Los Pueblos Blancos and a night in Managua

Last Thursday, J and I had a fun morning of exploring Los Pueblos Blancos, a collection of towns on the west rim of Laguna de Apoyo, each with their own shtick (and variety of tourist souvenir). My favorite was Diriomo, which had this incredibly colorful town square and amazingly full-of-character cathedral.

 

Diriomo is also apparently the "witch capitol of Nicaragua." My guidebook said to ask at the town hall if you wanted facetime with a local witch. We asked at a café, just to see what would happen, if there were any witches in town who spoke English. We were given a name (Andrea), a direction to walk in, and encouragement to keep asking other people along the way exactly where she lived. It didn't seem to be anything underground or secretive. But the first time we checked in with someone (a fruit vendor) to make sure we were going in the right direction, she got all hush-hush and started telling us (I think--this is all happening in Spanish, and my Spanish is barely functional) that Andrea isn't that good and she would take us to the best witch in town. We said that the most important thing is that we need a witch who speaks English. The fruit vendor promised that the best witch speaks English and aggressively hustled us into a little motorized rickshaw (which, of course, we were expected to pay for) for a ride just a few blocks away. She ushered us into a local house, where a stern, grumpy man/witch replied yes when I asked him if he speaks English, and then told me (in Spanish) that he charges US$20--an outrageous sum that is certainly at least 10 times what a Nicaraguan pays to talk to him. I tried asking him in English if he would accept $10 but it became clear that he spoke not one word of English, and J and I weren't really sure how this works anyway (is he like a fortune teller? Or does he cast spells? He seemed to be waiting for us to ask him questions, but we didn't know what to ask or how) so we apologized and said we can't understand Spanish and would have to leave. The fruit vendor was pissed that she wasn't getting her cut of a gringo witch visit and forced us into two other homes for similar experiences (though the next two witches were nicer, at least) before we had to cut off the proceedings since no one seemed to be grasping the issue of us not speaking enough Spanish to be able to benefit from a session with a non-English-speaking witch. When we finally extricated ourselves from the grasp of the fruit vendor, some other guy pedaled by on a bike and, in a whisper, offered to show us where Andrea (the original witch) was--but by that time we didn't really believe anyone when they said she or anyone else speaks English, and we didn't want to drop that much money just out of curiosity. Oh well. Rest assured, if you are ever in Diriomo, that it is quite easy to find a plethora of witches.

We also stopped for a walk in the sleepy town of Dorio, with it's view into Laguna de Apoyo, before moving on to the most visited town, Caterina, which had an even better view of the crater
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Then it was back to J's parents' house to pack up, as life in the lap of luxury was over, for real, this time. We rode with them back to Managua for their flight home and spent the night at the home of...well, it's hard to explain who she is! As even the most faithful of my 2.3 readers might not remember, I couchsurfed in Ottowa at the beginning of July with a Frenchwoman, C, who took me on a hike in Gatineau with her French Canadian friend, M. On that long-ago hike, I already knew that I was headed to Nicaragua in 2014, and M put me in touch with a fellow French Canadian, MC, who lives in Managua with her boyfriend and their two kids. So I've been e-mailing back and forth with MC for about six months, and I finally got to meet her and her crew!

I love crazy travel connections like that. Thanks again to you both, M and MC!