A Little Leon

After Eden, we start our rather long journey up to Guatemala in two parts. The first part involves a shuttle bus up to Leon, killing a day there, before the second leg all the way through Honduras and El Salvador to Guatemala in one go.

Our shuttle to Leon is smooth, excluding some incredibly loud gringos from Selina (a hostel that is highly promoted on social media but seems to attract the worst tourists), and we treat ourselves to a giant 18″ pizza, breadsticks, and an accidental 2 litre jug of iced tea!

Unfortunately the one full day we have in Leon happens to be a Sunday, which means the one museum I want to see is shut. The other main attraction is to go volcano boarding, but we decide to skip this one. After all, in two days we will be walking up and back down one. So, that leaves me with the trusty free walking tour.

James decides to skip it, there’s football to watch, and he’s a bit bored of them anyway, so football provides a good excuse! My guide for today is called Antonio, a Nicaraguan-born, Costa Rican-raised returnee, and our 21 strong group consists of predominantly Dutch and Germans. Antonio teaches us about the geography and history of the country, and takes us around the food market to try some local food. Here’s a roundup of some of the info.

We start with the basics;

• The name Nicaragua means “Land surrounded by water”.
• It has 16 volcanoes, of which 7 are active.
• Nicaragua has two of the largest rivers in Central America, Rio Coco and San Juan.
• It has the only lake in the world with sharks in it, it’s that big!
• Nicaragua also has the largest island in a lake, Ometepe, which is basically two volcanoes rising from the water, and a place most tourists rave about.
• Nicaragua has the third most important forest reserve, although Antonio tells us the government isn’t doing enough to protect it from logging and deforestation.
• The Panama canal was meant to happen in Nicaragua, geographically its a much better option, but due to civil unrest and volcanic activity it didn’t happen and so it happened in Panama instead.
• The main income for Nicaragua comes from agriculture, with their main export being tobacco and cigars. In fact the tobacco that Cuba uses in its cigars comes from here!
• The following biggest exports are gold, silver, and then leather.

Now, onto the history.

Before the Spaniards got here, it’s estimated that there were 1.1m indigenous people. After their arrival, only 50 thousand remained. Due to its rather strategic position right in the middle, the Brits, Dutch, Spaniards, and French all had a go at taking it.

In 1812, the first university was established here (above). This will become important later.

Unlike in South America, they got their independence from Spain without having to fight for it, kind of by defacto when Guatemala claimed it in 1821.

Skip over to the typical jostling of powers leftover fighting to become the ones in power (sounds familiar to Colombia!). The Conservative folks in Granada would battle the Liberal folks in Leon. Those Liberals were damn well fed up with the Imperialism imposed on Central America (the Brits had the Caribbean coast at this point! Who knew!), and so they brought in William Walker from the USA, a la ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ and someone who was seen to be anti-imperialism himself. Except he was a pretty bad guy, who then basically claimed power for himself and brought back slavery. This actually managed to be the thing that united the warring factions, again a la ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, and so the previously at odds parties (and other countries) came together to defeat their common enemy, Mr Walker’s party. This is why the capital of the country isn’t in either Granada or Leon, which were the main cities of each group, but rather Managua, a city in the middle, as a compromise from both sides.

Skip forward again to the first of decades of horrendous actions from the USA. Now, this is all simplified and truncated, and with all the tour posts, I strongly encourage you to read up on this yourself. Also, history is often written by the victors, but much of what follows seems faiely agreed upon by those outside the current ruling party.

Firstly, did you know that the USA occupied Nicaragua from 1909 to 1933? This was done to ‘protect their citizens in the country’, but they also happened to get the rights to the canal and some valuable leases along the way of ‘protecting their citizens’, hmmm. Cue another civil war, where a pact was formed. One person disagreed with it, a General Sandino, who fled, formed a guerrilla army, and fought against the government and US Marines who had basically been taking advantage of the actual Nicaraguans who lived there for decades.

The USA physically left in 1933, leaving behind a military armed and trained by them to be loyal to US interests (also sounds familiar eh). A man called Somoza was put in charge, who happened to be a loyal friend to the US government. Our ex-General Sandino agreed a ceasefire, but Somoza later ordered his assassination. Below, and in the subsequent murals, you’ll see Sandino’s shadowy figure, as whilst he wasn’t alive to be part of the Sandinista revolutionaries, he was the spark that created the fire of what was to come years later:

Somoza takes power, basically gives himself absolute power, and puts his family and friends also into power (this also sounds familiar doesn’t it). He sets things up for a permanent dictatorship and indeed it is his sons who succeed him after his death. During his time, he gives many favours to the USA, and they in turn give him lots of money. Once again, the USA is taking advantage of the country, taking its land, its resources, and polluting the land, at the expense of the people that had lived or did live there.

On the right of the picture above there is a piece of paper with a pistol on top. This is to symbolize a Nicaraguan poet who left behind his “suicide note”, before assassinating Somoza and being gunned down himself. In his note he says he understands the sacrifice he must make of his life to liberate Nicaragua from Somoza. He is basically a martyr to the cause. Unfortunately the sons take power and are even more American than their father.

Now back to that university that had been educating people for over a hundred years. It was one of these students that started the FSLN, known as the Sandinistas, named after our old General Sandino. The revolutionaries have been gathering forces for a while in exile, seeing what’s happening in Cuba, being inspired and supported by them from afar. These two murals again show the shadow of Sandino standing atop the head of the USA and also the Somoza family.

More jostling happens until eventually, after a huge earthquake destroys 90% of the capital Managua, and the Somozas siphon relief money, the Sandinistas take power. They then get democratically elected, the people finally get their power back…

Unfortunately for the Sandinistas, a socialist party, this also coincides with the USA’s crackdown on the “communist threat”, even though the Sandinistas were fairly elected into power. Knowing the history, you can understand why the people would lean left after all they’d been through under Somoza and the abuses to the everyday people. But no, no, no. Democracy is only democracy when the people vote for the ideology the USA agrees with.

So, time for the USA to get involved again, at the expense of real people with actual lives, by imposing sanctions, and arming and funding the “Contras” in an effort to stop Nicaragua turning and staying full red. The Contras (and Sandinistas to be fair) are known for committing human rights violations, and this period is bloody, brutal and terribly sad. I think it’s fair to say this would not have happened were it not for CIA involvement and backing of the destablising Contras.

In 1982, Congress legislates to finally stop funding the Contras, but the Reagen Administration keeps funding them via a loophole through Iran (look up Iran-Contra Affair for even more next-level ‘What the …?!’). In 1984, Daniel Ortega, a member of the FSLN party gets elected. In 1986, the USA are ordered by the International Court of Justice and the UN General Assembly to pay Nicaragua $12 billion in reparations for their ‘meddling’ of the Contra-Sandinista war (spoiler, they never paid, look this up as well if you want to despair even more at international politics). In 1988, there is finally a ceasefire between the Contras and Sandinistas. In 1990, rule shifts back over to the middle-right, until Ortega and the FSLN are re-elected into power in 2006.

However, our guide tells us it’s become fairly evident that the current FSLN government run by Ortega is repeating history by behaving as Somoza did in its actions against any opposition. From one government that became authoritarian to another. The current government, that leant so much into its rebellious and (quite understandably) anti-USA roots, now no longer having this to rely on, seems to be going the way of ruling by fear and exiling its opposition, rather than leading by doing a good job. As many Latin Americans tell me from years of experience, the pendulum just keeps swinging.

Antonio sums up this swinging for centuries, and the butterfly effect of international politics. The USA gained independence from the UK. This kicked off the French revolution and making of the Republic. This inspired the people of Latin America to revolt against their Spanish rule. A university is founded. The USA protect their ‘assets’, imposing a corrupt and authoritarian government. The students learn of a better way of life and fight for it. They tip the scales back to giving power back to the people who lived there and were let down for so long. The USA puts sanctions in place to make this as difficult as possible. The party in power struggles to undo the decades or centuries of disempowerment, divestment and literal poisoning of its people by previous ruling parties. People blame the ideology, but really, do any of these parties have a chance? They end up resorting to the same terrible means to remain in power themselves as their predecessors. Whether this is related or not, whilst education is free in Nicaragua, it isn’t obligatory, and so many children don’t go to school, and even less go to university.

Who swings the pendulum back the other way?

Does the pendulum keep swinging?

A video I subsequently watch points out that the USA is kicking off about migration from Central America, when arguably it’s the USA that made life in these countries so difficult for so long, and why the USA contains so many diaspora in the first place. Of course the people want to go there, be safe with their relatives, and be somewhere not trying to undo decades of turmoil. I think back to the point of our guide from Arequipa… if you want people to stop migrating from somewhere, make where they come from better. Nicaragua seems to be enjoying some kind of stability, and as a tourist, you’re golden, but it seems more blind eyes need to be turned to really think things are fine for the people that live here.

And that’s the history lesson, not complete, but over for now. The rest of the tour we spend in the food market trying some local food, such as various items filled with cheese, some nacho-like crisps, some sugar-based snacks (there are a lot of these!), a bread and cake like bite, and a cinnamon-based drink.

I think this is just some nice art showing the full Nicaraguan history. The elegant man is a famous Nicaraguan poet:

Post tour, I go to find James in a sports bar watching the match whilst locals get drunk at 11:30am to overly-loud karaoke music, largely featuring Abba!

That evening we’re getting picked up at 2am to begin our mammoth journey spanning four countries by shuttle bus, so we stock up on snacks and are in bed by 7pm. Maybe I’ll make James a morning person after all!

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Adventure – going to a sports bar at 10:30am and ordering a beer as it was the same price as a soda.

Excitement – Being cold again thanks to aircon for the first time in a while.

Trauma – The divide to the toilet from our bed being a shower curtain. The driver of our shuttle out of Nicaragua, who drove so erratically we were flung around the inside of the van and couldn’t sleep despite it being the middle of the night. He then told a border guard he hadn’t slept as had been driving through the night to pick us up. He also undoubtedly charged us over the odds for ‘border fees’, before we ended up in a garage to fix the brakes.