Corinto, Nicaragua (MAR 04)

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Nothing says "Welcome to Nicaragua" like a smoking volcano and a gunboat...

 ...except two gunboats, with the men in the bow pretending they are not the gun crew.

We rounded a man-made breakwall and proceeded to a cargo pier that had a section decorated to welcome cruise ships.

the slogan translates "This is How Chinandega is My Native Land"

Today's tour thankfully did not leave until 0900, so we took our time having breakfast.

TOUR DESCRIPTION

The colonial city of León, founded in 1524 by Spanish conquistadors, sits next to Lake Xolotlan and the active Momotombo Volcano. In 1610, volcanic and seismic activity destroyed the original town and buried it in ash, and it became 'the Pompeii of Central America'. León's ruins were discovered in 1967 and are now UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Tour the ancient city to learn about the early history of the first capital city of Nicaragua. From the hill where the old fort is buried, you'll take in the excellent view of the Momotombo Volcano and Lake Xolotlan.

Lunch is served at a charming restaurant in Old León.

Leave behind this blast from a past and head to present-day León. It is by no means new, and it is a repository of fantastic Spanish colonial architecture.

The city's grand churches soar skyward, and include the monumental cathedral that is the largest in Central America. Inside, climb up to the roof for unmatched views over the city.

Finally, you'll head back to Corinto after an unforgettable day in Nicaragua.

THE REALITY

Okay, so maybe I did not comprehensively read the tour description when calculating bus time (which once again was carefully omitted from the description).  I found present-day Leon, measured the distance to it and assumed ("Danger Will Robinson, danger!) that colonial Leon was nearby meaning about a 30-minute bus ride to get there. We did not even take the road to the former on our way to the latter. Our guide said there would be a comfort stop along the way - another error indicator.  Thankfully, I was only off by 250%, the trip taking about 75 minutes.

On our way to the colonial city of Leon (Leon Viego), our guide Marjorie talked about the recent plan funded by China to build a canal through Panama. According to her, the plan had government approval before the people of Nicaragua killed the idea through mass-protests. Reasons the government curiously overlooked or marginalized that concerned the populous included pollution, impact on fish stocks, indigenous tribes and wildlife, a 100-year concession to the China to operate the canal and the use of Chinese labor to build it. A bit of subsequent fact checking discovered some errors and a certain 're-alignment' of events.  The financial collapse of the Chinese billionaire underwriting the Nicaraguan Canal Project was likely more instrumental than the protests in causing what is currently characterized as an indefinite delay in the project.  Regardless, at present the status of the project is, if not dead, at least dormant.

Marjorie in general seemed a bit skeptical that the current president, Daniel Ortega (yup, the same one who was president during the 1980's), was working in the best interests of the country.  I did not have enough data to have an informed perspective, but certainly the fact that he made his wife the vice-president did not strike me as a altruistic leadership.

When asked about the volcanoes, Marjorie explained that Nicaragua had many active volcanoes and regular earthquakes. A later Wikipedia search showed five Nicaraguan volcanoes that have erupted in the past 25-years. At volcanodiscovery.com I found that so far in 2020 there have been 80 quakes greater than 4.2, but no big ones. As in Costa Rica, our guide had an earthquake app on her phone. (Okay, yes, I now have one on mine, too.)

link to World Heritage website

We were greeted by a local youth dance troop. We were their first performance of the day, and from what I could tell perhaps their first ever for tourists. They were full of enthusiasm. After performing their routine, they danced with some of our group, yours truly not included. Before we moved on, they wanted a picture taken with our entire group. The picture-taking is what made me wonder if the troop was new to do tourist presentations. (If so, they were going to be veterans by the end of the day given the number of groups for which they would perform.)

As with many other ancient ruins we have visited, Leon Viejo required considerable imagination to envision. The street map was helpful in understanding the layout of the city, which in turned helped me understand the placement of the building foundations.

Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba (in whose honor the national currency is named) is credited with being the founder of Nicaragua . Cordoba got caught up in an unsuccessful rebellion and wound up being beheaded in the city square.

Our guide worked hard at describing the buildings, but my takeaway was this was a cruel place.  The Spaniards had subjugated the Mayans and used them as slaves to mine gold and silver and render it into ingots to be shipped to Spain. Our guide described a brutality by the Spaniards that was staggering. 

Mayan enslaved by Spanish reaching for
freedom while being bitten by guard dog.

We climbed a hill from which we got a view of Lake Managua and the still very active Momotombo Volcano that forced the evacuation of the city four centuries ago.  

Throughout our visit, I could hear the dance troop that had greeted us performing for our group, there being two ships in port generating waves of new arrivals. As I noted earlier, if they were new to doing their routine when we saw them this morning, they would be seasoned veterans when they staggered home in the afternoon.

After a surprisingly good lunch for the second tour day in a row, we proceeded to Leon, which, while identified as "present-day" in the tour description, was founded in 1610. 

In fields we past we saw strange teepee-shaped bundles that looks something like corn stalks.  These were sesame plants being prepared for harvesting the seeds. In the course of less than a minute I was catapulted from not knowing (or caring) where sesame seeds came from to the other end of that spectrum - the knowing part, the caring part remaining a constant.

In Leon, we gathered in the plaza mayor, on one side of which, as in every Spanish-designed plaza mayor, was the cathedral. With so many peddlers trying to push trinkets upon us it was distracting and made it hard to hear. The Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary took 67 years to complete, opened in 1814 and is still the largest cathedral in Central America. 

There were lion statues inside and outside the cathedral.
The guide told us why, but...

Marjorie led a subset of our group up into one bell tower, out onto the roof of the cathedral, around the exterior of the ceiling's domes and down the stairs in the other bell tower.  About the stairs - They were built between the inner and outer walls of the church. They were very narrow. They were steep with a rise of 10"-12". There were 88 of them. Did I mention that they were narrow? When we arrived at the second bell tower, the two guys ahead of me could not find the entrance to the staircase, probably because they weren't thinking claustrophobic enclosure.  This was a plus for me. I led the way down, sparing me being packed in between two people.

When we returned to the port, the band was gone, the singers were gone and the dancers were gone. Far more importantly, the ship was still there. Regent's SPLENDOR was docked astern of us.  We had first seen her coming through the Panama Canal locks behind us and subsequently off our port stern quarter much of the following day.

With people waving from a local beach club, ROTTERDAM worked her way around the breakwall and was immediately in open sea again.  We watched the departure, then turned our attention to re-organizing for tomorrow's tour which, joy-of-joys, is another one with a 0700 departure and a 9-hour duration.