Annie and Blue visit Nicaragua

Can you find Nicaragua on a map?  It is the largest country in Central America and it has a coast on both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.   While in Nicaragua we visited an island in Lake Nicaragua.  Lake Nicaragua is the 19^th largest lake in the world and one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world.  The island we visited is called Ometepe which in the ancient language of the Nahuati people of Nicaragua means two

mountains.  The island has two volcanoes. One is dormant (inactive) but Conceptcion is still active.  It last erupted in 1957 but in 2010 it spit out a lot of ash and rocks.  It creates a problem when it rains a lot for several days because there can be huge landsides of ash and rocks. That happened in 2014 when the ash and rocks blocked the road and destroyed some houses in its path.  At one time, many thousands of years ago the two volcanoes were not connected by land but now they are.  The sands washed in and over a very long period of time created an isthmus.  That is where the best beaches are.

Mark Twain who wrote “Tom Sawyer” loved to travel.  When

Twain visited Ometepe he said the island was, “Two magnificent pyramids, clad in the softest and richest green, all flecked with shadow and sunshine, whose summits pierce the billowy clouds.” It still looks that way today.  Things may change.  A very rich Chinese man wants to build a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific through Nicaragua.  It would be bigger than the Panama Canal so that wider ships could use it.  Nicaragua was considered the best place to build a canal in the early 1900s but for various reasons the canal was built through the Isthmus of Panama. If a canal is built across Nicaragua there will be many changes in Nicaragua and Ometepe. Many people don’t think there will be a second canal because it would cost a lot of money.

At one time the island was home to the Nahauti people. We visited a museum where Carla showed us around. There are a lot of artifacts (objects made by people long ago) that one man has collected to create his museum.  The island has been occupied for at least 5000 years.  The ancient people created

beautiful pottery and carvings on rocks called petroglyphs.  There were interesting large clay containers that the people were buried in.  It was their version of a casket. 

The museum also had a section devoted to money.  Every new president issues new money but the earliest people used cocoa beans for their money.  Chocolate is made from the cocoa beans. For 100 cocoa beans one could buy a slave.

One day we stopped at the home of Jairo Sandino in Los Ramos. An 83-year-old   man, Fauto Aleman, has been teaching his family the culture of the island. Like most of Central America the culture comes from the Spanish who conquered the area over 500 years ago. Mr. Aleman played the guitar, sang and danced for us.  For one song he put on a mask which represents the Old Man in the Mountain. His very pretty granddaughters, Scarleth Aleman

Martinez and Alba Ligia Sandino danced for us as did Alba’s father.  One dance was about a bull fight with Alba’s father pretending to be the bull.  The entertainment took place in their home which made it seem more special.  We think it is

important for people to remember their culture and share it with others. Just about everyone in Nicaragua has a cell phone and even the smallest, one-room homes (some without indoor toilets) have a satellite dish so the people know more about the United States than most of the people in the United States know about Nicaragua.  With all the modern technology many places, worldwide, and losing their old ways and adopting American ways.

Visitng Copan in Honduras

Ever wonder what the place where we live will be like in 1000 years?  We do.  Some people say the climate is getting warmer and that the ice caps are melting.  If that happens many of the places along the water may be underwater. We visited the amazing Mayan ruins of Copan in Honduras.  The Mayan people created a large, powerful

nation in Central America many, many years ago. We doubt the Mayans ever thought their flourishing city would one day be overtaken by the jungle. Copan is just one of the great Mayan cities with pyramids, temples, and where art flourished. Copan is considered the most artistic of the Mayan cities and sometimes referred to as the “Athens of the Mayan World.” Copan started as an agricultural settlement around 1000 BC and reached its peak between AD 300 and 900. Today all that is left are the impressive stone works.  At

one time the temples were bright and colorful. We wondered what happened to this once great city. We were told that one problem was that they had too many wars and also the city grew so big they could not raise enough food to feed their people. Another problem was disease brought to them by European explorers.  We have some of these problems today: war, people going hungry and disease. 

One of the most impressive sites is the hieroglyphic staircase which contains over 1250 blocks of stone. Hieroglyphics are designs, symbols, and/or pictures used to tell a story instead of words made from an alphabet.  Each stone of the stairway is engraved with part of a Mayan story. When the staircase was discovered many of the stones had been disturbed by nature and people looking for treasure.  At one time the Mayans were very rich and had a lot of gold. When stones were replaced in the

stairway the people didn’t understand the language so the stones were not put back in the proper place. The staircase it like a history book with 1250 loose pages with no page numbers and in a foreign language. Even today we don’t know what all the hieroglyphics mean so we only know part of the story. There is much to learn. 

One of fascinating sites is the ball court. The game was popular throughout Central America and it was more than just a game. It was often part of a religious ceremony where the losers not only lost the game but their lives. The exact rules are not known but the object was to get the rubber ball through one of the rings high on the side wall. The players couldn’t use their hands.  Today the site is quiet but sitting on one of the benches looking around at the impressive stone temples and altars we

wondered what Copan was like when it was full of people and all the buildings were painted bright colors.  At the museum we saw a large model of the Rosalila Temple.  It is beautiful. From pictures we know the rulers and religious people were brightly dressed and often used the bright feathers from the local birds like the beautiful Macaws to decorate their headpieces and clothing. 

Not far from Copan is the Macaw Mountain Bird Park & Nature Reserve where there are many macaws and other colorful birds. The people at the park are working to protect, preserve and breed macaws and then reintroduce them back into the wild.  Several of the bright, beautiful macaws are once again free to fly in and around the great city of Copan.