{"id":5733,"date":"2019-10-15T09:58:13","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T09:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/?p=5733"},"modified":"2021-03-02T15:23:39","modified_gmt":"2021-03-02T15:23:39","slug":"postcard-nicaragua","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/postcard-nicaragua\/","title":{"rendered":"Postcard Nicaragua"},"content":{"rendered":"Approx read: <\/span> 5<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>

battleface talks to Michelle Bartolo, a business director, yoga professional, founder of the anti-litter NGO \u2018That\u2019s Rubbish,\u2019 Surf Rider Foundation activist and Red Cross volunteer who recently spent time in Nicaragua.<\/h4>\n

BF: <\/strong>So Michelle, was this your first time to Central America?<\/p>\n

MB: <\/strong>No\u2026.I\u2019ve been to Costa Rica and absolutely loved it. My friends run a really cool organic farm operation down there and I lived and worked with them for a few months.<\/p>\n

\"mossygrass\"<\/p>\n

BF: <\/strong>Nicaragua: how did you get there with flight connections and what about travelling inside the country?<\/p>\n

MB:\u00a0 <\/strong>Well I did quite a bit of internal travel, and getting from here to Nicaragua was quite easy. I flew out of London Heathrow to Houston and then connected to Managua, the capital.<\/p>\n

BF: <\/strong>So what were your impressions of Managua?<\/p>\n

\"rustychurh\"<\/p>\n

MB: <\/strong>Well, from the little that I saw the overriding impression was that it looked really run down \u2013 in between the earthquake of 1972 and then the war that started a few years after until today nothing looks like it was built properly again \u2013 just loads of patched buildings everywhere\u2026.and super busy! Cars everywhere\u2026everyone in a hurry it seemed.<\/p>\n

BF<\/strong>: And the internal travel\u2026?<\/p>\n

MB: <\/strong>Well first I took a bus to Playa Maderas on the Pacific Coast which was only two hours away from. Managua and I stayed a week there, did some yoga, surfed (yess!) and caught up on all the sunsets I\u2019d missed from working too many hours back home, haha.<\/p>\n

\"setwpals\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BF:<\/strong> Surf?<\/p>\n

MB:<\/strong> Yeah. Venezuelan instructor, mellow waves and though it was a busy beach there were no hassles in the water. It was actually at San Juan del Sur\u2026.bit of party place after sunset too\u2026.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/p>\n

BF:<\/strong> So it\u2019s good there?<\/p>\n

MB:<\/strong> Yeah, it\u2019s not really that busy with tourists, though American dollars is what you need to be carrying if you want value for your buck. It\u2019s warm, peaceful and I stayed in an eco-accommodation place \u2013 water conservation and recycling encouraged from the guests. Yeah, it\u2019s a cool place.<\/p>\n

\"hut\"<\/p>\n

BF<\/strong>: Just back to the topic of moving around internally in Nicaragua, what are the downsides?<\/p>\n

MB<\/strong>: Well\u2026you know that typical scene of an old bus full of people and chickens are running around and next to you is the village goat\u2026.? So not that bad, but not much better if you get me\u2026 And then there are the taxis. Not all taxis are safe to get into. I asked around at the places I was staying for the ins and outs of what transport is reliable \u2013 all the useful tips are from locals if you take the time to engage with people. Like for instance, some taxis look as though they had a bouncer in the front seat with the driver. Maybe he was security or the owner of the car or he could have been the heavy who tried to extract some more dollars from the trips\u2026.whatever\u2026..I didn\u2019t go near them under some good advice. The other thing with taxis is that you can barter your price – haha \u2013 that is assuming you know where you\u2019re going\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BF: <\/strong>Nicaragua has two coasts right?<\/p>\n

\"treesway\"<\/p>\n

MB: <\/strong>Yup. The Pacific and Caribbean.<\/p>\n

BF:<\/strong> And the differences were\u2026.?<\/p>\n

MB:<\/strong> The Pacific side was Spanish speaking and the Caribbean side a lot more influenced by Creole \u2013 both in language and attitude I think. Like, the Pacific people were cool, but the Caribbean Nicaraguans were super friendly and laid back.<\/p>\n

\"yellowblueboat\"I spent most of my time there on an island called Little Corn Island (Ed\u2019s note: Isla Peque\u00f1a del Ma\u00edz<\/em>) just off Big Corn island (of course), which has a population of 700. It was super relaxing but after a while you can get island-fever as it only takes a short time until you know the place inside out. While I was there however a fishing boat sank in a storm \u2013 13 Costa Rican women died as they couldn\u2019t swim. For 3 days all boats back to the mainland were cancelled, people missed their flights and you can imagine that on such a small place it was a time of high emotions with the locals dealing with all of the drama.<\/p>\n

\"afternoon<\/p>\n

BF: <\/strong>So I know you weren\u2019t travelling alone this time, but would you go to Nicaragua and do all you did by yourself?<\/p>\n

MF: <\/strong>Honestly, probably not, although I did meet a couple of women there who were doing just that and said they had experienced no problems. But even as a couple or in a group you need a higher level of observance than normal. Not because there are direct threats but in some places you just don\u2019t keep doing what you might do elsewhere. For example in Managua I was told not to be out at night. I\u2019m obviously not a local and I don\u2019t speak a lot of Spanish\u2026.<\/p>\n

\"littlediveshack\"<\/p>\n

BF:<\/strong> OK, so what\u2019s your number one piece of advice to travellers to Nicaragua?<\/p>\n

MB:<\/strong> That\u2019s easy! Take your own supply of basic medicines. Fevers are quite common for travellers so paracetamol and Imodium should be packed, and, you will need mosquito repellent, soothing cream for bites and stuff like that because believe me, Nicaragua has mosquitos!<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/p>\n

BF:<\/strong> Thanks Michelle. Let us all know when you\u2019re off on your next trip.<\/p>\n

MB<\/strong>: Yeah, of course.<\/p>\n

\"parrot\"<\/p>\n

Photos courtesy on Michelle Bartolo<\/em><\/h6>\n

Postcard:<\/strong> is an ongoing series of images and words from some of our favourite adventurers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

battleface talks to Michelle Bartolo, a business director, yoga professional, founder of the anti-litter NGO \u2018That\u2019s Rubbish,\u2019 Surf Rider Foundation activist and Red Cross volunteer who recently spent time in Nicaragua. BF: So Michelle, was this your first time to Central America? MB: No\u2026.I\u2019ve been to Costa Rica and absolutely loved it. My friends run […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5748,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[626,763,635,634],"class_list":["post-5733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-storyteller-spotlights","tag-nicaragua","tag-solo-female-travel","tag-surf-nicaragua","tag-travel-to-nicaragua"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5733"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11817,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5733\/revisions\/11817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}