Traveling with dogs has been easier than I originally thought.
However, there are certain downsides to keeping them with you as well.
For me one of the biggest worries, excluding all sailing related, has
been leaving the boat and traveling more like “the normal tourist”. As
long as we stay on the boat, having dogs has generally been more fun
than not. But after a few months of mostly solid sailing and very little
time exploring outside the immediate coastline, you start to get what I
would call “cabin fever.” It’s odd because living in the countryside in
Finland and literally not seeing anyone for long periods of time fits
that frame a lot better. But this feels more feverish somehow. You are
trapped in the boat. Leaving it means either being worried about the
boat or worried what to do with the dogs and the problem grows in scale
the longer you’re cruising. Unlike in Finland, you do see plenty of
people around, and you don’t really have a lack of things to do. To the
contrary, the boat seems to be a work camp. No matter how much you do,
there’s always more. Nevertheless the feeling of not being able to leave
or just purely being too lazy to leave because it’s hard makes you have
the sensation of cabin fever. You feel if you don’t get off you will
eventually go crazy. My first symptoms usually are restlessness and a
kind of unsatisfied feeling even after getting all the tasks done on my
list. It’s like something is missing and you don’t quite know what.
In Nicaragua we decided to attack that feeling and take a short trip
off the boat with the dogs, even if we had to camp outside the whole
time. There was a bus from Puesta del Sol to Chinandega which Cody and I
had ridden not too many days back. The bus gets totally packed and we
heard things like, “You have to tie the dogs on the roof” where all the
other animals like chickens and pigs went or, “You need to carry the
dogs on your shoulders”. I can see myself carrying Vanilla but carrying
poor Gin who weighs close to 70 pounds seemed more or less impossible
for a full hour and a half it takes to get to Chinandega. Hence we
arranged a taxi ride. And luckily in Nicaragua taxes are still very
cheap. Only 25 dollars for a 45 minute ride! Once in Chinandega we had
to find the car rental. It was a very small little vehicle but more than
adequate for us, the dogs and two backpacks. I’m sure I wouldn’t have
agreed to this solution had I been the driver but since I have endless
trust on Cody’s driving skills I didn’t even worry about this. The car
also gave us freedom of where to go and we were able to make better
time. Not to mention the first air conditioned space we’ve been in
months! Goodness, I wish air conditioning wasn’t so expensive or such an
energy hog.
We hit the road around noon and survived the craziest driving of our
whole trip. Chinandega is busy and there are tuktuks and bikers and
horses and carts everywhere, not to mention people crossing the roads
where ever they feel like or taxi drivers that obviously are exempt of
all regulations. The dogs were watching all this as intently as me and
Cody. They obviously wanted to see what was to become of us. By the
evening, after driving about 5 hours, we reached our first destination;
Granada. All four of us were pretty exhausted after some of the
trickiest driving we had ever done. It wasn’t really unsafe, you don’t
even drive more than 60km/h on most roads, but you had to be so aware of
your surroundings at all times, dodging slower traffic and other cars
passing and animals crossing the roads. It was fascinating to watch
though!
In Granada my greatest fear about traveling with dogs became reality.
We went from one hotel to another and were unable to find a place that
would allow pets. We even suggested leaving them in the car but that was
not good enough. Not that I would’ve been happy to do that, I really
wasn’t, but it seemed like our last option since camping was pretty much
impossible in this city. Finally we got lucky though, and got a room in
the cutest little hotel, but even after paying 15 extra dollars for the
dogs the guy leading us to our room said he’s going to loose his job if
our dogs bark at night! Well luckily they didn’t make a sound that
night. Good job! That evening before crashing we went out to town and
got the best meal so far on this trip. The restaurant had fabulous food
and wine! Doggies were tied next to our table and watched the street
that had one live performance after another. Obviously we had come to a
tourist town.
The next day we encountered another problem with our pups. We took
them to the central park which was next to a beautiful old church and of
course they desired to do their business there. We picked it up like
any good citizen and got yelled at by a lady and finally a cop who said
we can’t put dog poop in the garbage can or even let our dogs poop. Very
interesting, since I was watching a stray do it’s business right next
to our dogs. But at least we got a good laugh out of it. Of all the
places we’ve traveled outside the U.S this was the most difficult place
to deal with dogs so far. I still have to recommend Granada as a
cultural destination!
The next day we headed out and drove to San Jorge to catch a ferry to
Ometepe Island. It is a volcanic island with two huge volcanoes located
in the middle of lake Nicaragua which is the biggest lake in all of
Central America. We had to wait 5 hours for our ferry ride so we ended
up taking the dogs down to the beach and got more than a few locals
interested in our dog training. I suppose not many Nicaraguans are
familiar with the obedience training of us Westerners since Vanilla’s
heeling made even the icecream man stop an applaude.
I’ve noticed that
the relationship with dogs here in Nicaragua is very different from our
Western ways. Here everyone has dogs, they are all running free but they
are not necessarily pets, they are guard dogs. Their place is outside
in the front and I haven’t seen as much as a little pat from the owners
to their dogs. And the rule of thumb? Don’t go close to even your
neighbors dogs, since they might bite. I highly doubt that most of them
would since all the ones we’ve encountered for one reason or another
have been really friendly. Nevertheless the Nicaraguans here have
endless respect for dogs and will keep their distance.
On the Island we were lucky. We found a perfect little Eco-lodge
who’s owner Carlos really liked dogs. We were there for three nights at
an incredibly fair of 8 dollars a night! And I guarantee that you
couldn’t find a nicer spot with better view! The family restaurant there
had wonderful breakfast and dinner. The place was called El Encanto.
The next day we tagged along on a hike to the top of volcano Maderas. We
had a guide and our group consisted of our little family and a family
from Quebec, Canada. It didn’t take long to leave behind half of the
group but the rest of us worked our way up the muddy and slippery trails
on the steep volcano. Once in the cloud forest everyone got wet and
through the mud we saw little rivers of water flowing down. The dogs
were in heaven! After Vanilla had twice pulled me into the mud I took
her leash off and she was set. She ran up and down the slopes of our 8
km trail. She also swam in the caldera lake on top of Maderas and played
with a stick all the way down. While my legs were trembling and my
whole body was aching after 16 km and 10 hours of hiking up and down
around 1500 meters she still looked energetic. Beats me.
We spent a couple more days on the Island exploring it and were
finally ready to get back to the boat. The trip out to see the country
had been worth it. It was refreshing and interesting but at the same
time my appreciation for the boat grew larger. Driving cars, trying to
be on time everywhere, the ferry, the car rental, the store, or simply
not being able to get out of the tourist zone as easily, created a
certain kind of stress that is not present when you go around on the
boat, where you are your own master. It’s a good feeling. And it makes
traveling with dogs a pleasure instead of a drag even though I am quite
proud of our achievement this past week. Whoever said traveling with
dogs is impossible probably didn’t know what they were talking about.
Most of the time it just requires a little more patience and creativity!
