Once again, it waas a hot morning. This time I woke much earlier to go with Ingrid'S mother to some nearby attractions. We went to lake Tiscapa, which seems to be quite a popular destination, inside the city, but it was unfortunately closed. I was able to take some pictures from the side though.
I'm still awed at how time works in this place. Not only I was able to go to that lake and take some pictures, Ingrid's mother also took me to lake Managua, which has a lot of future, but isn't a real tourist place yet. She then took me to buy some Flor de Caña rum -which seems to be quite famous- off a supermarket, and it as still before 1, and we had to wait for a while until Ingrid came out of her office.
This time, instead of eating at Ingrid's house, we went to a restaurant. She ordered the churrasco and I ordered the Jalapeño. Both consisted of a modest sized piece of great meat, hers with chimichurri and mine with some hot jalapeño sauce. This was a nice place and we had a great time. We then went for some ice cream and talked for a nice while on the streets of Managua. Overall it's a nice place, full of a certain r\type of charm I really can't describe.
Ingrid then invited me to the school she takes japanese at, so I could meet her sensei. As we walked into her office, she was sitting and seemed quite busy. I hope I didn't disturb her or anything. We spoke for a while, and learned that she came from JICA, and that they send a person every two years to teach japanese overseas. I think she was a great person, and I guess she's an excellent teacher, but I find it quite lonely for Ingrid only to have one person to speak japanee with, at any given time. Ganbatte!
As I mentioned before, time in here seems to run at quite a different speed, because we then went to the Masaya Volcano, which requires a road trip to which her mother took us. Once again, the entrance fee for foreigners was much higher than that for nicaraguans. I really hadn't seen that mindset before I came to Central America.
The Masaya Volcao lies on some kind of national park, which has a visitors center halfway up through a road that leads to the tip of the volcano. It is still active, so there's permanently this huge plume of smoke coming out of its mouth. There's also a small set of stairs that leave up to a watchspot from which you can see the crater much better.
After we took some pictures with Ingrid in there, it was time to go back. We drove back to Ingrid's house, and guess what. It wasn't even 6 PM yet! We did like 6 different things, and she had time to change to go to classes! I'd definitely love it if my time was that versatile. The volcano was like a 30 minute drive. In Bogota, a 30 minute drive takes me halfway to my school on a light traffic day. So this means I'm mostly ambivalent about the cities I've been to in Central America: on one hand, I think that larger cities tend to be more recursive, and you definitely don't grow bored of them (not that I have gotten bored in any way, but I might get a little used of the feautres a small city has to offer, especially me being from a huge city like Bogota, which has many more people than any whole one of these countries. But on the other hand, these cities are so peaceful, and time flows so slowly, that I'm worried my life may pass through my eyes in a big city and I might not even notice it. Meh, one never likes what one has...
But now I have a greater dillema at hand: I don't know if I should go to Honduras or not. I don't know anyone in Honduras, and I have no idea what it might have to offer, and I definitely have grown fonder of hospitality, so I really don't want to go back to shady hotels in rough neighborhoods like those in Turbo and Puerto Obaldia. I also want to meet my friend Mauricio in El Salvador; and I definitely can't wait to see Marina in Guatemala.
On the other hand, if Honduras has good places to visit, I think I'd probably regret it for my whole life if I wasn't willing to wait for two more days and see something really cool over there. People say that patience is a virtue, and having waited for 6 months to do this trip has probably made it much more intense than if I had done it like in December.
My best friends in this situation are my travel guides. I pulled out the Rough Guide and the Lonely Planet. I honestly didn't expect fot me to rely so much more on the Rough Guide than the Lonely Planet, but it is so comprehensive and well organized, that I've pretty much stored the Lonely Planed not to read it again.
Okay, good news and bad news. Depending on how you wish to view it. The bad news is that I'll have to postpone my rushes for a while, because the good ones are that I'm going to Honduras. The book says that there are some really beautiful places in the Bay Islands, and that there are some great mayan ruins over at Copan. I think I'll visit them in this order, so it'll be just 3 or 4 days to postpone for now. So off to Honduras it is.
After we dropped Ingrid off at school, her mother took me to the Ticabus, where I bought a ticket to San Pedro Sula in Honduras. This trip might take about 12 hours, so it might be the longest one so far, exceeding the first trip to Medellin. I'm getting quite used to these long trips, so I don't really think it will be so traumatic.
The guy who sold me the ticket mentioned that the border post guy may ask me for a return ticket, so I should think about purchasing one. I'm not so sure about it. I'm definitely not going back to Nicaragua, in part because my visa is one-entry, but I also can't buy a ticket from Tegucigalpa to El Salvador because I think I won't be taking that route! All the places I'll be going to are up north, and Tegucigalpa is down south! I guess I'll take my chances.
Later in the evening, after I learned the bus would take off at 5 AM tomorrow morning, and I broke the news to my wonderfule hostesses who pretty much went like "wtf?" when I mentioned it, Ingrid called another one of her cute friends, Francis, so we would go out and eat something.
Her friend arrived on a hello kitty themed car. Everything from the carpets to the glass stickers, and even her cell phone haad hello kitty stuff. I think that's cool ^^.
We went to a traditional restaurant where my two beautiful friends recommended the Caballo Bayo: a mix of a bunch of traditional dishes with tortillas, basically so I could try them all. I also ordered a Chicha crink, which was good, except for the fact that almost half of the drink's mass seemed to be pure sugar! This I unfortunately couldn't drink, so I ended up with a glass of water.
The Caballo Bayo had like 8 different things, some of which were good, others great, and others, well... not-so-good. But overall it was nice food on a nice traditional nicaraguan atmosphere. As the girls enjoyed their food, I pulled out the best sales speech I could about Colombia. They both seemed to be awed about it. I hope I can get the same effect with Marina and get her to come to my country ^^.
It was a great night, but it would be a short one. I readied my bags, as I set the alarm clock on my GPS (oh, Akira-sama (my cellphone), you don't know how much I miss you!) at 4 AM. This would be the last night with Ingrid's cats.
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