Tonys Wibbles

Managua

I only spent a short time in Managua as Carlos (my aritisania partner from Cuba) had gone a bit offish, I had my watch stolen (in exchange for the thief's shirt which I ripped of him) and I generally found Managua boring. So I packed my bags, took what I could of the material and ran back to Leon for Xmas....
Leon

I moved back into my old house at Don Ramons and settled back in...my hammock, the radio, the cooker..ahhh life. Being Xmas time there were lots of fiestas, I found a new bar or two to hang out in, new friends and new experiences....Marco & Luiza's wedding, a big party and piñata for my birthday,

I adventured with new foods...Bulls tongue, Bulls balls!!! A day catching, killing, plucking, cooking a cock, and finally I ate python in a cool restaurant/zoo. Still not managed to eat iguana yet.

I also put a lot of work into my Spanish, with help from local friends, books, papers, and writing a story.

New year came and started with a piñata at Olgas place, ending up in Poneloya, the local beach.

Olgas family live in a shed like building on the land of some ruins of a church in the suburb of Subtiava. This is an indigenous suburb of Leon which was the centre of some of the first rebbelions during the revolution in Nicaragua which culminated in the Sandinistas led by Daniel Ortega taking power from Somoza in 1979. I read a book by a Leon student activist, Omar Cabezas who spent time hiding in Subtiava and later became a rebel in the mountains for the sandinistas. Olga also related to me a time when she was at school and Somozas Guardia took her and the other children out of school and paraded them infront of tanks and machine guns, "I though I was going to die". I presume this was a threat by the government to the rebels who had children in this school. The Guardia were Somozas police force trained by the US, which commited many human right atrocities before and durring the revolution. Many members of the Guardia fled Nicaragua as Somoza lost power and became contra soldiers in the later US funded counter revolution attempt. Sandinistas re-create a constitution and made radical changes towards socialism including Agrarian reforms and a very successful Literacy and education program. The revolution and contra figting crippled Nicaragua and the Sandinisas lost in elections in 1990 to a union of oposition parties funded by the US and under the promis that the contras would surrender if the Sandinistas lost power. On top of this, the destruction of Managua by an earthquake in 1972, Huricane Mitch, Droughts and corruption has not given Nicaraguans an easy life.

Another teramoto hit (earthquake), which was part of the one that devastated El Salvador, another country with a turbulent history. I thought it was a large truck passing by until it didn't stop for several minutes.

Matagalpa, Selva Negra, Jinotega, Esteli, Leon Viajo

As I was not working I started being more of a tourist, Olga and I made a tour to the mountain towns of Matagalapa, Jinotega and Esteli. We also stopped of on Selva Negra a German run Coffee plantation with a posh hotel in a scenic mountain area full of walks and animals. We also went to Leon Viajo, which was destroyed by an eruption and earthquake and caused the relocation of Leon to its current location.

I visited museums, volcano masaya, a small circus (which was cruel to the animals), a cock fight (didn't seem so cruel!), a theatre concert, and an old jail and fort on a hill near Leon.

Olgas Dads Finca

We went on an over night trip to the farm run by the father of Olga. A very basic farm big enough to support the few families living there. I went for a horse ride around the corn fields, was fed well with corn based food and drinks with a form of cheese made from pure milk (hand milked at 3am that morning) and yeast. Work looked very hard there, with few amenities (water was dredged up by oxen from a large concrete well) however the people living there were happy and friendly. I took lots of photos and sent them a set.