Jinotega, the ice box.
Jinotega is known as the “Gorillas in the mist” no, “city in the mist” yea, thats it. Sorry, been traveling a bit too much and all these tallest, biggest, oldest, mistiest, descriptions get a bit confusing. On a side note, I was watching some great shows about safaris in Africa with zebras, lions, elephants, and giraffes. Now that would be cool to see. An african adventure, hmmmm. So the drive up to Jinotega is considered the best stretch in all of Nicaragua as you actually do drive through the clouds over the mountains and down into the windswept valley where clouds run up one side of the mountain range, slightly dip down into the valley and then shoot up and over the far side. It actually does as I tracked a storm pass through while on one of the ridges. The bus ride also gave me flashbacks to my time crossing the canyons in northern Ethiopia. The buses were the same, it was packed full the same, but as the trip was shorter there wasn´t any puking which was predominent on the Ethiopia trip.
Now perfectness, it was too cold. Now, were not talking snow flakes, but it was wet, misty and cold. I was sporting my old fleece jacket at night so it was definitely dipping in the coldness range. At night, I was packing my trekking socks, fleece pants, and long sleeve shirt. Still I woke up constantly rolling myself up in the blankets trying to double wrap myself. I had a good room, tv, a hot shower that wasn´t hooked up (electric shower head) so freezing cold showers which I am getting used to, and excellent food places, but still I was out after two nights. Had I had a fireplace, a girlfriend, or electric blanket it could have easily been a few more days spot, but it was a bit too chilly for my taste.
During the day I actually was out and about and did a couple of interesting things. First, I visited a coffee drying business. I was actually walking around the town when I met up with a guy who was on his way to work at the plant and he asked if I wanted to check it out. Basically it was a half a football sized concrete pad where the newly purchased coffee was taken to be dried out before sending off to processing and packaging. Trucks would come back with bags of fresh picked and washed beans and these guys would spread them out in different sections constantly shifting them so that they dried out a bit. Once they were dry they were rebagged and sent on to some other destination. It was basically a bunch of teenagers with a few men doing the work and they were all pretty open to letting me hang out and watch the process. You actually can just walk around on them as I guess they get cleaned and roasted later so it doesn´t really matter. Also, I saw some sketchy business practices as before they started to dump the new batches of beans they would pour out a mixture of what looked like old bad beans which became mixed with the new stuff. Juan Valdez would never allow such a thing with his coffee.
The other interesting thing was that I climbed up to the view point at the top of one of the mountain ridges. Yea, on face value not so interesting, but I hadn´t done a cities mountain viewpoint since I think maybe South Africa where before that I was doing the hike up every city that I traveled to. Anyways, the interesting thing was that I had my fourth attempted armed robbery and once again bullshitted my way out of it. Usually, climbing things are considered sketchy as they always tend to be out of the way places where people are getting robbed all the time. I never really cared because I generally never took anything of value except my camera and even then sometimes not. They also usually involve me doing something else and then for some reason look up, see that there is something up in the sky line and figure that I have to get there and look out (for whatever reason). This time was a bit of stupidity as I had priorly made plans to visit the bank to change some money so I had brought along my passport and some US $´s. I looked up and saw the cross overlooking the town and I was off. It took a while to track down the trail and after crossing two fields and the town cemetary, I was climbing my way up to the top. It should of donned on my when a young kid at the coffee place gave me a sort of startled look when I told him I was going to climb to the top alone. Half way up I ran into a guy on a horse and his friend making their way up. They were workers so it belayed any worries as if they were trekking up there it wasn´t seriously dangerous. Just the same way I judge bad neighborhoods. When I see old ladies and kids around a neighborhood even though it is deemed way risky, I tend not to worry so much. A risky neighborhood with no one on the streets is a different story. Well, I finally made it to the top and was trying to get warm when a guy came up. Instantly I knew he had followed me up as he was out of breath. He was dressed in rags and was definitely a boozer. I can tell when someone is a drug tweaker versus a glue huffer, vs a boozer and I knew he liked the bottle. I could also tell he was on the rough side living on the street by the way he talked and acted. I could barely understand his Spanish as he was probably not that literate in that as well and when I would ask him to repeat something he would basically start yelling. The other thing was that he was very focused on war, fighting, and killing. He had some old revolver and or course went straight into that he needed money, but as I got him distracted by sitting down and telling him how tired I was and how beautiful it was up there he started into the whole war scenario. Now, the Central Americas have gone through some pretty recent escapades a decade or two ago, but this guy was early twenties so he definitely hadn´t done much in them. I think it was just too many Rambo movies as everything he wanted to talk about had something that involved machine guns or airplanes dropping bombs with booby traps thrown in the mix. When I tried to get to a more peaceful subject like the clouds really whipping through, he would go off on the machine gunning and knife fighting. I knew it was going to be a bit sketchy this time and I kicked myself for bringing my passport, money, and camera. I also realized rather quickly why going up on these solo walks can be a bit harrowing as even though you might be able to fight off a mugging, unlike the city where there are many places to go or other people who might come to help, standing alone on the top of a mountain with no one around changes things. Options become more complicated. I fight off the guy, but then what? I´m still alone on the mountain with the guy with no where to go and no one to help. If I were going to do that it couldn´t be a knock the guy down and run. It would be to permanently disable this guy so I could get down the mountain. On the other hand, I lose and the guy has the same option. Things ratchet up a bit and I was totally understanding the concept of travel in groups and don´t take anything your not willing to lose. Some pretty good advise, not followed, but good advise. Luckily, option three played out and we talked long enough for the guy on the horse to come back. He saw me sitting there with the guy and got a bit worried. He gave the kid a couple of cigarettes and nodded to say that I should head down. I opted to keep everything friendly and waved him off. The kid told me of a camp a bit farther down the other side of the mountain where his friends had booze and food. We started going which I knew was not going to be good. Just at the upward slope, I told him that I was tired and it was going to be too far. I told him that if he wanted we could head back towards town, I could get some money and we could get some food. He said he would go to his friends and would be right back and that I should wait. He took off and I took off. Problem solved. It took me about a half an hour to get down the mountain that took me about two hours. Once I was back in town, I headed to the bank, got some money changed, headed over to my mamas buffet, and digested the strategy of traveling in groups and not taking things that I was not willing to lose…whatever.
Tags: Nicaragua