cubanicaragua: Chapter 9: On the road again

I really didn’t sleep much that night, filled with the paranoia of missing my 4:30am bus, when I did awake, I took a quick bucket shower, got sent off with a cup of coffee and some crackers and was out on the curb early enough to realize I had forgotten my water bottle (full of freshly-made-the-night-before passion fruit juice). I ran back to the house to get it, all the while loaded down with my overloaded backpack. I got back out to the curb again in plenty of time to catch the bus, and finally, I was on my way to Esteli. Getting dropped off at the roadside in Esteli, I took a cab to a different station, jumped on the bus to Leon, took a cab to another bus station, jumped on the bus to Poneyloya, wandered down a deserted road in the middle of almost nowhere, in search of a kiosk, where I found a guy who put me on a tiny little boat to get to an island where supposedly my hostel was located.

View of the mainland from the island where I was abandoned without any clue as to where I was.

When we landed on the island there was no hostel in sight, and the boat driver told me to just wait there while he jumped over to the other side to call someone to come and get me. After a voicing my concern about the safety of this plan, he assured me I would be fine and left me alone in a small grove of very dry trees just back from the water – the island was not far from the mainland, and I could see the boat driver as well as the fellow who was staffing the kiosk both keeping an eye on me from the other side. I decided to relax in the shade since it was already smoking hot at 9:30 in the morning, and just as I was settling in to enjoy the peaceful sea breeze, I noticed a rather loud buzzing sound from behind me – I turned around to see a swarm of bees moving from tree to tree in my general direction. I leapt up from my comfortable seat on my backpack and stood back as far as I could without having to step out into the scorching sun. After a few minutes the bees disperse and eventually, my boat driver returns to tell me “he’s here” – and shows me out through the trees to the beach on the other side of the island where a friendly looking, skinny, elderly-ish man was waiting for me with his equally skinny and elderly looking horse and cart. He loaded my backpack onto the cart and then loaded me on to the cart, loaded himself onto the cart and off we went across the beach – the poor horse straining to pull the two of us, plus my backpack along behind him. Within a few minutes the hostel came into view and it wasn’t long till we veered up the very steep sandy embankment toward the entrance.