Strange City

Sunday and Monday, Feb. 10-11, 2013--Managua

Note:  The Internet was out at the hotel last night and this morning, so I have combined the posts for yesterday and today

Sunday morning is always a quiet time, so I just stayed at my hotel and read most of the morning.  Then around 11:00, I headed for the neighborhood that has the new cathedral and one of the most popular shopping malls across the street from each other.

Getting there just reinforced how strange this city is and why it has the reputation for being a place where tourists should take taxis.  Maybe neighborhoods along the lake shore, except for the center destroyed in the earthquake, are side by side without gaps.  But the rest of the city seems to exists as pods of development with lots of empty space between.  Half the distance I walked to get to my destination consisted of open, undeveloped area.

The new cathedral was built in a suburban area rather than in the old center which was found to have many crisscrossing fault lines after being destroyed twice by earthquakes.  It was designed by the famous Mexican architect, Ricardo Legorreta Vilchis, who also designed the San Antonio Central Library and the addition to the Art Museum of South Texas extension in Corpus Christi.  The cathedral is a modern concrete structure.  It's most evident feature is lots of small domes which supposedly represent the various independent churches within the diocese and serve as a form to withstand earthquakes more easily.  Inside, the church is bright, because each dome has a square skylight.  But the walls are mostly gray concrete.  There are sections of walls that consist of bright orange open concrete blocks to allow breezes to flow through, and a central area has been painted bright yellow.  Because of its modernity and its openness to fresh air, it reminds me a bit of the new cathedral in Rio de Janeiro, but it is not nearly as attractive inside as the cathedral is in Rio which has beautiful stained glass windows.

Just across the street is the MetroCentro Mall.  It's similar to malls I have visited in Guatemala City and elsewhere in Central America.  It has two main department stores and a collection of other shops.  It's not very large, and what's available is not of high quality except for what one of the department stores offers.  It has a nice food court, however, and it has a nice cinema.  I was only there for about 30 minutes.  I bought some food items at the La Colonia supermarket, then I returned to the hotel for the rest of the day.

Today, Monday, my goal was to explore Barrio Martha Quezada, the district of town that is the popular place for tourists to stay.  My hotel is in an embassy district a few blocks to the south of it.  I walked up to there and up and down the streets.  It was VERY quiet.  Most tourists only stay a night or two in Managua and none were evident around 10:30 this morning.  And from the looks of the places where they tend to stay, I can understand why.  They are mostly inexpensive hostels and hotels.  Without any major tourist sites in town, why would anyone want to stay there more than a night or two?  I imagine that most tourists who were here last night are on their way to other places in the country today.

From there, I walked to my neighborhood La Colonia and bought supplies for my dinners and snacks for the next 3 nights.  I'm planning to just relax these next two days before my departure.  I may go walking some each morning, but there is only one other place I may explore before I depart for home.

I finished reading another book today--Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris.  It is a humorous book which was nice to enjoy for a change.  It was on the short list for the National Book Award, so it is well written with an interesting story line about people working in an office together during a period of layoffs.  I gave the book 3 stars out of 4.