I remember my first ride on a chicken bus through Nicaragua because of something I saw.

I was on my way to Granada, having boarded a bus from Masaya in the thick dust that blew from the dirt road, encrusting the sidewalks and the streets. I liked to have my hair wrapped up in a bandanna when when it got too dusty; the particles lodge into your hair like glue.

While I was bumbling along on the bus, I looked out the window and saw a stuffed man dangling from a tree, hanging by his neck. He was wearing what looked like a grey suit.

Then I thought it was a scarecrow, and didn’t think much else of it. But recently I picked up Salman Rushdie’s The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey, a slim volume of reportage he wrote while he visited Nicaragua in the mid-1980’s when the current President Daniel Ortega had first come into power.

In his novel, he’d described stuffed men exactly like the one I saw hung by the neck from trees, and he’d explained that they were the campesinos’ way of decrying Ronald Reagan, who had led the effort back in his presidency to crush ‘the communists’ of Nicaragua, defying international law.

Years later, I guess still nobody sees the need to take the Reagan doll off the tree. Or maybe somebody’s holding a very strong grudge.

So I went volcano boarding today.
It’s like toboganning, except it’s on very fine black volcanic sand.

The place to do it in Nicaragua is at the Cerro Negro (Black Mountain), about an hour-or-so drive away from the city of León. All you have to do really is book a place at Big Foot Hostel and they will transport you there and back in an open-back truck. Jailbird jumpsuits to ensure minimal injuries and masks to keep the stones out of your face and boards are also provided. It costs $19 USD per person and an additional entry fee of $3.50 USD into Cerro Negro.

The only catch is you have to carry your board up the cone of Cerro Negro, but it isn’t a difficult climb. An hour and a half perhaps, with rest stops along the way. Heck, if as unfit as I was I survived it, then anyone can.

Read the rest of this entry »

© Michael Hrncir

So. I don’t understand why all the guidebooks wax lyrical about Granada.

Yes, it is purported to be the oldest city on the American continent, and I guess it has got some kind of colonial charm, but the future of Nicaragua tourism it isn’t. At least, not for me, nor it seems, to the multitude of tourists passing through. I haven’t spoken to a single traveler on the road who has found Granada charming or romantic or befitting any of the purple passages dedicated to it in the guidebooks.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you:

• want to travel dirt cheap
• don’t mind being squashed like a sardine
• don’t mind making several connections
• don’t mind waiting for the connections, for what could potentially be hours (breakdowns aren’t rare to hear of)
• speak enough basic Spanish to take you through what could be unpredictable schedules and bus-stops not obviously signposted
• don’t mind missing out on sleep
• don’t mind taking a longer journey

… then by all means, take what tourists have dubbed ‘chicken buses’ (because according to Lonely Planet you will sometimes have to share your seat with sqawking chickens; however, I’ve yet to actually experience that to justify the nickname) all the way across borders in Latin America.

Of course, the local chicken buses don’t traverse national borders so you’d have to get off at borders, cross them, then take another bus onward.

I met a German guy recently who caught six chicken buses from Copan, Honduras to San Salvador, El Salvador for all of $5 USD; so you know, if you have the nerve and the patience for it, it’s entirely possible.

I’d recommend traveling light though. If you have a fat backpack with you it might be difficult to squeeze into the bus if it’s full. You can leave it on the roof of the bus of course, but I prefer to have my things with me at all times. I’ve been on buses where luggages have fallen off making a noise like a gun shot.

On the other hand, if you are adamantly opposed to or are unable to afford any of the cheap thrills mentioned above, you can opt to travel with Ticabus or King Quality, the latter with in-bus café serving food and drinks for a couple more extra bucks, so I hear.

Read the rest of this entry »