León
On the ninety-seventh day of my journey, I came to Nicaragua after a grueling fourteen hours across parts of three countries. At 11:30 at night I arrived at my second hostel in the center of León (the first was hosting an EDM party) sat in the lobby and drank a couple beers to unwind, and then went to bed in what appeared to be a quiet dorm room. What I needed more than anything was a good night’s sleep. It was not to be. This was Halloween, and my young dorm mates came staggering in from their nights on the town, one after another, rooting around in bags, going back out, turning on the lights, stumbling up to pee. This low-grade form of psychological torture went on into the wee hours.
It is possible that this was a one-time thing for the holiday, but I was so frustrated that the next morning I packed my bags and went walking around dazed in the severe heat, looking for a hostel with very few people staying at it. Decided on a cavernous nearly empty place with a small pool in the back, a dorm room with eight bunk beds but not a single backpack in sight. Satisfied, I went out for a good greasy breakfast at the cafe down the street: a couple fried eggs over a plate of gallo pinto.
This was my first taste of the rice and bean dishes that are the staple of the next three countries I would travel to. Gallo Pinto, or “spotted rooster” they call it in Nicaragua and Costa Rica; Casamiento, or “married” in Panama. I prefer my rice and beans Mexican-style, that is rice on one part of the plate, beans adjacent, mixed as the eater sees fit. But I immediately saw that this was something different. It wasn’t a big mush of rice and beans. They were clearly cooked separately and then sauteed together. The two were combined yet distinct, more like fried rice featuring beans and finely chopped onion and peppers. I walked back up the block, into my darkened and empty dorm room, promptly went back to sleep and slept until late afternoon.
When I woke up from my half-day nap, I was groggy and lethargic, but as evening fell I felt like I should go out and see something of the city. Close to the center I found a park dedicated to the great poets of the city, a half-circle of statues, the place of honor for Ruben Dario, lines of verse written under the figures. Then I came upon a wide bustling plaza full of trees, people coming out with the evening’s reprieve from the heat. There was a grand and fading cathedral, a museum to the revolution, a couple of cafes. I found a bench to sit on and watched León happening. It is a university town, and there were clusters of students sitting on the cathedral steps, street music, food vendors, families with children playing.
I could see right away that this was a different kind of city then anything I’d come to before. It is very old — founded in 1524 — with history everywhere you look, but doesn’t feel like a museum in the way that Antigua and other Spanish colonial cities sometimes can. León is also big, the second-biggest in the country, with real life going on all around. There is an anachronistic feel to it, late model cars alongside horse and donkey carts. Though I have never been to Cuba, it was something like the Cuba of my imagination. Languid and tropical, proud and polite, crumbling and beautiful.
I was immediately taken, and wanted to get to know this place, but sitting there I could feel inside that I lacked the proper energy for it. Something had happened to me the day before, somewhere between the borders and buses and police and immigration agents and taxis, not to mention being kept up much of the night afterward, and I could feel it in my bones. I was tired, on every level, and felt dull and spent. More than tired, it was a case of fatigue, travel fatigue, and I really wouldn’t be able to shake it for more than a month.
Walking back from the plaza, I noticed that almost every house, bar and restaurant in the city had a TV showing the pregame show for a baseball game. It was the seventh game of the World Series that night, and clearly people in Nicaragua are serious about baseball. I found a big open bar with a table free and a whole lot of passionate fans getting ready for the game, with jerseys and hats representing either the Astros or Dodgers. Ordered a beer and sat down to watch Nicaraguan style. Turned out to not be a very good game- Houston scored five runs in the first two innings and never looked back.
That night when I went to bed in the hostel several people had joined me for brief appearances in my dorm room. This would have been fine except they were getting up before dawn, re-packing their bags, and leaving. That much-needed good night of sleep seemed near impossible to find. The next day I woke for the second time feeling just as tired, but for some reason determined to be active. Went out into the heat and walked all around the city.
Went to the Museo de Leyendos y Mithos, a strange juxtaposition: a museum of Nicaraguan folklore and superstition in a four-hundred year old adobe building which more recently was a prison notorious for the torture of rebel prisoners during the revolution. Mostly macabre scenes of mythical beasts, sorcerer women, an oxcart pulled by skeletons, all made out of paper-mache. Walked several miles out to the neighborhood of Subtiava, the oldest part of the city, to see the mission-style church there and search for an ancient oak tree that had been sacred to the indigenous people of the area.
I never could find the iconic tree; instead I discovered a mediocre panini sandwich on the way back, and by two o’clock was completely spent. Took a dip in the hostel pool with half a dozen Swedish girls looking at me like I was crashing their private party, and collapsed into bed. Woke up at dusk and walked through the crowded streets to the market, got a plate full of fried things from every food group, and felt bad afterward.
Went to sleep early and for once no one woke me up, but in the morning I was still deeply tired. I could tell I wasn’t right. The thing to do was to slow down, take my time, avoid the heat, and let myself recover. While León is a culturally rich and fascinating place, it is not a particularly easy one, especially on a backpacker’s budget. Perhaps with a private air-conditioned room, it might be different. As previously mentioned, it is steaming hot, burning sun with high humidity. There is a plague of mosquitoes, and it’s a loud and busy city. The people are also not particularly friendly. Polite, respectful, but not friendly. Part of that might have to do with me and my country. The history of Nicaragua is full of unfortunate dealings with Americans.
I knew the rough outlines of the story of the Nicaraguan revolution and the Contra war, but here it became very real. As a kid I remember the Iran-Contra hearings on TV, but it was about faraway places and hard-to-believe shady deep government doings. In some way that era was a precursor to the current state of politics in the states, with completely irreconcilable positions. There were people calling Oliver North and John Poindexter treasonous, but I also recall T-shirts saying “Ollie North for President”.
León calls itself the capital of the revolution, and was the site of serious fighting in the war. It was fought and taken twice each by the Sandinistas and government. In addition to the museum of the revolution right on the main square, there is a former prison used by the government forces to torture political prisoners, bullet holes and damage in the buildings, and some you can find that are still ruined. The Pacific is only about 15 miles away, and the two major ports nearest to the city were mined by the CIA.
A brief summary of what went on in Nicaragua is needed here. There was a brutal dictatorship under the Somoza family which had held power for forty years, heavily backed by the U.S. as a bulwark against communism. The primary force of repression and control was the elite (US-trained) militia,the Guardia Nacional. In the late 70’s, a leftist revolutionary force called the FSLN, or Sandinistas, with massive support and participation from the population, overthrew the dictatorship, and set up a revolutionary government. The Carter administration in the US had cut off all funding to the Somozas a few years before, and it recognized the new leadership and provided millions in aid to rebuild the country.
But the Reagan administration saw them as dangerous leftists, and cut off all aid to the country. The Soviet Union, which was already sending aid, jumped at this opportunity, and immediately committed to a massive assistance program, thus fulfilling the suspicion that the Sandinistas were communists. The US began heavily arming the Contras, a group made up of former members of the Guardia Nacional in hiding in the jungle, and mined the harbors to prevent goods and aid from reaching Nicaragua. And so a war that had been over for two years started up again, and would go on for the next nine in an already devastated country.
When the US congress discovered that the CIA was mining Nicaraguan ports and arming a highly questionable paramilitary group linked to drug cartels, they passed a law barring the administration from any further military intervention or support of the Contras. The response to this was one of the most bizarre episodes in US history. The executive branch secretly sold millions of dollars of missiles to Iran, supposedly an enemy and the subject of an embargo, generating funds so they could continue to provide weapons and support for the Contras outside of the normal military and foreign aid budgets. They were caught at this, and eventually twelve administration figures were indicted (six were later given presidential pardons, three immunity for cooperating, two got probation and one conviction was overturned on appeal) but the damage to Nicaragua was already done. Ships coming into harbor were still blowing up through the late 80’s.
This is to say nothing of the fact that the US intervened militarily in the country repeatedly from 1912–33, to protect American business interests (primarily Banana plantations), keep US-friendly administrations in power, and make sure that Nicaragua did not build a trans-oceanic canal to rival the one we had built in Panama. When you travel in Central America, if you are curious and pay attention, this is the kind of thing you find almost everywhere you go. It is strange to me that the amount to which we have controlled, manipulated and exploited our southern neighbors is so rarely talked about. All this is to say that it wouldn’t surprise me if people in Nicaragua weren’t terribly friendly towards Americans.
That day and the next I took it easy. During the heat of the day I mostly stayed in the shade of the hostel courtyard, reading and writing. Spent the afternoon at an art museum which I found very inspiring, a collection of works from around Latin America. From indigenous art to colonial paintings to modernist and abstract works to recent pieces inspired by indigenous culture. A full circle. All of this in a grand old villa with two large covered stone courtyards. Came out at dusk and experienced that peculiar and wonderful sensation of looking at the world entirely differently after some hours in an art museum. There was a impossibly oversaturated sunset filling the sky, and every little mundane detail of the world around me looked like art.
I sat in a little plaza next to a church with a statue of a priest ministering to a ferocious wolf and watched people on their ways home from work. Went back to the mercado street food stands for dinner, but this time chose the non-fried chicken with gallo pinto. Much better.
On the afternoon of my last day in León, I walked up to the north of town, looking for the baseball stadium to confirm that there was in fact a game that night. It had been impossible to establish this fact online. I knocked on a door next to the closed box office and a player in full uniform and cleats answered. Behind him I could see the team stretching and doing drills on the field. He said that yes, there was a game, at 7. Excellent. I thanked him and walked back towards the center, pausing to sit in an overgrown square across from a plain stone church that looked very old, with a very pagan symbol of a sun above the doors. Watched traffic go by, bike taxis, horse-pulled wagons, an ancient green mercedes fire engine blaring a WWII air-raid siren, groups of 2–3 people on a single bike. Nicaragua is slow-moving and colorful and fascinating.
In the early evening I walked back up towards the stadium, the Estadio de Héroes y Mártires de Septiembre (everything is political in León). The ballpark was aging (everything is aging in León), rusted, charming, about the size of a single-A park in the states. This was the home opener for the Leones de León, playing against their main rivals the Tigres de Chinandega. There were three options for seating: primera especial- behind home plate, palcones general- infield seats, and gradas- outfield bleachers, literally “steps”. I went for the middle option, and got a ticket for 75 cordobas ($2.50).
Found a seat in the third row about halfway between home plate and third base. There was just a smattering of people in my section at first pitch, maybe thirty or so. It was a thick, humid night, and you could see the haze in the lights. The stands out in the outfield were rainbow colored, and there were political messages painted all over the baseline walls. Daniel Presidente…Con Daniel Buen…Leon, Capital de la Revolucion…Solidaridad…Socialista. I get a beer from an old woman selling them from a bucket.
The crowd seems apathetic, very little applause as the pitcher for León works a tidy top of the first: three up, three down. A couple guys in their twenties sitting behind me saw that I was taking notes, and were absolutely convinced that I was a major league scout. Kept asking what team I worked for, no, en serio, cual equipo? The pitcher for the Tigres is throwing gas, but the Leones seem to have no problem catching up to it. The first three batters all get hits, but fail to score as the leadoff man gets thrown out trying to steal second and the cleanup hitter grounds into a double play.
After the first I sample some ballpark food for my dinner: an order of quesillo, a cup of ceviche de camarones, a bag of thin-cut plantain chips, all delicious. My meal costs a little more than two dollars. Quesillo can mean very different things in different countries — here in Nicaragua it refers to a mess of melted, almost liquid mozzarella in a tortilla with pickled onions. Like a drowned quesadilla. I manage to get gooey cheese all over my lap.
In the top of the 2nd, the leadoff batter for the Tigres draws a walk, and the next hitter hits a two-run homer over the wall in left, a soaring high fly into the trees behind the bleachers. The pitcher for León greets the next batter with a brushback pitch, and the people around me in the stands are all cautioning him: tranquilo! In the bottom of the inning, the Leones again get hits from their first two batters, but fail to score.
Things really get going in the bottom of the 3rd inning. A few more fans have trickled in by this point, among them the unofficial band that happens to play in my section, about twenty feet away. Two drummers with marching band type drums get it started, and then a trumpet and saxophone emerge, and it is suddenly a party. The music is driving, imploring, sounds like some kind of combination of Brazilian rhythms and New Orleans brass. The Leones mascot, a furry lion, comes over to dance. This music seems to fire up the crowd and the team, and four straight hits, the last two doubles, make the score 3–2 Leones.
Seemingly having accomplished their mission, the band disbands and the musicians wander off to drink beer and talk to women. The game has a sleepy, playful feeling, reminds me of a minor-league game in the dog days of summer. The fans know the game — there is real appreciation for the little things: a good defensive play in the infield, a successful sacrifice bunt. The guys behind me are drunk now, and are offering commentary on the players to help me with my scouting. With the combination of their thick accents and now slurred speech, I can make out maybe one in four words.
The Tigres go ahead in the top of the sixth, and in the bottom half the band gets back together to try for a rally, to no avail. The Leones put runners on in the seventh, but cannot score, then in the eighth they load the bases with two outs. The drunken crowd is yelling out curses at the Tigres’ relief pitcher; the band playing a frenetic and aimless march, begging for the tying run…groundout to 2nd, inning over.
In the top of the ninth the Tigres break the game open and score three more runs, and despite all the support the crowd can muster, it is a bridge too far, and Chinandega wins 7–3. The drunk guys shake my hand and say things that I can’t understand. The crowd filters out into the night, which is still hot, and it’s a twenty-minute walk back to my hostel. The next morning I will leave León. I’ve heard of a place five hours south called the Laguna de Apoyo — the “lake of support” whose waters are rumored to have healing properties. I am in need of restoration.
