March 2, 2004
Panajachel, Guatemala
A few days after the last entry I decided instead of hanging out in Guatemala another week, not really enough time to go anywhere on my list of places I haven’t been to yet, I would head down to Nicaragua. But once there I felt like I did in Guatemala, that there wasn’t enough time to do much before Faye flew down from Oregon. So I went straight to Granada and spent several days doing little more than roaming the city, socializing with fellow travelers and eating.
Maybe I am rationalizing, but it seems to me that hanging out with fellow travelers is a legitimate travel activity as long as you don’t overdo it. In virtually every region there are known “watering holes” where travelers gather to recover from the rigors of their trip, indulge in some comfort food, and exchange stories and information about other parts of the world. Guidebooks are an important resource, but often even current editions are outdated. The best information is gathered from other travelers who have just come from where you are going, or have recommendations for places to go that you might not have considered. (For example, the hot recommendation this year seems to be South Viet Nam.)
Inevitably conversations turn to comparisons between where you are and where you’ve been. There are lots of best/worst stories involving accommodations, buses, food and illnesses. For most I don’t think Nicaragua will be the best or worst in any of those categories (though one can get pretty sick anywhere…)
Nicaragua is similar to Guatemala in many ways, on the surface at least, but in others it is completely different. Most noticeable is the absence of the Mayas that give Guatemala so much color and character. There were natives related to the Maya in what is now Nicaragua, but they disappeared long ago.
But a more interesting difference is the kind of travelers and tourists who are coming to Nicaragua. For one thing many seem to be coming up from Costa Rica where, from all accounts, things are pretty civilized. While some of them are world travelers, many of them seem a bit wide-eyed and naïve compared to the savvy chicken bus veterans of Guatemala. Some are Costa Rican residents or long-term visitors who have to get out of the country for a few days then re-enter to get a fresh visa stamp. Their visit to Nicaragua is little more than an inconvenient formality.
Then there are the expats, foreigners who have left their own country to live in Nicaragua. There seem to be more dreams and schemes than in Guatemala. The expats of Nicaragua have an air of desperate optimism, like there, at the end of the road, they may finally find the opportunity they have been searching for.
A while back there was a sociology student doing a study of the expatriate community around Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. Someone told him the expats there were the “wanted and the unwanted.”
In Nicaragua an American woman who had recently moved to Granada said to me, “You’ve heard the saying that if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere? Well, here they say if you can’t make it anywhere else you come to Nicaragua.”
Though there is a growing number of foreign retirees and escapees moving to Guatemala, many have been in the country for fifteen or twenty years, and more. Some have raised families. By contrast just about every expat we met in Nicaragua was a recent arrival. Their reasons for coming were fresh in their minds; they hadn’t yet had to contemplate reasons for staying.
Among the get-acquainted questions foreigners ask each other in Nicaragua the most common is “Are you buying property here?” The second most common seems to be “Do you have a project?” A lot of people say yes to one or both questions. (A negative answer to both immediately pegs you as no more than a tourist.)
A surprising number of people come to Nicaragua in search of a “project,” an outlet for their charitable urges, perhaps seeking redemption for a life of comfort. Or maybe it looks easier to change this part of the world than the part they came from. Some of them buy school uniforms, book bags and school supplies for hundreds of children at a time. I’m not sure they ever know any of the kid’s names, but they feel like they are doing something good.
For others moving to Nicaragua is a chance to start over, to bury the past or at least try to rewrite it. There are some real characters. Some seem reluctant to give much information about themselves, but others you couldn’t stop them if you tried. Gossip and rumors float freely—if you want to find out about somebody, just ask somebody else.
Some hope Nicaragua will be a place where a paltry fixed income or a savings account that didn’t amount to much back home might be enough to live on. For those who can’t afford Costa Rica, Nicaragua is “Plan B”.
Then there is the “sleaze factor” as someone put it—lonely old white men looking for young brown girls to attend to their needs. Sometimes it turns out to be a costly bargain; whole families come with the deal and it is hard to say who is taking advantage of whom.
I don’t think expats ever actually blend into the culture of their host country (regardless of what some of them think), but in Guatemala the relationship between the expats and the Mayas seems to be more symbiotic, more comfortable somehow. Maybe it is because there are so many fundamental differences that they aren’t really competing for the same resources.
In Nicaragua things seem a little strained. There are certainly important cultural differences between the Nicaraguans and the foreign residents, but the major difference seems to be economic. I asked a Nicaraguan who works in the tourist industry there what the locals thought about the foreigners pouring into the country. He said, “We need the money.” His answer seemed a little evasive. I asked someone else the same question and got a similar response. When there is such a flagrant difference between the “haves” and the “have nots” there will always be resentment, and often escalating problems.
In some ways the foreigners coming to Nicaragua seem like a new class of elite. In Granada many are buying old colonial homes and restoring and/or remodeling them. One real estate brochure hinted that some available places were unadvertised because their owners didn’t want their neighbors to know they were selling—it would look like they needed the money.
Frankly, the remodeled places we saw were stunningly beautiful inside and out. It is hard not to think rescuing these crumbling mansions is a good thing in some respects. But they become so expensive that only other foreigners will ever be able to own them. Maybe Nicaraguans in the construction or tourist industries are benefiting, but I am not sure many others are.
Back to the Travelogue
Well, this isn’t much of a travelogue so far. I’ll try to give a brief account of how Faye and I spent our time in Nicaragua.
As I said at the beginning, I arrived in Granada about a week before Faye flew in. After spending a couple nights in a mosquito-infested dive I moved to a pretty nice place where we stayed last year. Then, when Faye arrived we moved to an even nicer place, with a pool, hammocks and free internet. In fact it was so nice that we spent most of the two weeks we were together just hanging out there. (Another couple staying there, evidently also feeling a little guilty about indulging in such luxury, called it a “vacation from our vacation.”)
Faye didn’t feel up to much travel, so we just took a couple day trips to nearby villages, and one visit to Managua, the capitol. Otherwise our explorations were pretty much limited to trying out different restaurants in Granada. We went to a couple art openings and an open house for a new restaurant/hotel, where we brushed shoulders with the “elite” I was just complaining about above.
Then Faye flew back home, and I bused it back up to Guatemala. In keeping with the level of luxury I had become accustomed to surprisingly quickly I booked a passage on the best bus available for the trip, the King Quality line. Amenities included movies on the overhead video screens, air conditioning and an onboard attendant who passed out hot meals, refreshments and, to those overcome by the tedium of first-class travel, pillows and blankets. Even more importantly the attendant handled most of the border crossing formalities, so we didn’t have to stand in line, pushing and shoving among the less fortunate.
Back in Guatemala City I took a taxi from the King Quality terminal to where the chicken buses leave for Panajachel. In some ways it felt good to be back in the “real” world, but I did kinda miss the pillows and blankets.
About two weeks are left of this year’s trip. I’ll spend some of it with my little family in Xela, and a few days doing some last minute shopping in Panajachel