Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Isla de Ometepe
Monday night, we saw turtles. Hundreds and hundreds of turtles laying eggs on the beach. Levi, the animal lover, petted the mama turtles' fins as they pushed out their eggs.
'Can you hear her?' he asked, crouching down next to one. 'She's breathing so hard.' I wasn't so much intent on the heavy breathing as I was on the smell. The whole beach smelled like sour armpit. But the experience was a touching one, and I was reminded of Pon-Pon, my family's turtle. My mom once remarked that she wouldn't be happy if you put her in a swamp in Malaysia, Pon-Pon's natural habitat, so it was reassuring to see these turtles free. As we left, Levi said, 'Don't you wish you could just pick them up and take them back to the ocean? They seem so exhausted.'
We arrived on the Isla de Ometepe yesterday. After an hour cab ride, an hour boat ride and a three hour bumpy bus ride, we arrived at Gen. Somoza's old ranch. Somoza is Nicaragua's most notorious dictator, and the land was taken away by the Sandanistas in the early 1990s. Recently, the land has been given back to the Somoza family, which runs it as a sort of backpacker's resort. They have captured five monkeys and placed them on a nearby island and call it a 'monkey refuge.' That way, they can rent out kayaks to unsuspecting gringos. Tomorrow, we'll head out to monkey island with the rest of the gringos.
It's a beautiful island, and it appealed to me because I had heard that nobody starves here. You can fish in Lago de Nicaragua and pick rice and fresh tropical fruit. After seeing so many children whose heads don't fit their bodies, I was looking forward to seeing well-fed babies. Sadly, that's not the case. On the bus ride to the end of the island, we saw a woman and son who took our breaths away. The mother's arms stuck out like twigs, and her breasts looked like mosquito bites under her shirt. Her face had sunken into her chin, but she smiled as big as she could to the driver and other passengers on her way out. Her son's head bobbed on his tiny body, and hair had fallen out of his head in clumps. 'They're starving,' Levi said.
'Can you hear her?' he asked, crouching down next to one. 'She's breathing so hard.' I wasn't so much intent on the heavy breathing as I was on the smell. The whole beach smelled like sour armpit. But the experience was a touching one, and I was reminded of Pon-Pon, my family's turtle. My mom once remarked that she wouldn't be happy if you put her in a swamp in Malaysia, Pon-Pon's natural habitat, so it was reassuring to see these turtles free. As we left, Levi said, 'Don't you wish you could just pick them up and take them back to the ocean? They seem so exhausted.'
We arrived on the Isla de Ometepe yesterday. After an hour cab ride, an hour boat ride and a three hour bumpy bus ride, we arrived at Gen. Somoza's old ranch. Somoza is Nicaragua's most notorious dictator, and the land was taken away by the Sandanistas in the early 1990s. Recently, the land has been given back to the Somoza family, which runs it as a sort of backpacker's resort. They have captured five monkeys and placed them on a nearby island and call it a 'monkey refuge.' That way, they can rent out kayaks to unsuspecting gringos. Tomorrow, we'll head out to monkey island with the rest of the gringos.
It's a beautiful island, and it appealed to me because I had heard that nobody starves here. You can fish in Lago de Nicaragua and pick rice and fresh tropical fruit. After seeing so many children whose heads don't fit their bodies, I was looking forward to seeing well-fed babies. Sadly, that's not the case. On the bus ride to the end of the island, we saw a woman and son who took our breaths away. The mother's arms stuck out like twigs, and her breasts looked like mosquito bites under her shirt. Her face had sunken into her chin, but she smiled as big as she could to the driver and other passengers on her way out. Her son's head bobbed on his tiny body, and hair had fallen out of his head in clumps. 'They're starving,' Levi said.
