Monday 29 November 2010

Masaya: Spiders & Torture

I've not been travelling long but already I´m worried about how long it's been since I've been in a hammock. I hear there is a huge market in Masaya, and I'm off on a mission to find the means to relaxation and to haggle my arse off.

Masaya is about 45 minutes from the capital Managua and its another 30 to the regions biggest tourist city, Granada. As a result it's often missed by those on the trail, but like many places, its for the reasons you don't expect that you enjoy a place. Masaya was to be a perfect example. 

I went to the market, which yes was huge, and yes was full of some nice stuff (as well as a load of tat as usual) but the market appeals more to the "I've-just-retired tourist market" as it's so close to the route most regular holiday makers make from the airport to Granada.  Everything is expensive and being such a successful market, few stall owners actually work there, they just employ locals, making negotiations a non-starter as the money ultimately comes out of their pay. Being less of the afore mentioned type of tourist and more of the thrifty variety, I've also got my social standing to think of. If fellow financially minded travellers heard I'd paid $20 for a hammock, I'd be well... laughed at... which is terrible.

Despite being hammockless, the next morning I made my way to the Fort Coyotepe on the edge of town, which turns into the best reason for a short visit to Masaya. Coyotepe, meaning hill of the Coyotes is a fort built over a 100 years ago and with a prison built beneath it, it's famous as the place the Samoza (conservative government for the majority of the century) regime used to accomodate political prisoners.

The views from the top are spectacular but its the tour from one of the local Scouts that reveals the history of the place. Descending one level into pitch blackness, we walk around the former prison cells and squalid conditions enemies of the state had to endure. Many people per cell, little light and a very basic toilet, the conditions are not great, but the thing that freaks me out completely is the thing with 8 legs, is about 4-5 inches across and is sitting on the wall opposite one cell. The two front legs look more like scorpion claws and my very nice guide Rene tells me it's a Scorpion Spider. I get a photo, incredibly thankful I have a great zoom feature on my camera, but the thing looks more like its from the film Alien than anything from this planet. Hands now folded and daring not to touch a thing, I'm told we're now going down a level further, where its even darker. I don't like spiders.

My fear is temporarily allayed as we go outside but my fear quickly returns to rabbit-in-the-headlights look when Rene tells me that when they clear out the levels in the morning, they sometimes clear out Coral Snakes and Boas. The Rabbit in the headlights wishes he'd bought more clean underwear.

The level below thankfully devoid of further creepy crawlies is however home to the torture cells, ranging from those with chains, to those that are pitch black, where the Sandinistas would be left there, some times for months to persuade them to share their secrets. If you were given a choice of which cell to stay in on this level, nothing seems like an easy option as you're either chained to the wall, in complete darkness, defecated on by the guards from above or all three. No one knows how many people died here under the Somoza regime and just walking around the echoes really give this an eerie feeling. The history of the place as if not already bleak enough is epitomised by one piece of graffiti from 1970 written on a wall on the lowest level, it simply says ME QUIERO MORIR, (I want to die).

As morbid as this is, Nicaragua is a country that has been torn apart for various reasons in the last 100 years, and most of the adults in Nicaragua have felt the effects of the civil wars and violence. Its a country defined upon where it has been trying to get to, for so many of the recent generations; a place of peace and prosperity especially for the poor. This makes it so important for the younger generations to preserve what happened, and in the case of Coyotepe, the local Scouts have taken over the place, cleared out most of the animals and are trying to create a museum so when future generations go to the polls they remember what the price of democracy is.

This post was supposed to be about Granada as well, but Granada was crap, so I couldn't be bothered. It'll be more of a rant than anything profound, but I'll save it for another time!

photos, including a scary photo of a spider are in the usual place.

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