This is not a blog post about Managua itself, really. I was only there for one night, which isn’t enough time to see the city even if you tried, and I wasn’t trying. Instead, this is a post about those in-between bits that occur when you’re travelling. The bits where you’re trying to get your bearings and sort your shit out, and sometimes, everything is just hard and confusing and things don’t work the way they’re meant to.

To start with, I was only in Managua because I was en route to a 60 day yoga teacher training course near San Rafael del Sur, and had to fly into Managua to get there. I don’t think it’s super dangerous, despite the civil unrest and travel warnings, I just didn’t have any inclination to travel around Nicaragua – it’s a bit too hot for me. I only flew in early so I could have some wiggle room in case my flight got delayed or canceled, or my bags got lost (both of which have happened to me on other occasions).

Part 1: The airport

I’d caught a 1am flight from San Francisco to Panama, then walked off the plane to the next gate, and directly on to the next flight from Panama to Managua. I’d flown Copa and had sat in the last row – on my second flight my seat wouldn’t even recline (at all), and the food on both flights was just reheated cheeseburgers. They hadn’t even given us headphones or blankets. So by the time I got off the flight, got through the incredibly slow customs line, and picked up my bags, I was both incredibly sleep deprived and ravenously hungry.

My last week in SF had been incredibly hectic – I’d had to sell, give away, or ship all of my belongings, move out of my apartment, pack for the trip, and deal with the long list of admin tasks that come with moving out of an apartment and permanently leaving a country. I had been sorting out things like getting enough meds to last for the entirety of my trip right until that evening.So, as a result, I hadn’t done a lot of research on Nicaragua – except for getting my vaccinations, which I’d done way back in March.

I usually carry some cash with me (AUD when I was living in Australia, USD since I’ve been living in the US) and then use my Citibank card to withdraw local currency from an ATM at the airport. And so, tired, and hungry, and hauling all of my bags, I went to the ATMs in Managua airport to get out some cordobas. But each of the ATMs just spat my cards back at me without letting me get any cash out. Shit. I had not planned for this eventuality. 

I felt the panic threaten to rise. I had forgotten to carry cash this time – which is such a rookie error. Always, always, always have a couple of stashes of emergency cash scattered through your bags. 

I tried to think about what I could do. Maybe my bank had put a hold on my card because using the airport ATM at Nicaragua had gotten flagged as a suspicious transaction? I could open the app and check – except that the wifi at the airport just wouldn’t work. I was getting some IP address error. I tried and tried with 0 luck. And then I stopped trying because my phone was on low battery and I had screenshotted the directions to my accommodation on it, and I was still going to need that. 

The thing that finally saved me was that I’d been told to have exact change for the driver who was going to pick me up from Managua and take me to the yoga teacher training course the next day. 35USD, which I’d put in my bag. A taxi from the airport to where I was staying cost $25. 

I’m not generally the kind of person to take taxis. I’d much rather get an Uber Pool, Lyft Line, or catch public transport. But Nicaragua did not have Uber or Lyft, and I’d searched for public transport directions when I was at the airport in SF, and couldn’t find any. Besides which, I had so many bags and so little energy. So I got in a taxi, and $25 later, I arrived at Casa Into.

Part 2: Casa Inti

Casa Into was gorgeous and not at all what I’d been expecting. 

The story, which I got from one of the women, Belinda, who worked there, was that the owner, named Inti, was the half-Belgian, half-Nicaraguan son of a diplomat. Said diplomat had been gifted (or was it granted? Purchased? I don’t remember exactly) the place in the 60s. The property is huge – there’s a big wrought metal gate on the street, and once it opens, you go up a long winding drive through the grounds to pull up under a rotunda at the front door of this sprawling bungalow.

It definitely looks like the house of a wealthy politician from the 60s. 

Inti’s father left at some point, and the house had stood empty for a while until Inti decided to turn it into a hostel. He added some more rooms to the already palatial home, and eventually built a few private apartments to the side. I was staying in one of the private rooms, with an ensuite. 

It felt like a home. I loved it. It was so charming. I could easily stay here for a long time, just for the actual place. There were so many good nooks to sit and read, or write. They had rocking chairs, and a corner full of bookshelves. There was a dog named Gordo who was super friendly, and a cat whose name I forget but who was so chilled and let me scratch his belly. There was a pool and a courtyard, and the staff were so lovely to talk to.

I showered and brushed my teeth – literally the best pick-me-up you can have after a flight – charged my phone, and headed out to get some food and sort out my cash situation. Brian, one of the guys who worked there, suggested I go to ‘Super Express’, a little mall with food and a supermarket. This sounded perfect. I could eat, grab some snacks, hopefully get some cash, and then come back to Casa Inti, and sleep for the rest of the day, unburdened by any worries. 

Part 3: The quest for food and cash

Brian told me to get a tuk tuk to the mall, which sounded like a great idea. I could be there and back within an hour, and I wouldn’t have to deal with the unrelenting Nicaraguan sun. I got in a tuk tuk, showed the driver an actual paper map with my destination circled in bright red pen, and he nodded, repeated the name back to me, and gestured to me to get in. He already had some passengers, a mother and her son – tuk tuks and taxis in Nicaragua, apart from the official airport ones, operate kind of like Uber pool, picking up and dropping off multiple people at a time.

I used my very limited Spanish to have a stilted conversation with the mother. After we drove a while she started gesturing and using her very limited English to tell me that the driver was going in the wrong direction for where I wanted to go, and that we’d get further and further away and then he’d charge me extra to take me back. 

I get that Uber and Lyft aren’t great for locals in places like this, but this is why I love ridesharing apps. You put in a destination and you don’t have to worry about your driver taking you somewhere else and trying to extort you. As a girl traveling alone, and one who doesn’t speak the local language, ridesharing apps are such a godsend.

I should have taken more time to think. I should have pulled my phone out and looked at the offline map I’d downloaded of Managua and strategically picked a good place to get off. Instead, I panicked a bit, and asked the driver to stop at the first shops I saw, which looked like they probably had food and an ATM. 

They did have food. One of the restaurants, a Latin fusion place, was exxy even by US standards with meals that cost around $27 US. Right next door was a cute little cafe called Las Marias which was a bit more reasonable. I had some spinach and feta ravioli with chicken and an Alfredo sauce that came to $13 all up. I don’t like being ridiculously hungry, but I’ve got to say, food never tastes as good as it does under those circumstances.

Now I just had to sort out money. I knew how to ask ‘where is the ATM’ – ‘donde esta el ATM?’ but I didn’t know enough Spanish to understand their response. They seemed to be saying – or at least gesturing ‘just around the corner’. So I went around the corner. No ATM. 

This time I did check Google Maps. I didn’t have wifi, but I’d downloaded the map and searched ‘ATMs’ using the wifi at Casa Inti. It looked like the nearest one was about a 30 minute walk away. 

I do not like walking long distances in hot weather, especially when there’s no shade. But I didn’t want to get in another tuk tuk and have it take me somewhere random again. So I started walking.

A little way on, I passed a convenience store which had ‘ATM’ in a sign in the window. Hallelujah! I was saved.

I popped in and looked for the ATM. None in sight. Maybe what they actually meant was that you could get cash out at point of sale? I grabbed some salted cashews and coconut water and went over to the counter. But there was no cash out option. Confused, I asked the women at the counter about the ATM sign, and they explained that it was generic – ATMs were one of the many features that their chain offered, but they didn’t have one at this specific store. 

Well that was a bit disappointing. I stepped outside and took a swig of my coconut water to cheer myself up. It only added to the disappointment – it just tasted like chemicals and sugar, not coconut-y at all. 

I’m very lucky to be able to travel to new countries and to take a break from working. I know I am. And I was very fortunate to be here. But there are moments when you’re travelling when you just wish that you could be back home, in bed. I promised myself that once I got back, I would have a long, lazy, luxurious nap. Then I trudged on. 

This was the diplomatic quarter of Managua, and it was all big gates, little mansions, security guards out front (sometimes with guns) and lots of cars driving around. I was the only person I saw walking, and for big swathes of road there wouldn’t even be sidewalks – I was just walking on the edge of the road and hoping the cars wouldn’t hit me. 

But just as I got to a giant main road and was worried about how I’d be able to walk here, I saw a beautiful sign. It was one of those mega petrol stations and it not only had an ATM sign, it had three accompanying signs for each of the banks whose ATMs it had. 

This one HAD to be real. You could have a generic ATM sign, but you wouldn’t put three different signs for 3 different banks unless you actually had those ATMs there. I went in and sure enough, there they stood, like the holy grail, off in the back corner: 3 beautiful ATMs.

The first one, like at the airport, kept spitting my cards out with some generic error message that it couldn’t complete the transaction. I had checked my accounts at the hostel – there was nothing wrong with them, I got no messages about my cards being locked, and I’d notified all my financial institutions about my travel.  

I tried the 2nd ATM. I tried a different PIN even though I was pretty sure I was using the right one. I tried all my cards, even the credit card. Same error message. 

This was not ideal. Being in a foreign country without any working cards is basically the same as not having money. It doesn’t count if you can’t actually access it. And while my credit card worked at the nice fancy stores, all of the transport and the markets and smaller stores here relied on only cash. And I needed cash to pay my driver the next day! Maybe I could PayPal someone and get them to take cash out for me, although that’s always such an annoying thing to have to do, and I didn’t know anyone here well enough to feel comfortable imposing on them like that. 

Just to cover all my bases, I put my card into the third ATM. And this time, like magic, after I put in my pin and selected $200, I was met with the sweet sound an ATM makes when it’s counting notes, and the satisfying sight of a stack of 20s getting deposited out. I’ve never been so happy to pay a $6 withdrawal fee in my life. 

Now I just had to walk back to Casa Inti. I debated getting a taxi or tuk tuk but I have a deep fear of getting stuck in a ride where they take me to the wrong place and I can’t correct them. I’m not kidding – this is an actual recurring nightmare I have. I absolutely loathe it. So I decided to walk back instead, even though it was going to take me most of an hour.

I got kissing sounds from a lot of the cars going by, which was rather disconcerting. I got a lot of things called out to me in Spanish too, but I didn’t know what they meant. I felt very conspicuous and way too visible. It’s not nice getting that much attention when you just want to go quietly home. 

But it did make it all the more rewarding when I finally turned a corner and found my way back at Casa Inti, with Gordo greeting me happily at the gate.

Part 4: Finally relaxing

It wasn’t very late, just about 5pm. But I was pooped. I replied to some messages, put an audiobook on, and got into bed. I fell asleep pretty soon into the book, and only got up the next morning at 10am. It was a wonderful wake up. I was in my private room, and there were so many flowers outside my window with the sun peeking gently in over all the greenery accompanied by a chorus of birdsong.

The staff will cook you breakfast for $3, plus an extra dollar if you want fresh juice. They had a few options, but I chose the boring continental one because it included a mountain of fresh fruit (including lots of deliciously ripe mango) and guava jam, and the fresh passionfruit juice – which is basically the nectar of the gods.

It doesn’t sound particularly riveting when you write about it, but there’s nothing quite like the feeling of sitting somewhere beautiful, with nowhere else to be, nothing else to do, and nobody else around, reading a good book and drinking something delicious. I whiled away my morning like this after I finished eating, and I felt so incredibly relaxed and content.

And that was basically the end of my very short Managuan experience. Just before noon I repacked my things and downloaded a plethora of audiobooks, Kindle books, music and podcasts. Then at midday, I got picked up for my yoga teacher training course – 60 days of having food cooked for me, and not having to deal with tuk tuk drivers. I’ll write about how that’s been going next.