Nicaragua...post 3.... Semana Santa week wrap up...Laguna de Apoyo....Masaya Volcano...... Crazy times in Leon

                                          Prologue

     .....the art of living....is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists n being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.....Alan Watts

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                           Semana Santa Week Wrap Up......

We leave the heat of Granada and head to the Laguna de Apoyo ...an easy taxi ride away or several, long bus hops. Plus, a 5 km descent to the Laguna. We opt for a taxi.

Laguna de Apoyo is a cool lakeside spot to chill out for a few days. The Laguna (or lake) is a 6 km wide volcanic crater. With just a few lakeside places to stay...nightlife is non existent...but the views are spectacular.

Our ground floor room is breezy, private and even comes with two personal dipping pools (that we don't actually use).  

It's an open-air accommodation for 2 nights

Rum is cheap...and goes well with the ambiance.

At 30 cordabas a shot; this rum promotion for 2 bottles for $370 cordabas was well worth it.... and...pouring your own was no problemo!

Masaya Volcano (Santiago) 

After several days on the Laguna...we hire a taxi to visit Masaya (town) and Volcano. As we decide to view the lava pit in the evening,....(when the red fiery glow shows up best in the darkness) we line up with everyone else with the same idea. Park staff let a limited number of people in, and for only 15 minutes. They say it's so one does not succumb to the poisonous sulpheric gas. Lol

After a 2 hr wait in the line up to get to the top, we look down into bubbling chasm 300 metres down. 

There is just a small fence between the crowds and the hot mess below. Makes you think that getting ’volunteers' for those ancient rituals of sacrifice to improve crops etc, wasn't really a problem.

Heading north to Leon

As mentioned in an earlier post, we hop our way on buses from Laguna de Apoyo, through Managua before arriving in Leon. Apart from crowded buses, vendors selling everything from food, drink, to toys and the occasional clown...bus travel works like clockwork.

Even these little Nicaragua tuk-tuks are on the road. (They have such a cute duck-like face.)

Leon

Although Leon is slightly smaller than Granada, it feels way more compact and people friendly. We arrive for the Good Friday celebrations. We wander around the Centro plaza/Cathedral and just enjoy the busyness of the Semana Santa Week.

Sound advice in Leon...as it can be hot!

Museum of the Revolution

We are surrounded by relics of the Sandinistas fight against Somoza. Many of the old men acting as guides in the museum fought in the conflict. It was a horrible, brutal, bloody war. Fueled by former American president Reagan, the CIA and the infamous Iran-Contra affair, it destroyed lives, uprooted families and tore at the fabric of the Nicaragua heart.

The museum displays old, tattered photos and newspaper clippings. The building looks as if the battles in Leon ended yesterday.

Our guide lets us fire the old relic (not)!   He also pointed himself out in some of the old photos pinned to the walls showing the conflict and resistance. He even pulled up his pants leg to show an old bullet scar received in the fighting.

Somehow, decades removed from a bloody revolution,  people seemingly have been able to put the past behind them. The resiliency of the human spirit to heal, recover and move on is evident through out Nicaragua. 

The Nicaraguans deserve their own right to decide their destiny, without interference from outside meddling.

Holy Week ....more processions...

While not quite the city of processions, Leon comes close during the Holy Week. A variety of the holy parades occur, along with church masses. Together, the many religious events signify important moments in the Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday timeline.

The statues are heavy with up to 50, mainly men, carrying them blocks from the church. With bands and music as varied as trombones and tubas, the processions happen in the heat of the day and in the cooler evening.

A special procession called the Procession of Sadness takes place in Sutiava Barrio where the sawdust carpets are created. (See previous post for more detail)

.....promise to stay wild with me. We'll seek and return and stay to find beauty and the extraordinary in all the spaces we can claim. We'll know how to live. How to breathe magic into the mundane....Victoria Erickson

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Upcoming

Heading to the Nicaragua Mountains... north to Matagalpa...San Ramon and more...

Hasta Luego

Yvonne y Shayne 

Additional Random Photos 

Where's Shayne?

Nicaragua......Leon and Sawdust carpets .....a Good Friday celebration in the Sutiava Barrio

.............Travel .........is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness....and many people need it (travel) sorely on these accounts.....   cannot vegetate in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime... Mark Twain                     

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                                           Prologue

 Sawdust....street painting.... religious holiday.....beer drinking.... it's a Barrio party in the Sutiava neighbourhood of Leon.....

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We are on the hunt........for the sawdust carpets of Sutiava

....... it's a mysterious religious street festival in Leon..... somewhere in a local Barrio...in one of the original indigenous communities in this city...


Here, the streets are covered in sawdust, then painted with religious motifs from Holy Week to World Peace..it is a long tradition in many countries....

....the work of constructing, forming, painting is seen as an act of faith on the solemn day of Good Friday....the magnificent paintings are a 'holy carpet' for the evening church procession to walk on... and...they are ruined by the many feet...

As the sun sets....a street party begins.....the crowds descend...10's of thousands will pass through the several blocks dedicated to the carpets.

People come to view  the finished creations... and eat...drink....renew friendships and make new ones...

Later, in the darkness, the Procession of Sadness..walks over the recently finished sawdust works.....it concludes an extraordinary day in the Barrio Sutiava, the original indigenous community of Leon and honouring Good Friday...

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In the still cool air of Good Friday morning, we head to the Sutiava Barrio by taxi. We arrive to a scene of organized chaos...people are hosing the streets..... building wood frames.....dumping bags of sawdust ....leveling. .....watering... ... packing........watering.....

It seems.....there's so little time to finish everything by 4 pm and so much to do. Some teams (family and friends) are well on their way to painting....while others are still building wood frames to hold the sawdust.

We meet Marvin almost as soon as we walk into the Sutiava neighbourhood in the morning. He instantly 'adopts' us and becomes our defacto tour guide/new friend for the day/evening.  Amazing what happens when you ask where he got his beer...(Drink more for better understanding, we always say!)

Marvin's metal workshop with paint bags stored along side some of the iron works he and his sons make. One son is off to Canada/Quebec on a long term contract as a welder. 

We spend the morning with Marvin, meeting family and his friends while watching the paintings take shape. The tradition started here when one family decided to adorn the street they lived on....from that time..it's grown...gotten bigger.....

Yvonne helps remove seeds from an unusual plant in the palm family,  to be used in the painting...

It's now a celebration.....and a Good Friday tradition in Leon....food vendors come out....cooking over charcoal/wood grills....from chicken 'n chips....chorizo....pork....to cotton candy and ice cream sellers...it's an annual 'good time' end to Leon's Easter Week events.

The hours put into the planning and work, under the hot sun are a way of honouring Jesus Christ's Stations of the Cross.

Adios from Leon

Shayne y Yvonne 

Additional Random Photos