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September 21, 2005
Huelga
Entering the hotel after breakfast, it looked like all hell was breaking loose in the city on the TV people were watching in the courtyard. People were getting arrested by the cops, cameras followed bloodied individuals who had been hurt in skirmishes between the police and bus operators, and there were reports that the strikers were blocking traffic and lighting tires on fire across the city.
The reason for all this mess is that while all buses in the country used for transportation are privatized, by law if you want to operate a bus you must belong to the union. In exchange for granting the union monopoly operating privileges, the government sets price controls on how much they can charge. With the price of gasoline soaring in Nicaragua, as in the rest of the world, the bus operators say they need to be able to charge more in order to recover their costs. Well, politicians don’t want to raise the price cap because then they are going to get an earful (at the minimum) from their constituents. So that was the basis of the strike that had now turned violent
A guy from Nicaragua in the hotel explained that like many things in the country the people suffer on both ends. The politicians say they are going to control how much the buses can charge, but then gas goes up and they have problems like this. Another example he gave me was that politicians attempting to control the price of electricity for the masses passed laws that only let prices go up for businesses (i.e. consumers who used over a certain amount of electricity a month). But as this meant even greater price increases for businesses than what otherwise would have been, the businesses pass the cost onto the consumer in the form of higher prices. Again, life is harder for ordinary Nicaraguans.
Although we were packed and ready to go on our tour, the guide never showed up, which we decided was probably for the better. In the hotel a guest from Honduras and one of his friends/coworkers from Nicaragua I had talked to earlier gave us a lift across town so we could get on a bus out of town to Granada. They even walked us to the bus to make sure we got on the right one. On the way it was interesting getting their perspectives on Central America.
An hour later we were in Granada. It is similar to Antigua in appearances and both duke it out for the title of “oldest city in the Americas”, but Em and I agree we both like this place better. There is more of a sleepy, local vibe here, where in Antigua we felt like we were in big tourist bubble. The hotel is great. Over lunch a young kid selling things table to table got lightly hit by a car that was backing up. Surprised and angry, he yelled at the driver but was mainly ignored as the guy sped off. He broke into tears but luckily the lady from the restaurant brought him inside and gave him some food and a coke to try to help him feel better.
Tonight we ate tacos and talked to a group of 17 year olds we met in the plaza about life here in Nicaragua. Tomorrow we plan on just relaxing and trying to finalize our airline tickets to Caracas.
Posted by Peter Mork at September 21, 2005 12:31 AM
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