The
Working Geezer's Guide To Nicaragua
In Ometepe ~ by Kevin
Barker
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2005
Life isn’t
all cake and ice cream in the rough and tumble world of offshore real estate
sales.
I discovered
as much after a week subbing at a friend’s real estate agency in Nicaragua,
in the colonial city of Granada, a favored tourist hangout on the gigantic
Lake Nicaragua and gateway to the country's finest beaches: My proprietor
friend Gerry hung out his shingle on the main square there three years
ago when he began to anticipate, correctly as it turned out, that the region
was primed for a real estate boom.
By the time
I arrived, however, Garry and his Nicaraguan wife had been swindled, prosecuted,
convicted, and sentenced by a criminal court – all in absentia and ex parte
– and without actually having committed a crime or appeared before a judge.
Unthinkable? Perhaps in Canada – but down here it’s downright commonplace.
It all stems
back to the revolution (doesn’t it always?) Shortly after winning it, the
Sandaninistas began dismantling the fincas, those vast ranchlands belonging
to the former landbarons. Thanks to revolutionary zeal and good old common
greed a lot more land got confiscated than could be properly accounted
for. Subsequently, some of it is now in the process of being given back
to its rightful owners. |
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Volcan
Conception on Ometepe
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Of course
any right-thinking ‘wrongful’ owner wants nothing better than to unload
it to some rube.. and fast … before he has to give it away. And that's
exactly what happened to Gerry and some other folks like him. In a sort
of a paid, 'catch and release' program for real estate, they bought what
they thought were incredible beach property deals, just in time to have
to give them away.
Gerry's legal
troubles started when he refused to go gently into that great good night.
It was a simple matter for certain individuals to find politically friendly
local judges and put the wheels in motion that have for all intents and
purposes banished Gerry from the land of lakes and volcanoes forever. But
this column is not about Gerry, or his misadventures, nor even my own attempts
to straighten them out on his behalf. Rather, it's about a rather singular
island called Ometepe, called by some the largest fresh water island in
the world, and where I washed up on shore, Robinson Crusoe-like, after
I realized I was barking up a dead horse over in Granada (how's that for
a mixed metaphor!).
Whether Ometepe
really is or is not the largest such isle is a matter of debate: I saw
two signs on the island which claimed (variously) that it comprised 8,600
square kilometers, and/or 734 square kilometers. The first exaggerated
estimate may actually be true if one were to include the surface area of
its incredibly erect volcanos. It has two: Concepcion, and Madera, and
they are equally impressive, rising up as it were from the floor of the
giant lake.
Separate from
the chaos of Managua and especially the soap operas of Granada, where the
small but growing gringo community seems to have settled into a lifelong
episode of Days of Our Lives, Ometepe is a comparative oasis: In fact it
describes itself thus - as 'Nicaragua's oasis of peace', and I have to
admit it's the closest I've ever come to the archetypical tropical paradise,
even though its beaches are fresh water rather than salt. Actually it so
resembles the island of King Kong that one expects to have to grab Fay
Wray around the waist at any moment and make a run for the boats with monkey
boy in hot pursuit.
The island
is beautifully forested, with countless species of fruit trees including
a delicious type called mammon which I had never discovered before. The
ambient scent of fresh guava and plumeria is intoxicating, and when the
jungle runs out one encounters waving fields of soft green pasture grass,
finely-grained sand beaches, fascinating marshes, petroglyphs and even
prehistoric plants that are extinct everywhere else. All of this unfolds
within a soft, undulating climate that is alternately wet and dry but never
too much of either. It is a true biosphere, unsullied by the agrarian ways
of its 34,000 residents, and a bargain to boot. Even the extravagant among
us will find it hard to spend more than $20 per day on accommodation, food,
and travel.
There’s even
a lot to do: Mountain biking (the island has an excellent paved ring road),
hiking, mountain climbing, exploring, swimming, bio treks, Spanish classes,
even pubbing. Yet for all this, Ometepe offers what I consider to be one
of the few true-blue escapes from the modern world. A place where one may
just as comfortably sit and contemplate one's navel for a week, a month,
even a lifetime. Indeed, the days and weeks have a way of slipping surreptiously
past one's conscious mind. Located conveniently (for some) in the middle
of the adventure traveller’s Central American itinerary, the island is
an hour by boat from the mainland and another hour from Granada. There
is no airstrip, and the boat ride is an adventure in itself. It runs frequently,
which is nice, and offers individuals and even vehicles passage for mere
pennies.
Ometepe may
also be reached directly from Granada and north central Costa Rica, where
a once-weekly launch plys the waters between San Carlos and Alta Gracias,
one of two towns on the island. Highly recommended as a respite from 'the
other Nicaragua'.
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Kevin
Barker is the Independent Times Americas Editor. He may be reached
at kweditor@telus.net.
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