nicaraguan transportation

The city buses in Managua are run as a sort of co-op. If you have enough money to buy a bus, you can request to run any route you’d like, and pay the co-op a certain percentage of your profit. What this means is, that most of the buses are old school buses from the United States lovingly decorated to fit the owner’s personality. At least half of the buses have some reference to God on them. “Solo Cristo es Eterna,” or “El Senor es mi Control.”

We traveled around Nicaragua by bus, taxi, and boat. On my second full day in the country, we employed all three. We crossed Managua to get to the long distance buses by taxi. I bought some sunglasses while Leslie found us a bus for the next leg of our journey - out of Managua to Revas. The school bus seats were a lot smaller than I remembered them, and it was much more difficult to fit three people to a seat.

Our final destination was to be the Finca Magdalena, a cooperative coffee plantation and hostel on the volcanic island of Ometepe in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. After the bus to Revas, we took another taxi to San Jorge, where we ate a traditional Nicaraguan beans and rice lunch while waiting for the boat to the island. There are two types of boats you can board to cross the lake: big ferry, and little boat. We opted for the little boat because it was cheaper and leaving sooner. We should have looked at the waves. We should have watched the people disembarking. We should have waited for the big ferry. As it was, we did not do these things, and I ended up being the second of five people to lose their lunch. All of the pukers were on the top level of the boat, and boy did I feel sorry for those sitting below.

The island of Ometepe is composed of two volcanos: Conception is still active, and Maderas is dormant. We rode the bus to Maderas and walked a good 6km up to the Finca, stopping to pet wandering pigs and horses along the way. The roads on the island are dirt and rock, for the most part, making horses and motorcycles the easiest forms of transportation.

The electric company in Nicaragua was recently privatized. This means that in the cities there are often rolling blackouts for an hour or two, and in the countryside, you can go days without power. The Finca was in this state when we arrived; dinner and evening reading was done by candlelight. At the hostel you can rent a private room, a dorm room, or a hammock. We set up our stuff in a dorm room with large windows overlooking the terraces for drying coffee. We spent the rest of the evening listening to the howler monkeys, watching the sunset behind the opposing volcano, and relaxing in hammocks on the large porch.