For most people’s first trip venturing into the wonderful world of travel, they traditionally stick with countries they’ve grown up seeing in movies or have heard of as popular travel destinations. France, Italy, Thailand, and Costa Rica are all samples of perfect destinations for first-time backpackers. I, on the other hand, and to the dismay of my mother, decided I didn’t want an easy destination. I wanted to jump right into the deep end of travel and find a destination that is not often talked about as a travel hotspot. And that’s where my story begins.
Finding Nicaragua
I was a month out of completing my high school career, and it was time I finally committed to a country and bought my plane ticket. Having only 2000 CAD to work with, I googled the cheapest countries to backpack, and that’s when I came across Nicaragua. It was perfect. An affordable country that I had never even heard of until it had shown up on my google search, with a history of civil unrest that had ended just long enough ago that added just enough of a layer further outside of my comfort zone. The objections of my family further heightening my anticipation. I bought my ticket that night, and a month later, I arrived in Managua with no further plans. I was going to figure it out as I went.
Arriving only a week after my 19th birthday, I jumped right into the middle of the third world country, with only my minimal world experience and absolutely no idea what to expect. As could be expected of a kid, who had just turned the legal drinking age in his own country and finding himself alone in a strange land, I found myself in more than a few scenarios that had left me questioning my safety.
In hindsight, It’s All Pretty Funny
The following stories are only samples of what I experienced on my first trip. While many of these stories are funny within themselves, the humour is further enhanced by the naivety that I had only come to realize years after my trip. I hope this post helps you form an idea of what to expect for your first trip while offering you a little encouragement in taking that first step. After all, if my naive 19-year-old self was able to do it, so can you.
1.The Time I Was Ill-Prepared To Land In Managua
While a big part of what I enjoy about the way I travel is the lack of a set plan, I regret not having one for this first trip because I did not plan to leave Managua. While I did have the foresight to know I didn’t want to stay in the capital city that has garnered a reputation for crime, I was not prepared for the way I would be hustled out of the airport upon arrival.
Arriving at two in the morning, I originally wanted to take my time at the airport and arrange transportation during daylight. I didn’t realize the airport was not open 24 hours a day and that I would be funnelled out of the building into a hoard of cab drivers. At the same time, I knew one of the big scams in Managua happens to be fake taxis that bring you down alleys where the fake driver’s accomplices will mug you.
Knowing this, I looked for the signs I was previously made aware of but not fully understanding what I was looking for. Realizing that my options were either to wander the streets of Managua or take my chances with the cab that I had deemed the closest to resembling the qualities I had read to be a real taxi, I chose the latter. However, not completely satisfied with my safety, I kept my hand constantly at my side, squeezing my pocket knife, opened to the sharpest blade for the entire hour-long drive to Leon.
In hindsight, these paranoias embarrasses me. Because, to be completely honest, that cab driver was a great guy. Upon looking back at my interaction with this stranger, he had attempted to calm my nerves, asking me my age and telling me how impressed he was with what I was doing while informing me that he had kids of his own while pointing out landmarks in the terrain of the country. Even upon arriving in Leon, where he could’ve just dropped me off, and I would have paid the same fee, he went above and beyond by finding me a hostel and helping me get checked in.
While a couple of my later stories will prove that you shouldn’t always trust people you meet travelling, it is important to approach strangers with an open mind, or else you may poorly misjudge a person’s character.
2. The Time I had Befriended The Wrong People in Leon
Alright, so writing this post, I am coming to realize that much of the narrative of my first trip involves my poor judge in character. However, before I get into how the first friend I made abroad turned into a small bar fight, I will deviate into another short story that I think teaches an important lesson of following your instincts for your safety.
The morning after the cab driver dropped me off at my hostel, I decided I would take a walk around Leon to experience my first city in a foreign country. I wandered down random streets until I suddenly found myself in the middle of a broken-down neighbourhood, with locals sitting on the front porches of the degraded homes. Having had watched a documentary on the poor neighbourhoods in Brazil, I eventually realized I had wandered my way into a favela.
At the same time as my realization, a group of locals from one of the homes began to call out to me in Spanish. While I did not know what they were saying, I immediately felt unsafe. I turned around to quickly walk back to the city centre, where I could find the comfort of other tourists. While I don’t know the intentions of these locals, and they could’ve easily have been as virtuous as I had expected they weren’t, I feel like it is important to emphasize that if you feel unsafe to trust that instinct, especially if you find yourself lost in a country where you don’t speak the language.
Now with that said, I will tell you the story of how I didn’t trust that instinct and found myself in a bar fight. It was actually after I had arrived back in the city centre, and I sat on a bench while I used the wifi. Another tourist, a surfer bro, slightly older than myself, from Costa Rica, came over and struck up a conversation. For the sake of the story, I’m going to call him Manny. While my first instincts of Manny were that he was rather sketchy, I tried to continue with an open mind. I had assumed my aversion had come from the stress of my earlier run-in.
However, having not met anyone else to hang out with at this point, I welcomed the company when he invited me to grab a drink at a nearby bar. From there, we had decided to do a little bar crawl and continued to hang out for the majority of the day. While there were several moments where I should’ve realized he wasn’t a great guy to be hanging out with, it wasn’t until he began urinating on the Basilica that is the proud centre of Leon, and then shortly after yelling obscenities at a polish girl that I had struck up a conversation with.
At this point, I decided to take my leave from this stranger, and the girl and I went to another bar to grab a drink. That was the last time I saw Manny until the following night when I had arrived back at the hostel after my day of volcano boarding. I decided to head back out to the bar where I sat with a couple of travellers whom I was getting on pretty well with when all of a sudden, I smelt burning flesh and a sharp burning coming from below my armpit.
It was Manny, unimpressed that I had ditched him the night before, and burning me with his cigarette. Now when I said this was a small bar fight, I’m going to emphasize small because Manny was only like 5’3, and after a couple of shoves back and forth, my new friends and I quickly threw him out of the bar. However, it’s the only bar fight I have ever been a part of, so I’m going to keep counting it as one.
3. The Time I Partied With ‘International Businessmen’ In Granada
This story is my favourite of the lot, as it really highlights my naivety at the time. This story has multiple layers, but it starts, as does many of these stories, with myself having a few beers at the hostel I was staying at. At the time, I was drinking with a Swiss guy staying in the same dorm as myself, and from here on out, we will dub him Pat.
After a quick pregame, Pat and I decided to head out to one of the many nearby bars lining the Main Street of the city. Along the way, a local man I had met called us over and was sitting with three middle-aged men. After quick introductions, they invited us to sit down and have a few drinks with them. They seemed to be the lively group on the street, so we graciously accepted, and my local friend, who we will call Eduard, began telling us all about these three strangers.
So apparently, these guys pass through every few months on a cross-country biking trip from south to north and will occasionally stop in to grab a drink with Eduard. Now in and of itself, this doesn’t really sound suspect, but together with the fact that the only title to their occupation I could gather was that they were ‘International Businessman,’ along with the suped-up bikes they had ‘rented,’ and the guns they were constantly packing in the back of their jeans, I later began to suspect that their ‘International Business,’ may not be as legal as I had originally thought.
However, at the time, I suspected nothing at all. In fact, I thought these were the coolest guys and even idolized how they were able to travel so much for work. Anyways, we continued to hang out with them all night, and after having a lot to drink, we decided to move on over to another bar. Along the way, the city experienced a brief power outage, during which the street was engulfed in absolute darkness. Similarly, my new friends and I were engulfed by a crowd of women draping themselves over our arms. Now, this is where I was clearly fresh out of a high school from suburbia because my dumb ass just thought these women really liked me. It wasn’t until I said as much to Pat that he informed me that these women were, in fact, prostitutes.
Luckily, in my daze from being engulfed by beautiful women, I at least had the foresight to hold onto my wallet. While this night really didn’t see any problems for my overall trip, I’ve included it on this list simply because it makes me laugh every time I think about how little I understood about the world, especially with the fact that some of the details I hadn’t put together until years later.
4. The Time Stray Dogs Chased Me Back To The Hostel
What I did not expect before arriving in the country was the number of stray dogs I would encounter on the streets, and even more surprising was how aggressive they could be. This specific run-in had come the night after my previous story, and this time, I was out drinking at a local bar with some Nicaraguan friends and some friends from other hostels that I had met during my time in Granada.
After a long night of drinking, it was time to head back for the night. After breaking off from my last walking companion to finish the final 200 metres or so alone, a pack of stray dogs began following me. While I would’ve been stressed about this in a normal situation, I was even more so in my inebriated state. It was further heightened when they began growling and barking at me while hunching their backs posed as if for a fight.
I quickly arrived back at my hostel only to find the front gate locked. I immediately started yelling at the front desk. “Hola! Hola! HOLA!” I was yelling while I heard my mother’s voice echoing in my head, “I told you you shouldn’t have gone!” As the dogs began to edge their way closer to my heels, I decided my best bet was to continue moving. After another couple of minutes of briskly keeping myself ahead of the hounds, I saw through the front gate of another hostel, a front desk staffed by an attendant.
I got him to let me in, only for him to inform me they had no beds for the night. After pointing out the dogs waiting for me outside, I talked the attendant into letting me sleep on one of the hammocks hanging behind him. That night ended up being my most expensive night of accommodation, as I had to pay the same price for the hammock as I had for the bed in the hostel I was initially meant to stay in.
However, this was a good experience for me as I have since had encounters with a few stray dogs. While most of them are gentle, there have been a few more aggressive ones in which I have managed to maintain a cooler head and fend them off.