Our Trip to Xiloa, or Editing Notes for the Moon Handbook of Nicaragua

Rick and I went to Xiloa (roughly pronounced "hee-low-AH") this past Sunday for a day trip. Xiloa is a little Laguna just northwest of Managua. We read in our guide book not expect crowds or tourism since many of the restaurants and ventas were still closed and in disrepair from Hurricane Mitch (circa 1998).

The guidebook read, "There are frequent buses from Managua that will take you right to the water at Xiloa." Unable to find any such bus, or even a single person in the mercado who knew of such a bus, we setteled on riding a bus headed out of town, which, for 30 cents each, dropped us off at the mouth of the access road to Xiloa. The guidebook, our trusty bible, insisted that the walk from the mouth of the access road to the waterfront was no more than 30 mins. However, upon exiting our bus, we found a sign indicating that Xiloa was a good 7 kilometers away. If my arithmatic is right, we would have to be "walking" seven-minute miles in order to make it there in half an hour. Maybe if our legs were 7 feet long... So, about a kilometer into the walk, we decided that if we were going to get some swimming in before night fall, we'd better hitch a ride.
We thumbed our way into the back of a truck (sorry, mom, but the family inside looked very sweet, and not at all like crazy psycho killers. they eve had little boy with little toys in the truck bed, so he probably wasn't kidnapped.). We were at the beach in about 15 mins!

The beach at Xiloa is a grassy little area with little colorful pavillions you can have picnics under. You barely know that you're 20 mins outside Managua. The guidebook, which insisted that we would be, "alone except for marine biologists scuba diving for marine life," was, as we have now learned to expect, wrong. There were many people there: families, soldiers (no machine guns, dad), teenagers, etc. The bar on the shore was absolutely packed with people drinking and dancing. We went for a short swim, but had to be careful because we didn't want to leave our backpack unattended. The water was surprisingly warm--hot in places--even a good 20 meters out, where the bottom of the lake lay beyond fathomable depth.

The scenery of Xiloa is exquisite, and it seems that most of the lake is uninhabited. We managed to find a paddle boat (can you imagine!?) that we rented for 100 cords/1 hour (roughly 5 dollars). Our brilliant plan was to paddle around the whole lake exploring the distant shore. About 15 mins into our "paddle" we realized the utter inefficiency of our boat as a slight breeze would push us like a plastic bath toy in one way or another, and would take 3 times the energy to recover from. The laguna, we found out later, measures 2 kilometres across. Our hour tour turned into an intense aerobic workout into the center of an inactive volcanic crater, and back out. Which, considering the fried tacos/cheese/plantains we had for dinner, wasn't a such a bad idea.

After eating fritanga at a waterfront counter, we headed into the bar, which was easily the loudest establishment in a 7 km radius. Sipping a liter of beer, we watched Nicaraguans dance to a mixture of music: everything from pachata to mid-nineties pop. There was even a sort of drag act during which a man called "The Mexican Hurricane" dressed up in white satin sauntered through the bar lip-singing and climbing into the laps of lucky gents (including Rick).

It got to be about 5:00 and we decided we'd better head home before the sun set. At the gate of the park, we hitched a ride with another Nicaraguan family in a truck. They offered us seats in the cab, but we insisted on the truck bed. On our way out of the park, it became evident that the only reason we were offered any ride at all was because of our skin color, as every Nicaraguan thumbing a ride was nearly invisible to the line of middle-class families driving home. At the mouth of the access road we hopped out of the truck to catch a bus. the family that drove us asked if they could drop us off wherever we were going, since the "busses were dangerous." (Nicaraguans who live above the means of the urban bus system insist that the buses are sure traps for trouble. True, one is more likely to be robbed on a bus than in a private car, but the actual likelihood that it will happen is not high, and the thief is likely to make a quick, non-violent getaway. Mostly, honest, hardworking Managuans ride the buses to save money. Otherwise they would either need to own a car ($$$) or take taxies, which can cost 10-20 times what the bus costs.) Anyway, since our house is on the way back into town, and we didn't really know if or when another bus would be headed that way, we took their offer. Good thing too, as it began to rain on the way home. When they dropped us off at our street, the man in the front seat handed us a booklet about the Sandinista party. We thanked them for their generosity, and walked home wondering exactly whose truck we just rode home in, and what kind of political handy work they were responsible for.