North to Chinandega

This past Thursday found me back on the Managua bus with Brynn in tow for a Friday visit to Migración to renew my tourist visa on Friday morning. This was accomplished with no undue fuss at the satellite office at MetroCentro, a large shopping mall connected to the Intercontinental Hotel, with the help of my hero and avocado abogado, Noel.

Afterwards, my friend Erlinda invited me to go with her to the north to her hometown of Chinandega, to help celebrate her brother's birthday. Erlinda is one of 12 siblings, and I had not yet met her older brother Miguel and his wife Merian. So we boarded a microbus crammed full for a two-hour ride up past Leon to this second oldest city in Nicaragua, a town of about 300K residents. This was no tourist visit, so I did not get a good look at the place.  Miguel's house is on a quiet street, and the plain exterior belies the comfortable home within.The family has lived in this house for 47 years.

Miguel and Erlinda

Miguel has been in the business of raising sugar cane and rice, among other things, and his two sons also work with him. At 75, I imagine he is semi-retired, at least. A lovely, soft-spoken gentleman, whose wife is both hospitable and generous. We had a good meal of soup, chicken, pasta, and a sort of flan with raisins for dessert.

Merian has a few collections on display in her home, including miniature houses that are produced in Masaya, Nicaragua's famed artisan center, not too far from Diriamba. They are arranged in the small open-air courtyard of the home.

In the sala, there is an ancient scales with weights, amidst a collection of old irons on an antique sewing machine table. A breakfront houses various ceramics, and is topped by a son's baseball trophies, and flanked by papal portraits.

The sala, with Merian.






Birthday wishes accomplished, Miguel drove us back to the bus corner, with a brief stop in front of a sweet old church, whose most recent restoration was a century ago. Really lovely, isn't it?

The ride back to Managua in a window seat provided me with a lesson in the volcanic geology of Nicaragua. There is a string of active or dormant volcanoes stretching from the north near Chinandega south as far as Grenada, at the top of Lake Nicaragua. The mountain chain comprising the northernmost eight or nine volcanoes is called the Cordillero de los Marabios; Erlinda pointed out a few that do not appear on this little map, including Chonco, just north of San Cristobal, and just above Cerro Negro, Las Pilas and Casita, so-called because of its gabled roof shape. Nevertheless, as this image shows, there is a very active line extending right into Lake Nicaragua to the island of Ometepe.

      As our bus headed back to Managua, I had only short glimpses through breaks in the roadside greenery of Telica, the volcano near León which erupted this past May when Gabe was here, and smoking Momotambo. These geological formations are so distinctive, rising like pyramids from the inland plains, providing clear evidence that Nicaragua is one of the most seismically active regions in the world. I love the sound of the indigenous names like Momotambo and Mombacho, Chinandega and Chichigalpa.

Here is a internet image of Momotambo in the distance, and Momotambito, a smaller version that rises from Lake Managua.

Below: Volcan Telica.