Non-identical twins: learning to love Leon

Trip Start Sep 13, 2008

Trip End Feb 26, 2009

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Where I stayed

Hotel America

(Leon hotels)

Flag of Nicaragua Leon, Nicaragua
Friday, October 24, 2008

Turns out that what I had thought was tastefully draped decorative material hanging from the ceiling of my otherwise cell-like bedroom at Bigfoot was actually there to disguise the fact that the walls don't meet the roof. I realised this at 5.30 this morning when the cockerels who live next door behind the comedor (very cheap basic restaurant) set up such a racket that further sleep was impossible. Before this trip, I had a romantic city-girl idea that they crow once to greet the dawn and then shut up again, like an alarm clock. This has turned out to be sadly erroneous; once they get going they carry on for at least an hour, and often for the whole day. They did pipe down after an hour (by which time I was ready to go next door and wring their filthy feathered necks) and I was just falling back to sleep when the comedor cooks started making breakfast. The place opens at 7 so I gave up and hauled myself out of bed, vowing to use the early start to look for another place to stay. I already had a few doubts about the Bigfoot hostel; I'd noticed as soon as I arrived that they didn't have soap or towels for people to wash their hands outside the loos and in a place with a communal kitchen, that's not acceptable. They also didn't provide bath towels, forcing me to use my hated 'travel towel', a strange, rubbery-feeling giant shammy which I carry with me but avoid using as I loathe the feel of it on my skin. I wandered down the road to a small hotel mentioned in Lonely Planet (my bible) and to my surprise they had much nicer rooms than the one I was in, for only $10 a night. Went for a wander around the town, then returned the the Bigfoot Hostel to check out. Surprised a couple of Canadian guys having a sly spliff outside the loos and chatted to one of them, Iain, for a while: we ranted about the laziness and inefficiency of the local people and agreed that if they spent as much time working as they did figuring out ways to scam tourists they probably wouldn't be poor.

I took my stuff and wandered down to the new hotel, only to find that the room I'd seen earlier was now mysteriously unavailable. The woman kept telling me that it would have to be cleaned before I could go in and trying to tear me away. In the end I said "look, I saw it 2 hours ago and it was already clean then" and she gave me a knowing look and said "there's a couple in there now, but they'll be gone by noon". I had inadvertently checked into a hotel that rents rooms by the hour... there was nothing to do but laugh (and hope the room would be cleaned thoroughly) so I left my bags with her and went for another walk. The room was clean and looked completely innocent by the time I returned, although I did have to dust the fan and remove a few dead bugs from the wall.

Went out again but it was very hot and I got grumpy! Someone pushed in front of me at the supermarket and then I narrowly missed being spat on by a guy who decided to evacuate his mouth without looking around him. He was apologetic but I shouted "�SUCIO!" and stomped off down the street. Felt really out of sorts for a while and was filled with frustration, hating Leon for its heat, dirt and inhabitants and thinking harsh thoughts along the lines of Nicaraguans deserving their crappy lives. I think I had unrealistic expectations of Leon: it's one of Oxford's official twin cities and I hoped it would remind me of home, but of course this was not to be. They are definitely non-identical twins. Still, I was stuck there until the next morinng so I traipsed around a few museums, including an exhibit about the civil war and the Sandinista movement, and also took the time to read the Nicaraguan history section of my Bible. Realised that it is really all America's fault that Nicaragua is such a mess and felt a lot more kindly disposed to the place after that.

Returned to the hotel and snuck back into the Bigfoot hostel in the evening to play cards with T and Iain, the Canadian boys. Moving on tomorrow.