Number 18: Nicaragua 1994

Against all odds.....

„Life is subversive“ Ernesto Cardenal

I like to prepare my trips well, know about the history, environment and the manners of a country. Likewise it is interesting to look up more information about the places visited after a trip. This of course is much easier now, in times of internet, then in 1994, where you had to visit libraries and find the suitable books to get more information.

Between 1854 and now, Nicaragua had 26 presidents. This does not sound so bad, since each on average would have served more than 6 years. However, the picture is different if you count the periods of government including juntas, presidents who had a comeback, and acting leaders, who ruled, but where no president. Then you count 55. If you then subtract Daniel Ortega, who rules this county now for almost 19 years and additional 5 years as leader of the junta of national reconstruction (sic), you arrive at the conclusion that a government on average lasted about 2,5 years. There are very few who ruled more than 4 years, and many who ruled less than half a year. At the time when we came to Nicaragua, the president was Violeta Chamorro. She was the leader of the Unión Nacional Opositora (UNO), a coalition formed to replace previous president, leader of the guerilla against the dictator Somoza, and leader of the sandinista party (FSLN), Daniel Ortega. he ruled for 6 years and 260 days. I have kept a newspaper article from the time which analzsis her incompetence and corruption.

„Todo hombre es poeta. Olvidan hacer versos porque se dedican a hacer otras cosas, hacer dinero, por ejemplo“

(Every man is a poet. They forget to make verses because they dedicate themselves to doing other things, making money, for example)"

(Ernesto Cardenal)

Daniel Ortega, leader of the FSLN, in front of his troops

We went to the nicaraguan embassy in Tegucicalpa, Honduras, to apply for a visa. There they readily issued a visa, but asked us how we intended to travel in the country. There was a strike of unlimited duration. The sandinistas, who not surprisingly disagreed with the politics of the joined opposition, blocked all traffic. There were no busses and no private transportation. We still had to go. My friend Thomas had a flight back from Managua to Europe, and I wanted to continue south to Costa Rica.

FSLN propaganda

To get as far as possible in a day we left from Tegucicalpa on the first bus. When we arrived at the border close to a settlement with the misleading name „el paraiso“, the border guard examined our passports with a worried look. Then he came up with the same story. We were allowed to enter the country, but he was afraid that we would not get very far. Then he pointed at a VW bus. The driver would go south in the direction of Esteli, the next major town, and maybe he would take us. So we walked up to the bus and asked. He declined. The Sandinistas had established road blocks at the border of each town. If they would find him breaking the strike rules, they would smash his windows and punch his tyres.

The bus at the first road block behind the border

Obviously we looked very miserable, so he wanted to be kind and continued the conversation by asking us where we came from. He started to think when he learned that we were from Germany. „A lot of people from your country came to help us when we had the revolution. I have an idea. I try to help you“.

So we threw our backbags in the bus and took off. Only a short distance behind the border we had to stop at the end of a long line of vehicules. The first road block. That could take hours. Our driver got out and went up to one of the wild looking guys patrolling the line of cars. They looked at us, then the guy nodded and they walked away to the begin of the the road block. After a while our driver came back, started the engine and passed all the cars. The road block consisted of two trucks with a metal chain inbetween. Before the chain a sign: one car per hour, one truck in two hours, a bus in 5 hours. A very well organised strike. The guards lowered the chain and we were allowed to pass. Our driver had told the Sandinistas that we were German development workers who had to go to Managua to help the people of Nicaragua.

The enemy was clearly defined

„ Slogan-making is not poetry“ (Ernesto Cardenal)

One of the road blocks 

When we arrived in the next town, he left us at the road block. We walked to the other end of town, where we spotted a school bus leaving slowly. We started to run, backbags and all. The school bus did not stop, neither accelerate, but they opened the door in the back, which all these american school buses have, lowered a ladder and we jumped on the slowly moving vehicule.

In this way we got to the town of Esteli, where we spent the night in a lovely hotel with a beautiful inner courtyard. It is called hotel Arcor and it still exists. We were the only guests.

Intermediate stop in a roadside pub

The next day, at the road block at the southern end of Esteli, we walked right up to the guys guarding the barricade. They asked us where we wanted to go. Then they walked along the line of cars. After they had found somebody who wanted to take us to Leon, our destination for the day, he was allowed to jump the line. In that way, we had a ride and the driver did not have to wait.

The trip continues on the back of a pick up truck

Fellow lucky people who got a spot on a pick-up truck

This basically was the way we travelled for almost a week through Nicaragua. It worked very well. Nobody wanted any payment from us and we were much faster then by bus, which stops frequently or waits for additional passengers. And there were very few busses anyway. Afterwards the strike and the road blockage were lifted.

Waiting for the next lift

Fellow travellers

Like a lot of other latin american countries the permanent political turmoil in Nicaragua has produced a long list of brilliant and well-known writers. Think of Ruben Dario, Giaconda Belli, Karly Gaitán Morales and Ernesto Cardenal. The latter is symbolic for the recent nicaraguan history. Born in 1925, he became a marxist, priest and as such a fervent supporter of the sandinista movement. Like his Chilean contemporary Pablo Neruda, he had to flee from dictatorship to neighboring Costa Rica. After the fall of the dictator Somoza, he became very disappointed at how the sandinistas and Daniel Ortega ruled the country. Now, after more than 23 years of his presidency, there is still no sign of „reconstrucion nacional“. Nicaragua is still one of the poorest countries in the world. Ernesto Cardenal died on March 1st, 2020 at age 95. The funeral ceremony in the catredral of Managua was disrupted by supporters of Ortega and and had to be continued in secrecy elsewhere.

„La juventud debería ser para los viejos, porque sólo uno estando viejo sabía aprovechar la juventud.”

(Youth should be for the old, because only one being old knew how to take advantage of youth)

(Ernesto Cardenal)

Stop in the center of a village

"I am not interested in an economic liberation of man without the liberation of the whole man" (Ernesto Cardenal)

Typical means of transport in the countryside in Nicaragua in 1994

Street vendors catering for travellers in the back of a truck

Girl selling soft drinks and ice

Little boys selling drinks and sweets at a bus station

"Se dice que una de las curas del amor, de las pocas curas, son los viajes"

(It is said that one of the cures for love, one of the few cures, is travel.)

Ernesto Cardenal)

In the streets of Leon

"pensaba que tal vez era cierto que estaba loco y creía que no lo estaba porque los que están locos creen que no están locos,"

(I thought maybe it was true that I was crazy and I believed that I wasn't because those who are crazy believe that they are not crazy)

(Ernesto Cardenal)

Horse carts instead of taxis where the typical means of transport in the bigger cities

Waiting for the next transport job

Local bus

"Un nicaragüense no se siente verdaderamente nicaragüense si no ha viajado. Aunque sea a Costa Rica. El nicaragüense adquiere su verdadera nacionalidad hasta que ha viajado"

(A Nicaraguan doesn't truly feel Nicaraguan unless he or she has traveled, even to Costa Rica. Nicaraguans acquire their true nationality only after traveling.)

(Ernesto Cardenal)

People come together in front of the houses to enjoy the evening breeze 

"We turn outward, attracted by the beauty we see in created things without realizing that they are only a reflection of the real beauty."

(We turn outward, attracted by the beauty we see in created things without realizing that they are only a reflection of the real beauty.)

(Ernesto Cardenal)

Market in Leon

One of the few cafes in Leon. When we had milkshakes on the terrace boys asked for the empty glasses to lick out the remainders of our drink



The civil war left a lot of ruins in Leon. Many were still not rebuilt in 1994

Outside Leon was a military fortress, which was used by the thugs of Somoza as torture center for political prisoners. When we asked directions nobody wanted to hear about it 

The ramparts of the fortress. The backdrop are formed by the volcanoes around Leon

The torture cellar in the former prison

The center of Granada was always well maintained since it is the town where the dictator Somoza came from

Also Granada is overlooked by a volcano

The remainders of the train station of Granada is close to the big lake Cocibolca in the center of Nicaragua. It has not seen a train for a long time

The railroad led to a pier. In the port of Granada boats from the islands in the lake are unloaded, here with bananas 

While we were in Granada we spent our evenings drinking rum and coke on the pier and watching the unloading of the boats

"Volveré con un poco de lodo en los zapatos / y una palabra alegre que decirte"

(I'll come back with a little mud on my shoes / and a happy word to say to you)

(Ernesto Cardenal)

Number 17, Mexico 1989

Log from the Sea of Cortez

There are inspiring books. There are travel books, which I read, and afterwards I have only one idea left in my mind: I have to go there or have to do that. I read „In Patagonia“ by Bruce Chatwin and I was mesmerized. „The great railway bazaar“ by Paul Theroux drives you into the arms of India, his „deep south“ into the impoverished former confederate US. „The Chains of Heaven“ by Philip Marsden made me long for doing a walk in the ethiopian highlands. And „the log from the Sea of Cortez“ by John Steinbeck made me go to Baja California.

Cactus garden typical for Baja California

Baja California is a peninsula between the pacific ocean in the west and the gulf of California, which basically is the long estuary of the colorado river which spills the little, which is left of its poisoned waters into the northern end of the bay. From Tijuana at the American border to Cabo San Lucas at the southern tip it is a piddling 1600 km. The middle of the route is marked by the monument which marks the border between the mexican provinces of Baja California Norte and Sur.

From my base in Pasadena to Santa Rosalia, my favorite spot at the time, about in the middle of the peninsula, it is 1200 km along the then almost new carretera transpeninsular 1. A second road did not exist at the time. Gas stations were rare. And after an empty stretch of 200 km you could arrive at a gas station which had run out of gas. So it was indispensable to fill up each time it was possible. It was not advisable to drive at night. The road is full of „vados“, dips in the road to let the occasional flash flood run off. At night these are the favorite hangouts of stray cattle. Vado and cattle you often only spot in the last moment. In addtion, the odd unlit horse cart or pickup might block the road.

The road down into Bahia de los Angeles

The camping spot on the beach after the car was towed out

In a bookstore I had found a guide book called „Hidden Mexico, Beaches and Coasts“. It recommended to go to Bahia de los Angeles, a bay with a little fishing village about in the middle of the peninsula, and camp there on the beach. That sounded just right to me. After an overnight stay in a motel on the way, I arrived in Bahia de Los Angeles in the afternoon and followed the instructions of the guidebook: „take the road north toward airport, follow sandy fork opposite airport road, continue several miles until sugar white sand signals your arrival“. The sandy track was my terminus. After a couple of km I got stuck in deep sand. No way to get out. I locked the car and walked back the long way to the village. There I got help. A couple of men with a boy got a tractor to pull out my car. Triumphantly the boy aged about 10 drove the tractor. For 20 $ they pulled my car back to the village, under the condition that the boy was allowed to steer the car. Later I found a nice spot on the beach to camp.

„Where there is little danger, there seems to be little stimulation“ (John Steinbeck, log from the sea of Cortez, 1951).

The biggest Baja plant, Cardon cactus

The cirio (boojum tree) is the typical endemic plant of the baja desert. After rain, it blooms, ...

... after a long drought it curls down

One of the few animals

The rugged mountain ranges of Baja California between the calm coast of the sea of Cortez and the wild Pacific is covered with a cactus garden ranging from 20 m Cardon cacti to 3 cm succulents. A lot of them are endemic. The coasts are dotted with beaches and beautiful, some almost circular bays. One is Scammons lagoon, which, in January to March, is filled with gray whales coming here to give birth. Scammon was a whaler who slaughtered the creatures relentlessly in the bay. Now it is a reserve and one of the world‘s best spots for whale watching because they cannot go anywhere the shallow bay. At that time another sandy track of 20 km led to the lagoon.

The road to Scammon's lagoon

Boats waiting for whale watchers

Baja was also on the spanisch missinary route north. To accomodate the holy men, a series of missions with sometimes spectacular churches like in San Ignacio 1786 were built into the desert, which had no wood or other building materials. Hidden in the desert are cave paintings and remainders of settlements and mines.

The church of San Ignacio, a tiny village in the middle of the desert

The interior of the church, everything had to come by burro from elsewhere

Ruin of another mission church and graveyard

„Probably the airplanes will bring week-enders from Los Angeles before long, and the beautiful poor bedraggled old town will bloom with a Floridian ugliness.“ (John Steinbeck, Log from the sea of Cortez, 1951)

The church designed by Eiffel in Santa Rosalia

Streets in Santa Rosalia

Discarded steam engines and mining equipment decorate the streets of Santa Rosalia

South of San Ignacio is the Copper mining town of Santa Rosalia. It was found by the French mining company El Boleo in 1884, which exploited the copper mine until 1954. There were several futile attempts to restart the exploitation of the mine afterwards. The town is dotted with french colonial architecture and the prefab church was actually constructed by Eiffel, exhibited in Paris in 1889 and Brussels and then ended up in the mexican desert. 

The streets of the town were lined with french colonial buildings in a varying state of disrepair and dotted with remainders of mining equipment, steam engines and machinery. The former smelter towers over the little town. At that time the intrepid visitor was free to expore the rusty remains. A paradise for the industrial archeologist.

Steam engine and in the background the ruins of the smelter

The old ore port of Santa Rosalia

The remainder of the smelter

The hotel and the cemetery overlook the town

The place to stay in town was Hotel Frances, the colonial former guest house of the mining operation, spectacularly situated like an eagles nest on a ridge above town. The empty pool in the court yard was surrounded by parasols blown to pieces by the wind. Everything was covered in dust, but the bar was open and they had ice-cold modelo negra in the fridge.

The Hotel Frances in Santa Rosalia in 1988

The courtyard with the empty pool

At the bar I met a Mexican guy, who convinced me to spend the evening in the only pub in town. You know how things go. In the pub I met a couple of French guys who needed a ride back to Tijuana the next day and I promised to pick them up at 8 in the morning. I don‘t really remember how I made it back up the hill from the pub to the hotel room.

In the few streets of San Ignacio

Not much to do for a cop at the time

When I turned up at the street corner with a considerable hangover next morning, the French were already waiting for me. I was really glad to have them in the car. Even now the 1200 km distance from Santa Rosalia to Pasadena without break will take you 15 hours to complete. I definitely needed some distraction from my headache. North of the border between the mexican provinces Baja Sur and Baja Norte it got dark. To avoid collisions with cattle in vados or innocent unlit donkey carts, I stuck myself behind a truck in the hope he would get all obstacles off the route. It worked and we reached Tijuana around midnight. When I returned to University the next morning they told me they were about to call the police to search for me. When they learned that I had driven down into Baja alone, they were flabbergasted. How could I do such a stupid and unnecessary thing?

Later I went back to Baja California for several other short trips. I bought books with a complete set of topographical maps for an exhaustive exploration of the peninsula by 4x4, but I never found the time for a long trip. When I compare the maps now with what I find in Google, again, much has changed beyond recognition. There are more roads, vacation home projects, settlements. A couple of the beautiful bays are completely covered with development. Probably they even built additional gas stations. The famous vaquita, the endemic dolphins of the Sea of Cortez, the smallest of the kind, are reduced to a total population of 19 (yes, nineteen). The smelter in Santa Rosalia is still towering above the little town, but is now fenced off for security reasons. They have renovated the Hotel Frances. They have got water in the pool now. Since you cannot go there for the near future, look it up in Google. It is beautiful. Can‘t wait to go there again.

“It would be good to live in a perpetual state of leave-taking, never to go nor to stay, but to remain suspended in that golden emotion of love and longing; to be loved without satiety.” (John Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez, 1951)