Saturday, January 29, 2022

Hotel Chapito

Friday 29th January 1988

We were up early and walked down to the centre for breakfast in the Hotel Intercontinental. Already, at 07:30 hrs, there were queues of cars and vans at the petrol stations enroute. We walked through the vacant grassy lots abandoned since the earthquake in 1972 and the Civil War of 1978-79. Only a few damaged buildings stood amongst the long grass.

Apparently on the evening of December 22, 1972, the city of Managua, Nicaragua, was hit with an earthquake of magnitude 6.2. Because the city was hosting a major baseball tournament that had added additional festivities to the pre-Christmas season, little attention was paid to the first tremors.

Small tremors are commonplace in this Central American country. Two elements in the site of Managua add to the terror of earthquakes. First, the foundation of the city is not solid rock as one might suppose but rather fragments of volcanic material that together add up to a sort of rock cushion, easily disturbed and shaken by seismic vibrations.

The other problem is the type of material used in housing construction, a local resource consisting of rough wood frames with adobe and stone infilling and with clay roofs. This type of house collapses easily when an earthquake strikes, as happened here on a grand scale.

As midnight approached the tremors increased in both frequency and strength and homes were shaking with such violence that many people moved out of their homes.

Soon fires broke out all over the city, triggered by the earthquake, and a state of near panic developed. All lights had gone out and the smoke and fires made it difficult for anyone to know with any accuracy what was happening.

Next morning the details of the tragedy became clear: 5,000 people had lost their lives, 20,000 had been injured, and the whole city looked like a place that was at war.

In the city centre the main buildings are the tall Banco de America, the Post Office, a cinema, the old central palace, the ruined cathedral and the new pyramidal Hotel Intercontinental.

Founded in 1952 in Managua as Banco de América Central, BAC was the forerunner of what is now known as the BAC Credomatic Group (Spanish: Grupo BAC Credomatic). By the seventies, the bank ventured into the business of credit cards using the Credomatic brand. Housed in the Edificio Benjamín Zeledón which is 61 metres tall and 17 floors above ground and was constructed between 1968-1970.

The Old Cathedral of Managua, known as the Catedral de Santiago (St. James' Cathedral) in Spanish, was designed by Belgian architects. Its neoclassical design was said to have been inspired by the look of the church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, France. Construction began in 1928 and lasted until 1938. Belgian engineer Pablo Dambach oversaw the construction of the cathedral. The iron that was used to frame the core of the cathedral was shipped directly from Belgium.

The cathedral survived the 1931 Nicaragua earthquake, as only its iron core had been erected at the time. Four decades later, the cathedral was heavily damaged during the 1972 Nicaragua earthquake, and the building was subsequently condemned though it was not demolished. The Old Cathedral's tower clock was damaged during the Contra Civil War of the 1980’s.

There were mainly motor vehicles on the road but there were also still a few ox carts and horse-drawn trailers. We baulked at the price of the breakfast buffet at the Hotel Intercontinental, a whopping (by our standards) C$90,000 Córdoba’s plus tax, and we decided to skip breakfast altogether.

We went on a photographing spree around the The Plaza de la Revolución by the Lake Managua shore. It was formerly called Plaza de La República until July 20, 1979. It was built on what was originally called Plaza del Cacique Tipitapa, where it was said that there were ten thousand indigenous flecheros buried.

Lake Managua, also known as Lake Xolotlán (Lago Xolotlán), is a 1,042 km² (402 square miles) lake which is approximately 65 kilometres (40 miles) long and 25 kilometres (16 miles) wide. It’s name was coined by the Spanish conquerors, from Mangue (the Mánkeme tribes) and agua ("water"). The city of Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, lies on its southwestern shore.

On July 20, 1979, in the then Plaza de la República, the triumphal entry of the columns of FSLN guerrillas was carried out for the celebration of the Triumph of the Sandinista Popular Revolution after the flight of the dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle on the 17th of the same month and the fall of the puppet government of Francisco Urcuyo Maliaños.

We bought some great postcards in the lobby of the Hotel Intercontinental and went on to buy stamps for them in the Post Office. Declan tried to phone home again but discovered that today you had to pay in $US dollars so he skipped it.

We then went on a wild goose chase to find the Costa Rican Consulate, which we eventually tracked down by the Plaza España. We joined an ill-organised rabble to wait until our turn revealed that Declan required a visa which cost $20 US dollars. He paid up and was told to come back on Monday to pick up his passport.

We walked back, stopping at a juice bar for freshly squeezed orange juice. We also had the depressing experience of visiting a huge supermarket which had it’s few wares spread out to fill as much space as possible. There was plenty of sugar cane rum but very little wholesome food.

On the way back to the hotel Declan called into enquire as to the price of a room at the Hotel Lido. At $52 US dollars for a double room, it was well out of our league. We went out to eat fried chicken at “El Mango” comedor, the wind-tossed garden café hidden behind a breeze block wall down the road from our hotel.

A great many people seemed to be dressed in army green but not many of them are armed. We went back to write postcards at the Hotel Chapito and relax on our beds. We could afford this luxury as we were Córdoba millionaires! We idled the afternoon away dozing, eating melon and pineapple and reading our guidebooks and novels.

There was a colourful sunset and a lot of commotion as new arrivals met old friends. A lone guitarist (don’t you love the traveller who carries a guitar!) in the next room plucked a melancholy tune as we tried to orientate ourselves to the city of Managua using Kevin’s map (assume Kevin was a guest at the hotel).

For our evening meal we returned to the restaurant that we patronised last night. The meal was not quite so good, and we stayed off the rum, leaving early as three minstrels went from table to table serenading the diners.

We got back to the hotel at 20:00 hrs. to find a huge pack of newly arrived guests, including our old friend Paul Jacobs from Belgium, were going out on the town. We tried to get a drink in the Hotel Lido but the bar was closed and we ended up having an early night. I read my book until 22:00 hrs. before turning in.

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