The Nicaragua Journal
Chapter IV: Steps Forward
Published April 15, 2024
Early the next day I’m sitting in my nook with a warm mug, grateful that all it ever takes for me to start over is a decent cup of coffee.
Neither of us has plans today, so Kaitlyn and I make some with each other. We’re hiking San Ramón Waterfall then exploring the beaches, her on her ATV, me on the scooter I’m in the process of renting through my hostel. When two men finally show up with my vehicle, I hand them a $100 deposit and they walk me through how to use it. It comes up that I’ve never driven one before and one of them looks visibly concerned. When I tell him we’re going to the waterfall, he cautions that the road to the trailhead might be too dangerous. I take a test drive down the rocky path next to our hostel and, never quite getting control of the bike, nearly bust through a wooden fence and fly off the side. The man walks over to me and gently tells me I should probably get my deposit back from his friend. I’m grateful for his honesty but at the same time, crushed. I hadn’t realized how badly I wanted to one day be in an all-girl biker gang until that dream was ripped away from me. I feel genuine shame as I explain to Kaitlyn why I need to hitch a ride on the back of her ATV.
We forgo the waterfall, noting that it’s the end of the dry season, anyway. Instead, we spend the morning at El Ojo De Agua, a natural pool twenty minutes away filled with water from a river out of Volcán Maderas. From there we grab lunch at a lake-front restaurant on Playa Santa Domingo, then lay on the sand for the rest of the afternoon. The day is slow. Our main activities include sitting and looking and by the end of it, I’m starting to get antsy for my next adventure. That evening, I’m checking out of my hostel and into a bed and breakfast I booked for the next two nights knowing that, by now, I’d be craving my own space. A property on a farm in the middle of the jungle that consists of four bamboo cabins and a farm-to-table restaurant, it’s my biggest splurge of the trip.
I gather my things and, for the first time, take a right at the main road instead of a left. A WhatsApp message from the hotel warns me that Google Maps doesn’t recognize the address and will send me down the wrong turn-off. I’m to keep walking straight until I see a sign for La Bambouseraie, though there’s no indication of when that may be. As I’m reading this I hear some commotion up ahead and realize I’ve stumbled across a children's baseball game that’s drawn a crowd. People are pressed up against a chain link fence, hanging onto the metal by their fingertips and letting gravity do the rest. Boys who look my age or older are leaning against their motorbikes, flirting with girls who look my age or younger. Abuelas are sitting on a long bench on the other side of the dirt road, screaming things at the field that I wish I could translate.
I’m already smiling to myself as I round a slight curve in the road that opens up to a pristine, uninhabited stretch of lake. The beach is golden and the water is sparkling in the late afternoon light. I’ve wandered back into a world where everything is lush and alive — the plants, the colors, the locals, myself. It was all sitting five minutes away in the direction I didn’t dare to go because I was too quick to hide in the familiar. I walk, unsure of where I’m headed but no longer bothered by the idea of getting a little lost. Whatever this road is heading toward, it’s probably something good.
I spot the sign further than I expect it to be and veer off the road to follow a path into the jungle, deep into a canopy of trees. About a half-mile later I finally see the cabins I recognize from the photos online and start to search for anything that can point me to reception. A man is walking down a flight of stone steps and I’m about to ask him where to go when he looks at me and says my name. Like everyone else on this island besides Kaitlyn and me, he doesn’t speak English. I follow him up to a narrow balcony attached to a small but breathtaking bar and restaurant. The entire structure looks out at the horizon. We’re just above the trees, eye-level with birds gliding above a field of green that gives way to panoramic views of the lake and volcanos. I look at him with wide eyes and he smiles and nods, knowing exactly how I feel without me having to say it.
I pay for the room and he leads me down a long and winding path until we reach my bungalow. It’s a small cabin on four stilts with string lights hung along the trees. At the top of the staircase is a deck with two chairs on either side of a small table and two hammocks that look straight out at Concepción and give a side view of Maderas. Inside, there’s a large white bed encased in a mosquito net, a desk, two half baths, one with a waterfall shower, and two vessel sinks sitting between them. The whole structure is crafted out of bamboo and all around it, screens give way to 360-degree views of the property. My jaw drops to the floor. I’m smiling uncontrollably and when I look over at him, I start laughing. He laughs too and gestures at everything in a way that I know he’s genuinely happy that I’m so genuinely happy. He leaves, realizing I’m having a moment and letting me be in it, but he doesn’t know of all the self-doubt, small wins, and big lessons it took to get to this fifty-to-one.
That night, I’m the only one at the restaurant for dinner besides the waitstaff and a couple of dogs sitting patiently by my table as if they’d been waiting for me to arrive. I drink a glass of wine, enjoying the silence, staring out at the horizon, and feeling like I’m sitting atop the entire island. In the distance, people are kayaking along Rio Istián or watching the sunset from Playa Magos or Punta Jesus Maria or doing the other things people told me I had to do and that just yesterday, I was so horrified at the idea of missing out on. Before right now, I felt as if failing to tick off every box on every travel guide meant I wouldn’t be making the most out of my time. Somehow, this trip, which holds no purpose other than for me to simply be here, became something I could fail at. But in this stillness and seclusion, I feel lucky to have a piece of the island all to myself. Here, the pressure has melted away and I’ve taken this place off of a pedestal, letting it, and my experience here, just be what it is. I feel content remembering that it’s not a race to do the most, but a choice to make the most of everything I do.
I make it back to my bungalow before dark and when I shut the door, find that it doesn’t lock from the inside. It’s fine, I tell myself. It’s not like a lock could keep someone from breaking in if they really wanted to. I close the blackout curtains that cover almost all of the screens, place my suitcase and backpack on a luggage rack, and shove socks in my shoes to keep the geckos, bugs, and massive spiders from making a home in them. I tuck myself inside my net and set an alarm for 5:30 am to wake up for a hike up Conceptión.
The winds have been relatively tame here, but the second I get under the covers they wreak havoc. The curtains, which are weighted at the bottom, whip away from the walls so hard and so often they become parallel to the floor. Some slide all the way open and, at one point, a railing rips completely out of its socket. I get up and start placing anything I can against them to try and hold them down. All around me, there are creaking noises and other unidentifiable sounds coming from outside and I’m desperate for the screens to stay covered and give me some illusion of safety. My attempts make a marginal difference and I lie in bed, hyper-aware of the fact that I’m alone in a jungle at a bed and breakfast with no security.
At some point in the night, I feel my room shake and hear something creep up the stairs. Right now, I know exactly why characters in horror films go to check out a situation despite everyone in the audience willing them not to. I’d risk almost anything for some peace of mind. A second later I hear whimpering. Confused, I tip-toe towards the screen door and when I peek outside, see one of the dogs from the restaurant curled up on my doorstep. He remains my companion throughout the night.
I wake up before my alarm, in the pitch dark. Between the hurricane going on outside and the one happening inside of my head, I got about twenty minutes of sleep. I lay in bed until Sencha shatters the peaceful silence of first light and peel myself off of the mattress. I wash my face, slap on my hiking clothes, shove an entire mini Kind bar down my throat, and head out to the parking lot to meet my guide and the taxi driver that will drop us at the base of the volcano. When I arranged all of this with the guy who checked me into my room, he just looked at me and said, “Scooter?” He didn’t know it, but it was too soon for jokes like that. I’m dreaming of what I’d look like in a helmet and an embroidered leather jacket when I hop in the truck.
Much to my relief, they both speak some English, but we drive with little exchange between the three of us and I’m grateful for it. It’s early morning, the light is soft and the world is quiet. The sun rises slowly over the lake and casts scattered light all around us. Water crests and crashes onto an empty shore that’s been made smooth by the wind. Every leaf rustles on every tree and nothing is around to distract us from noticing it. The island is alive in its purest form with very few awake to witness it.
When my guide and I start up the trail, I ask him how long it usually takes to get up and back. The hike is famously difficult. Rumored to be at least nine hours long, you’re not allowed up without a guide and many claim it to be the hardest trail they’ve ever done. He tells me he had a couple who did the whole thing in just over four hours. Feeling cocky, I tell him that I think we can beat that.
We do not beat that.
Concepción is shaped like a perfect cone. By that, I mean that the entire route is uphill. By that, I mean if you’re not mimicking a Stairmaster, you’re on all fours trying to move forward without tumbling backward. The terrain changes drastically, going from packed dirt, to humid jungle, to exposed and windy, to deep, loose sand. Then you get to the very top, where there’s nothing but volcanic rock laying an unclear path that shoots straight up towards the sky through vapor and the stench of sulfur until you get to the crater, which, if you get too close, will kill you.
I slip and fall on the descent twice as often as I stop and relieve my burning legs on the way up. Five seconds of sleep and a few nuts glued together with dark chocolate has not made for an optimal performance and I’m starting to feel like my nine miles a day on the streets of Brooklyn are equal to approximately nine steps on the hardest hike in Nicaragua. I shed a few discreet tears in some particularly challenging moments, and, in others, I look back at my guide and wonder aloud if most people stumble this often. We make it back to the main road at around six hours and, as we sit and wait for our taxi, my guide looks at me and says, “You are strong, you are fast, you are in good shape.”
Walking back to my room, I notice a pig pen just around the bend from my cabin and when I step back onto my porch, I see cows grazing in a field a few yards in the distance. I rinse the thick layer of dirt off my body and swing in the hammock on my balcony, looking out at the volcano I just summited and listening to all the same sounds that kept me up all night.
Later, I order pizza from a restaurant in Santa Cruz that delivers straight to the hotel, a novelty in this country that I can’t pass up. But also, because I want to spend as much time alone in this cabin as I can. I message the WhatsApp number from the menu on my desk and all the responses come back in Spanish, which I translate on Google and respond to in English. We go back and forth like this until the deal is sealed. An hour later, the delivery man shows up with my pie and I pay him the equivalent of $8 USD. Remembering when my guide named the exact cabin I’m staying in and asked if I’m sleeping here alone, I yell, “Pizza’s here!” to no one as he walks down my stairs. I binge the whole thing so the jungle critters won’t come for my leftovers and pass out.
