Chicken Bus

Have you ever wondered what happens to those big yellow school buses once they’re replaced with newer models? I didn’t think so. Neither have I.

Once retired, school buses are (apparently) sent down to Central America, where they live out the rest of their days as local public transportation. After being given a flashy new paint job and covered in various Spanish versions of ‘I heart Jesus’. Obviously.

The old Bluebird buses, nicknamed chicken buses for the sheer multitude and variety of things that fill aisles and overhead racks (I hear that crates of chickens are common, but have only seen chickens transported in squirming, noisy bags), often still have the rules to keep school children in line posted up front. It is a bit strange to look around at the familiar interior of a school bus, such a time lurch, and have it be so out of place in another country. And so full of its citizens.

And I mean full. Seats originally designed to hold two children are packed with three grown adults, and typically a child or two, while others stand in the aisle. Personal space is not a concept that seems to exist here. Children sprawl into your lap, babies drool on your arm, grown men fall asleep on your shoulder, all while the bus careens through mountain passes.

We have come to love the chicken bus. Not only does it cost far less than taking the nicer tourist buses, it also…okay, that might be its main draw. Yep, we love the price.

In fact, we love it so much, we took a chicken bus from Nicaragua to Guatemala.  Three borders, four countries, and seventeen hours. But to be fair, it was supposed to be over 25 hours; they drive their buses a bit differently down here. Even with only two people per seat, that is still a long time on a school bus. Especially when you’re in the back and cargo -- including a wheelchair, a walker, and a bedframe -- fills the aisle to the ceiling.

Despite the lack of comfort and space, there always seems to be a general sense of accommodation, courtesy, and good humor. Even as the only gringos (we have yet to see any other foreigners on a chicken bus), we receive helping hands and big toothy grins all the way to our destination. No matter how many buses it takes us to get there. 

Island for Sale

Just outside of Granada, on the northwest side of Lago Cocibolca, lie hundreds of fun-sized islands. Las Isletas, over 350 of them, are the result of a massive explosion over 10,000 years ago, which gave nearby Volcán Mombocho its rather haggard silhouette.

Touring the isletas the cheap and dirty way, we paid less than half the price of what the tour companies were asking. What we got was a ride in a motorboat from a teenage kid who just pointed out the obvious. And it was a lovely way to pass an hour.

Massive tropical trees sprouted from the diminutive islands, dipping their branches out over the lake. Birds dipped and dived, skimming the surface of the water. Awkward, gangly herons stalked about, trying to look elegant in white. Water lilies stretched their open faces toward the midday sun. Monkeys vaulted through tree branches.

Once one of Nicaragua’s poorest neighborhoods, the millionaires have started to move in, mansions popping up here and there to supplant the patched together houses with weatherworn paint. Hammocks and laundry hung about in the sun, as a number of the islands are inhabited.

And everywhere, islands presented themselves as a real estate option, just waiting for their new resident to boat by and fall in love. Maybe one of these days (years) we’ll have the disposable income to just choose an island, throw up a hammock and some Swiss Family Robinson–style dwelling, and spend our days, drink in hand, on our own private island. One of these days. 

Volcanically Blessed

Nicaragua’s Isla de Ometepe is a slight to behold. The island juts majestically from the hazy blue of Lago de Nicaragua, or Colcibolca (‘the sweet sea’) in the indigenous language of the area, Central America’s biggest lake. Its twin volcano peaks rise from the water, a figure-eight-shaped island cinched in the middle by an isthmus formed from an ancient lava floe. 

Of the two volcanoes that make up this incredible island, Maderas lies dormant, while Concepción is active, and has frequent mood swings, its constant billowing smoke a reminder that, yes, you did build your town below a volcano.

But, neither the island nor its inhabitants have been blasted skyward or covered in blisteringly red molten lava. During its last big eruption in 1957, the president sent boats to evacuate the island, but no one chose to leave. And, surprisingly enough, even when sending towers of flame 15 meters into the sky, Volcán Concepción has been kind enough not to kill any of the natives (at least not in this century). Since then, periodic showers of hot ash and spews of molten rock have occurred every decade or so; the native population just sits back and watches the show.

The risk seems to be worth it to the locals. Beautiful land, sparkling lagoons, rolling fields, and a brick ‘paved’ road lie beneath the roiling clouds that surround the peak of Central America’s most symmetrical volcano. Horses, cows, and the required stray dogs mill aimlessly about. And, though the tourists roll in on a regular basis, the beauty of the land and the stronghold of local communities haven’t been eroded just yet.

Mother Nature and the gods of tourism seem to be smiling upon Ometepe. And it doesn’t hurt that their volcano seems to be friendly.