Nature reserve, firewood, birds, and some hard-drinking locals

Tourism is one way for communities to earn money which offer respite from the hectic life of white collar workers. However, depending on money spent as luxury – one´s dream vacation – seems to be an insecure way to develop an economy. In addition, the tourists hoarding their few days of fun in another country, can sometimes be a bit like spoiled children, wihtout flexibility when things are not as they desire.

Tourism in a place like Nicaragua also seems to accentuate the gulf between economies. To me, the same brightly coloured houses and dusty streets with elderly women selling home-fried food – the same elements that make characteristic photos – illuminate how very far the life of the average Nicaraguan is from the average life in the global North. We from the North do not understand what life is really like elsewhere, until we see it or perhaps live for a while like that, but in fact to visit a difficult life is very different from having few exits from the difficult life one is born into. And the exits are not romantic – working as a household cleaner in another city or country, far from family, may bring money but in many ways is not an easier life than the one being poorer but within one´s social bonds and able to raise  one´s own children.

It is also interesting to participate in tourism when one is on such a trip as this. I am at a place which is  a hostel, a Spanish school, and also a number of other small money-earners. It is located in a nature reserve around a lake in a volcano caldera. The nature reserve has not stopped some hotels from being built, although apparently a proposed hotel with golf course and playing fields was stopped recently. (One supposes the volcano-caldera golf course would be a sought after experience among golfers, a bit like golfing on a sandbar island or golfing on a bog in Ireland….)

Knowing I was going to the nature reserve, I expected to hear birds and insects at dusk. I didn´t entirely expect very loud techno music swamping the sounds all around the bars at the lakeside. I also didn’t expect to hear stories of weekly drownings among tipsy people who forget they don´t know how to swim. Perhaps there is a pre-hispanic god in the lake demanding sacrifices – or, more likely, the lake is deep, warm, and attractive, even for the many non-swimmers around. We spotted a group of small, dusty, children walking the road from the beach, two of which carried a bright, white sneaker bigger than his entire chest, possibly lifted from some swimmer´s pile of clothes on the beach. Other important problems are the litter, the clearance of forest for land speculation, overcutting of species such as Dalbergia retusa,  and the threat of invasive species. And firewood – for daily cooking.

The lake is rain- and aquifer-fed, so there is no refreshment of the lake water. In fact, the water level is gradually receding, and local bioloigsts say houses stand now where lakes water lapped two decades ago. I am told houses are required to have septic tanks but only for sewage; grey water from outdoor sinks where clothes are washed, can go straight into the lake. The lake water is not clear but rather a cloudy green, although visibility is still better than in many European lakes (about 2 meters).

Despite the lack in overland inflow, there are fish in the lake, including native fish whose ancestors may have arrived through a storm event. Humans have also brought non-native fish, which are outcompeting the natives for food. The battle is on against the invasives, both aquatic and terrestrial, but experience all over the world indicates that non-natives can permanently alter ecosystems and so locally specific animals and plants may be lost. What can be done? Tourism seems both part of the answer to attract money, and part of the problem. I plan to write about this over the coming days.

(P.S. I am sorry I can´t upload photos to illustrate what I am seeing, but I promise many at a later date!)