The Only Gringa on the Bus

“Hey you, you can’t shake me round now. I get so lost and don’t know how.”
–Don’t Follow, Alice in Chains

A few weeks ago, I turned 30.  In advance, I knew I needed to be doing something momentous to mark this truly miraculous event.  Note, I did not use the word, “celebrate” here.  That was on purpose.

The advent of the 30th year survived is unfortunately something of a widely accepted cultural referendum on an individual’s progress measured by the completion of specific objectives.  (This is doubly true for women.)  Pretty safe to say I have met none of these objectives and am in fact actively evading the majority with great success.  And in general, this does not bother me because my objectives are historically quite different than those more widely aspired to.  However, the goals I have set for myself have yet to be realized, so that’s still a bummer on any given non self-actualized day….not that I was giving myself a deadline of 30 years to do so….So it should mean nothing to me!  Still, I felt it was a significant year because I needed to reconcile whether the direction I am taking my life is so different after all and if I’m truly ok with that.  Because people keep considerately implying that it isn’t/I’m not.

So, to think this out, I wanted to be in a place that corresponded to all my teenagy angst.  The murky visual I get of 30 is sort of an ambiguously precarious apogee.  Which of course, it isn’t.  It’s something big and something serious but without any real consequences that come as a result of simply being there for it.  To me, this meant volcanoes.  And when I think of volcanoes, I think of Nicaragua.

My soul sista Pam recently spent a couple of months in Nicaragua and had nothing but wonderful things to say about it.  We met up for dinner and too many margaritas one evening so I could pick her brain.  And do you know what I found out?  Not only can you hike the volcanoes, but you can go VOLCANO BOARDING.  Immediately, I knew my birthday itinerary.  In all honesty, I did not do much research beyond that except to find out how to get from the airport to a hostel.  Everyone online advised not taking the bus, to which I muttered, “We’ll see”.

I arrived in Managua around 7:30 pm.  Late enough to be dark, but early enough that there were still lots of people around.  This being the case, I fought my way through the taxi drivers and walked out of the airport in search of the bus station.  One cab came up beside me on the street and offered a ride.  I said no thank you, I’m taking the bus. He yelled, “Es peligroso!”, but I told him I’d be ok.  The way I look at it is, if the risk I take generally is getting kidnapped, who would have an easier time of that, a bus full of people or one guy alone in a car?  If the risk is theft, yes, the chances of that rise on a bus, but I can control for that one a little better with vigilance.  The bus was crowded, and I was the only backpacker in sight for sure.  It was decorated with colorful streamers, “Jesus is Lord” decals on the window, and played very loud music.  But people were quite nice, offered me a seat, and the driver looked out for me and told me when we’d reached my stop.  It was actually some distance from the hostel and I would have to take a cab, but that was waaaay cheaper than catching one from the airport.  As I am riding to the hostel, there is a man on the road who flags my cab.  My driver slows down as if he’s thinking about it.  “I’d rather you didn’t…” I say, but he did not hear me or did not care because he stopped and let the guy in the backseat.  Happily, this worked for my benefit because the cab driver was lost, but the kind stranger in the back knew where my hostel was and directed him.

I should take a moment to mention that directions in Nicaragua are the most confusing I’ve met with.  There is no postal service, so there are no addresses.  They go by landmarks.  Literally, an address would be “Main cathedral, 2 blocks north, 7 blocks west.”  It works for the locals, but for me is was confounding.  So I get to the hostel (1 block north, 1 block east and 1/2 north again from Monte de Los Olivos) and ask for a bed.  The guy running the place is about my age, friendly, and we get to talking.  Looking at my passport, he says, “so you’re from Texas, huh?  They have huge beefsteak!”  He also learns that I came by bus and completely freaks out.  “You what?!  Really?! You are so….so….wow…..so..you are the only gringa I have ever known to ride the bus!”

Really though–It would seem that this is an opinion that is widely held only because it is so widely held.  I have trouble believing there has been a lot of research into the matter because people hear that a thing should make them fearful and they accept that.  I do my fair share of this, but I generally stick my neck out a little further.  Generally.  And yet here I am.

I didn’t poke around any longer than I had to in Managua.  I was anxious to get to Leon and board me some volcanoes.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, there was also a volcanic island in my future upon which I would become stranded by the roadside one dark and stormy night, knowing absolutely no one.  Tune in next week.