Granada to San Juan del Sur with sidetrip to Managua - 140 miles
We stayed in the colonial town of Granada last night. As in most of Nicaragua we had to be careful of theft. It is an extremely poor country. I decided that since we were only 30 miles from Managua, Nicaragua, the leftist capital of Central America, it would be advisable to go there for a visit. Surprisingly Mac opted to go too. We rode there through congested highways. Not congested by cars so much but by livestock and people. At one point I had to slow nearly to a stop on a 4 lane road since approaching me, in my lane, was a fully loaded ox-cart that was being pulled by two enormous black oxen. Boy did they look dumb. The deeper we got into the poverty of Managua the more nervous Mac became. At one red light he pulled alongside and asked "How deep are you planning to go in here?" I settled for a coffee shop near a giant monument of a soldier holding a rifle to the sky with the inscription "To the workers and peasants of Iran". I then took a taxi ride to a tent city in downtown. Thousands of people are living in plastic covered scrap dwellings. Armed soldiers are everywhere. Theft is rampant since these poor are slowing starving. When leaving we were delayed by a political parade of some sort. Angry college-aged students marched, drummed and chanted down the middle of a busy highway blocking all traffic.
Afterward we rode to our beachfront hotel 70 miles away and watched the sun go down over the Pacific Ocean. The juxtaposition of abject poverty and oceanfront decadence gave me a nearly overwhelming feeling of sadness for all of the beggars I saw today, and the conditions here. Isn't Daniel Ortega seeeing this?
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