{"id":16742,"date":"2014-03-14T13:53:20","date_gmt":"2014-03-14T20:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=16742"},"modified":"2014-03-14T13:53:20","modified_gmt":"2014-03-14T20:53:20","slug":"where-i-went-on-my-winter-vacation-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/14\/where-i-went-on-my-winter-vacation-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Where I went on my winter vacation, part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Where?<\/b> Granada, Nicaragua (as Shel guessed first, with a couple others close behind).<\/p>\n

Nicaragua???<\/b> Yep. I was amused, and not at all surprised, that nobody even mentioned Nicaragua as a possibility until I gave those hints. After all, isn’t Nicaragua the land of Sandinistas and Contras? Isn’t it a socialist country? Isn’t it the place where former revolutionary Daniel Ortega has more recently done what all former revolutionaries do when they gain political power — declare the official language of the country to be Swedish<\/del><\/a> declare himself presidente<\/i> for life. (Well, effectively so<\/a>) and plaster the country with his own “heroic” face?<\/p>\n

(I didn’t get a chance to photograph the 2014 version of this billboard. Had to copy this one online, but rest assured the current ones are similar and even more grandiose.)<\/p>\n

\"Billboardcrisitiana-socialismo-FROM-ONLINE\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, it’s all that. But …<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So whoffor did you go there?<\/b> Short answers: 1) I had an airline credit from a long-ago cancelled trip that I had to use up or lose; 2) I knew that it’s legally possible to retire to Nicaragua on a pension of as little as $600 per month; and 3) Nicaragua is developing a reputation among expats as “the next Costa Rica.” I had to go someplace, and this seemed the best place to check out for possible “offshoring.”<\/p>\n

Why Granada?<\/b> Mainly just keeping it simple. This wasn’t an adventure trip, just a relaxation trip. Granada is the coolest place within an hour’s drive of the airport in Managua. It’s also the oldest city in Central America (though its claims to hoary age are somewhat diminished by the fact that it was burned to the ground by a personage our carriage driver described an Americano malo malo<\/i>). <\/p>\n

She was talking about William Walker<\/a>, though she could just as easily have meant one of his deputies, Charles Frederick Hennigsen<\/a>. Those dudes were as malo malo<\/i> as it gets from a Nicaraguan perspective. And oh, the things they never taught us in history class! For example: the dishonorable origin of the word “filibuster”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Don’t they hate gringos down there?<\/b> My host at the B&B (a genially left-wing Canadian) swears they don’t. But then, he runs around town wearing tee-shirt celebrating la lucha<\/i> (“the struggle”) and shaking hands with local beggars. My own sense (and keep in mind this is based on one week’s observation in one city so it’s hardly definitive) is that, while most individual Nicaraguans probably don’t hate individual Americans (and are quite happy to take our money), there’s a sort of national pride in having whupped U.S. backside more than once and intense hostility to the nearly 200 years of painful history Americans imposed on their country.<\/p>\n

Granada is no hotbed of revolution. That honor belongs to another city, Leon. To give you an example of Leon’s “official” attitude toward Americans, here’s a copy of a Leon street map I picked up. It’s in English and I got it in a totally touristy shop, so this isn’t for local consumption, but for tourists.<\/p>\n

\"LeonStreetMap_0314\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here’s a detail in case you can’t tell who’s sitting on that poor peasant woman’s shoulders.<\/p>\n

\"LeonStreetMap_DETAIL_0314\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Also, I couldn’t help but noticing that those ruthless drivers I mentioned earlier actually seemed to be aiming<\/i> at those of us who appeared to be foreigners. Even the ones who might have been Swedish or British instead of gringos.<\/p>\n

But in what seems to be a typical Central American love-hate contradiction, I smile to notice that Leon used a painting by an American artist<\/i> on its brochure — right next to a seal affirming that they strive for all-local “100% Nica” content.<\/p>\n

More later<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Where? Granada, Nicaragua (as Shel guessed first, with a couple others close behind). Nicaragua??? Yep. I was amused, and not at all surprised, that nobody even mentioned Nicaragua as a possibility until I gave those hints. After all, isn’t Nicaragua the land of Sandinistas and Contras? Isn’t it a socialist country? Isn’t it the place where former revolutionary Daniel Ortega has more recently done what all former revolutionaries do when they gain political power — declare the official language of the country to be Swedish declare himself presidente for life. (Well, effectively so) and plaster the country with his own<\/p>\n

Continue readingWhere I went on my winter vacation, part 1<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travels","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}