was also pretty hard to see so many dogs clearly starving, and not be able to do anything to help them.

One of the houses on the island. Not one of the "nicer" homes, but definitely not the worst either.

One of places we had several of our lectures while on the island.

There is some interest in attempting to alleviate these people’s situation, but not much has come out of it yet. The island has a very weak governmental system that lacks the ability to enforce most environmental regulations. There is talk of building an airstrip on the island in order to increase tourism. But this increase in tourism is a double-edged sword. Although it has the potential to improve the livelihoods of the people and reduce their dependence on subsistence farming, it has many drawbacks. The first of many is that the decrease in farming on the island would force them to import necessities that cost far more than they are able to afford. There is also a great need to improve the infrastructure to better support an increase in tourism. The roads we traveled on were the worst I have ever been on. There was no correct side of the road to travel on because they were so heavily eroded. There were some parts of the road that had giant boulders in the middle of the road we had to drive around (since it was a volcanic island, the ground was littered with rocks of all different sizes). There is also a desperate need for an increase in education (since most of the people most likely don’t even have a high school level of education), especially in general business management and tourism. Without these improvements, any attempts to help the island will ultimately result in tourism swallowing the local culture and mutating it into a homogenous unauthentic tourist trap. The resources must be provided to allow the people to improve their own situation in a way that will be sustainable for generations to come.

The main road on the island. I wish I got a better picture of just how bad the roads were. This picture doesn't do it justice.

But despite its obvious hardships and future challenges, Ometepe Island is truly stunning in terms of natural beauty. It was an incredibly peaceful place. You could spend days just relaxing in the many hammocks at the hotel, or wandering around both the property and the rest of the island and watch the many animals that called that island home. There were many domestic and farm animals (including a little pony the hostel owner’s daughter would ride around on during the afternoon) that wandered the island. Cows, horses, chickens, pigs, and dogs all wandered freely doing whatever they wanted to do. Horses would chase dogs, dogs would chase chickens, and chickens would run around scratching for insects in the leaves. Welcome to paradise.