Day 31: San Jose, Costa Rica

Finally out of Nicaragua, and life feels much better now. It was a long bus ride. They showed crappy latino music videos, a scratched up copy of Les Miserables that kept freezing and got cut short at the climax of the movie, and of course, the movie I am cursed to see everytime I travel, 13 going on 30 starring Jennifer Garner, which I´m pretty sure I have now seem at least 4 or 5 times on various airplanes and buses in the last year. I have a lot of it memorized and it makes want to shoot myself.

I sat next to a peace corps volunteer from Chicago who teaches business microentrepreneurship to teenagers here, and met another peace corps guy from good old St. Paul, Minnesota (Como, to be exact--but he went to highland high school) who I only chatted with briefly. Also befriended a Japanese guy who is studying the political situation in Latin America. We got a room with him at the Pangea Hostel. Seems like a nice enough place. Free internet is always a good thing.

I hear that other parts of Nicaragua are much nicer than Managua, but since I got sick we never really got to see them. I hate Managua though, and I hope I never have to go back. The people tend to not be friendly, seem to try to take advantage of you at every chance, I got robbed at gun point (which is kind of a biggie for me), and I spent 2 full days just going back and forth between my bed and the bathroom. When I bought a new camera to replace my old one, I had to pay waaaaaayyy more for the exact same model (but I really like that model so I stupìdly felt the need to shell out).

The rest of time we basically spent at this stupid conference in the Intercontinental Hotel. The conference was about poitical finance reform in Nicaragua and it was organized by a collection of self-proclaimed "non-profit, non-governmental" groups. Of course it didn´t take long to find out that every single one of these groups was funded by both the U.S. Government and either the Republican party or the Democratic Party.

How do they get away with stuff like that? It boggles the mind.

We met yet another well known local TV news personality who was very nice. He helped us get an interview with a Sandinista Parliamentarian. Our journalist friend told us that the average professional journalist in Nicaragua earns $150 a month. He said he spends $75 a month on his internet bill. You do the math.

Apparently the underemployed and unemployed rate there is over 60%, as is the functional illiteracy rate. truly tragic numbers. Makes me question my judgements of the people of Managua--but I still don´t ever want to go back there.

We will spend tomorrow here in San Jose, and then the next day march on to Panama City. Someone please go to Davanní's and eat some cheese bread for me, I´ve been craving that stuff for days now.