A Mixed Bag of a Day

Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013--Leon

Last night I wrote the Hotel Monzonte I had chosen for my stay in Managua to ask for a reservation.  Their website had shown a rate of $50 for a single plus 17% in taxes.  I got a confirmation back today, but it was for about $100 more than it should have been.  I wrote them back questioning it.  I had not heard back by 13:00, so I started looking at other hotels.  I found a code for a further discount to $42 per night plus 17% tax for the original hotel.  I wrote them asking them to cancel my reservation and telling them that if they could give me the coded lower price, I would stay there.  In the meantime, I told them, I would look at other hotels.  Fortunately, they do not have my credit card information, so there is nothing they can do if I don't show up.  Also, I have the copy of the e-mail asking them to cancel the reservation.  I've found a couple of other places I am considering.  If I haven't heard back by tomorrow morning, I will make a reservation at one of them.  It's for 6 nights, so the hotel should be interested in having a room rented that long.

This morning, I walked about 1/2 mile (a little less than a km) westward to the suburb of Subtiava.  Actually, I guess that Leon is a suburb of Subtiava, since the latter existed first.  Leon was originally in another location on the side of the Lago de Managua.  For some reason unknown today, the original site was abandoned.  Many of the buildings were physically dismantled and moved to this new location which was near the already existing indigenous town of Subtiava.  Leon has grown out to it and it is impossible to know when leaving one and entering the other.  Anyway, I went there to see the Iglesia de San Juan Bautista de Subtiava which is the oldest intact church in the city.  Unfortunately, the church was not open, but I could see the outside.  It was located facing a nice plaza and had a huge old cobblestone plaza which was probably a market at one time to the side.  Along the main street, there was a nice market today filled with stalls of beautifully arranged fruits and vegetables which had been brought into town via horse drawn carts.

Back in town, I read in the plaza.  Then I wandered more.  I went to the old train station which was a disappointment.  The area has been taken over by a ramshackle street market, and the old station building is abandoned except for homeless people who live in parts of it.

In the area, I found two of the places where I had considered staying.  Both, La Posada de la Doctor and Posada Fuente Capitalia, were attractive colonial buildings with beautiful courtyards.  Their locations would not have been as nice and as convenient as where I am, however.

Returning toward the center of town, I passed a woman serving food on the street.  Although I really wasn't hungry, since I had eaten breakfast only 3 hours earlier, her food looked so good that I ordered a bowl.  She took a banana leaf and formed a bowl with it in one hand.  Using the other hand which was in a plastic glove, she first put a pile of cooked cubes of yucca and used her fingers to mash them into mush.  Then she added about 6 large chucks of pork cooked in a deep red sauce.  Over that, she piled pickled cabbage.  And, finally, she added pickled peppered onions as a form of chile.  All the juices soaked into the yucca and gave it a great taste.  I sat on a bench and ate it.  UMMM.  Total cost was about $1.75.

In the late afternoon, after having researched hotels in Managua and read newspapers online in my air-conditioned room during the hot part of the day, I went back out.  Just a block from my hotel is the Fundacion Ortiz which my guidebook says is the best art museum in the country.  For only 85 cents, I entered and was amazed.  In two large old colonial buildings was a fantastic collection of works.  Over half of them were wonderful contemporary pieces.  There were so many paintings that I would have loved to have had in my home.  And there were unbelievably fantastic ceramics from nearby Masaya where I visited two weeks ago, especially ones by Helio Gutierrez.

I returned to the Pan y Paz French Bakery and had a tuna sandwich and tamarindo juice.  Their food is just fantastic.  I'll probably return there tomorrow, too.

Returning toward my hotel, I ran into the couple from Prescott, AZ, who were originally from Portland, OR, and were on the boat when I first entered Nicaragua.  This is the second time that I have run into them; we also met in Granada unexpectedly.  We visited briefly.  We all agreed that Leon is much better than Granada and is the best place we have visited in Nicaragua.  They, too, have been eating every day at the French bakery here, but they have gone for breakfast or lunch while I have gone in the evening.  They are headed toward the mountains, so I made suggestions to them about places to stay there and things to eat.  We probably won't see each other again, but it has been run to bump into to them twice in two different cities since first meeting them 3 weeks ago..