Ometempe Island, Nicaragua

The island is in Lake Nicaragua, the 9th largest lake in the Americas.  The island was formed by two volcanoes which are linked by a piece of land.  There are a few stretches of beach, with dark volcanic sand and rock dominating the shorelines.  Although the water is warm, to my eyes it does not look inviting because of the suspended silt, which gives the water an angry cast.  the sheer size of the lake and the gentle slope leading up to the island means the waves can be quite impressive.  When I leave the island I will try to remember to take a few pictures of the wind farm on the west edge of the lake.
One of the differences between the wind farms in Alberta Canada and here, is the wind is never cold.

The vegetation change with altitude on the sides of the volcano.  As you can see in the above photo, the top is usually shrouded by cloud.  My lack of fitness prevented me from climbing all the way up, but I did get a few pictures of the stuff along the trail.   A few delicate flowers, which were only seen at the start of the trail.

The trio of small flowers were about the size of strawberry blossoms, and the single in the close up was roughly the diameter of a dime.

The thorns in the picture were slightly shorter than my thumb.  That makes the insects ( I am unsure if they are ants or termites ) truly tiny.

I did not adjust the exposure in the top picture, so the Howler Monkeys are dark silhouettes  against the morning sky.  The lower picture shows them better.  There are 6 of them in the top picture, though they do not all show.

For all of you coffee addicts out there, this is what an organic coffee plantation looks like.  At this point, the beans were harvested about a month ago, and it is still months to go until they bloom again.
As we climbed the slope of the volcano it became both cooler and more humid.  According to the guys who made it all the way to the top, it was a wet muddy mess at the top with a misty view of the lake in the caldera.  Over half of the climbers to the top had slid in the mud at least once and I am glad I did not try to get far enough up slope that the footing became slippery.    The view of the lake through the trees was very nice, and the pictures did not do it justice, so I will not post those.

One last shot, the Capuchin Monkeys that cluster close to the road for feeding time.  The pic is a little fuzzy, but the bump on the back of one of them is her baby.

Comparing

Comparing the tourist side and local side of Granada. 
Tourist first.

And one of the cross streets. Leading away from the tourist zone.

And the local market streets.

The top one is the side street.  Truly crowded with people and only foot or bicycle traffic seen.  The next is a main street (one way), with lots of vehicle traffic including buses.

There is a bow wave of pedestrians getting out of the way followed by a vacuum as it passes.  And no one on that bus looked comfortable.  Even the driver with a fan pointing at him looked sweaty and irritated.

Granada Pictures

Established and registered with the Spanish crown in 1524, Granada claims it is the oldest European settlement on the American continent.  Situated on the shore of Lake Nicaragua, it is both warm and humid.  The city is a nice size, and the tourist area is clean and the locals are very friendly.

As is common in the construction of the area, courtyards are a feature of almost every building.  I ate in a restaurant where four different cafes shared the same courtyard, allowing all the customers to mingle and enjoy the calm setting.

The main square is full of small vendors waiting to do business, and has a plentitude of benches and shade trees.

The cobblestone streets make for a quaint and old world look, but I suspect they are labour intensive to maintain and not the best for traffic.  Many of the streets have been upgraded to either interlocking brick or paved.

More pictures later.

Old and New

Going through both Antigua and Managua in one day lead to thoughts of the difference between the old and the new.
In most areas of North America and Western Europe, architecture has altered and changed as the society around it has changed.  Not only did it change to suit the needs of the world around it, but the society around it also allowed those changes to be made.  There are large portions of the world where homes are designed as much to safeguard as to live in, an it seems the lower the income of the area, the more important it is to be able safeguard the few things you have.  The building design of Antigua and Granada both speak to me of times when the rule of law was very thin.  The walls of the houses, the public face as it were are bleak and have little ostentation.  The face they present totally mask the inside, as much as the trunk of a car masks the contents.  There are more than a few places where the detail on the outside hints at if not wealth, at least pride in appearance, but it is when the doors are opened that the true spirit is revealed.  All of the places I have entered have had a courtyard in the middle, a calm and quiet refuge from the noise and business of the world beyond the front wall.
The contrast between that of the old and the new as typified by Managua is strong.  the newer places echo that of the USA and yet instead of each house having it's own private wall, there are now gated communities banding together to give security. 
Any of the places in towns where there has been a compromise between the old secure style and either cheaper or more modern design it appears the security lost.  And it followed in my feelings of insecurity and disconnection with those areas.
As difficult as it is to warm to a neighbourhood where the houses all present a blank plastered cement wall to the public, it is much colder to see one where the dominant feature is barb wire, steel and bars.
At this point I have not searched to find information to see if there is a difference in crime figures between the various places, but it is an idea that does spring up, both if there is a difference in the crime rate, and the type of crime between say Granada and Managua.  It truly makes me wonder if too much has been lost in imitating the 'modern'  and losing touch with what may have been a more effective system from the past.
One of the rules from modern security is to not just lock up you valuables but to hide them.  Casual thieves do not steal what they cannot see, and the blank wall very effectively hides all.
Poverty also plays a large role in what I see traveling through, for it is not cheap to build a place that is truly secure, but it could be a part of the cycle, for it is hard to accumulate wealth without security.

Merry Christmas 2013

In the last six months I have had a lot of enjoyment seeing many people and traveling many miles.  I have managed to visit a lot of old friends and meet a bunch of new ones while putting a lot of miles behind me.

I hope to do a lot more after the New Year, but have enjoyed taking a month off to do very little, but am also glad it is coming to an end so that I can get back to seeing more of the world.

El Salvador is calling, and so is Panama.  The canal has always had a distant call to me, the amount of work and planning that went into its construction and how much it changed the flow of commerce and people makes for great history.

I made the mistake of leaving for a walk without taking my camera yesterday.  The locals here in San Pedro had a festival happening with a dance in the middle of the street.  There were about 25 dancers, all in costume with masks.  the masks were modern latex ones, but showed a wide variety of faces including a pirate, old granny, bride, child and more.  I liked it, but the traffic backed up for a couple blocks seemed to be frustrated .  ;)

To all of you, be well any have a great time with the people you love.

Ken.

San Pedro, Dec 13th

Traveling is fun, but so is putting up your feet for a while.  This post is going to be all about my impressions of the little town of San Pedro La Laguna.  I have been here for three weeks, and plan on staying here until Christmas.
There is a division in this town, between the tourists and the locals, with the line never clearly drawn and the businesses straddling it all the time.  The general division is how close to the lake you are, the places closest to the lake serve the tourists, and the ones up the mountainside tend to be for the ones who live here.
It is a fair hike to get up the hill to the local market where the fresh produce is sold, with major market days on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  the place is  cramped and small, and crawling with people.
When you walk along the streets, it seems like every third door is for a small store, whether they are selling phones, chips and candy, canned goods or fabric and clothing the one thing they all have in common is that they are small.  The biggest ones are half the size of a typical 7/11.  Very few of the stores have decent lighting.
The restaurants and cafes here are very much into the open and airy concept.  Most of them have a portion which has no roof, and most have partitions to break up the larger areas.  Some have a garden setting and the ones on the lakeside do their best to give a nice view of it.
The local cuisine is not really featured in the cafes, with Mexican being the closest to local style featured.  There are about five places that specialize in Mexican, plus three food carts that do so.  Two places have sushi, and most have seafood.
There are some things I miss, and decent processed meat is one.  Although I believe that the amount of chemicals to be found in pepperoni to be less than healthy, it is darn hard to find a pizza down here with it.
On the other hand, most of the chicken is free range, and most of the beef is grass fed.  Makes for way better flavour, and better tasting burgers.  I have only had one burger here so far, at a place called D'Noz, and it was better than all but a few I have ever had.  Billed as a chilli burger, it was topped with fire grilled mild chilli peppers, fresh jalapeno slices, ripe roma tomatoes, cilantro and in the place of honour, right in the middle was a whole clove of garlic.  Totally made my day.

On the serious side of things, I have not had any problems with robber etc, but a number of others have.  There are hikes to the top of nearby volcanoes and on a few of those there have been people robbed and assaulted.  The police have been a larger presence in the past week, and from what the guides say it is coming under control, but it is still a concern and shot have been exchanged between the police and the thieves on at least two occasions, including one over the prone bodies of a group of tourists.  No police or tourists were hurt, and the thieves left the area rapidly.  Rumour has it that if the police are unable to capture the robbers soon, the army will be brought in to sweep the area, which will be a very tense situation as the army has a bad reputation around the lake from incidents in the recent past.
My impression of the situation is that the authorities are doing their best to get the lawlessness under control as fast as they can without angering the local population.  Everyone realizes that the amount of injuring/robbing people is bad but it is still happening. 
All in all the area is safer than many in Latin America, but that does not mean that it is entirely safe.

San Pedro La Laguna, Nov 22

This is a town on the side of Lagos Atitlan, a lake with no outlet, which is an old volcanic caldera.  There are a number of small towns and villages around the lake, along with three volcano peaks.  The pictures I post will be to show some of the town, and how the place is narrow and cramped and hilly.  All in all the place is very friendly, but the market is as crowded as Granville Island at Christmas, but only one small block in size.