Today I made my way to Masaya, and it was quite the journey. I took the bus this afternoon and had a little run in with the guy who collected the money. You see, just to be sure, I asked another passenger if they knew how much the bus cost to Masaya. He told me that it was ten Cordobas. When the guy from the bus came around, I handed him his money, but he demanded fourteen Cordobas. I double checked with the passenger again, and then told the money collector that I believed that the price was ten, and that's what I was going to pay.

So he said "fourteen," again. At this point, while not becoming angry, I did begin to become a little more bold. "What, is there a separate price for white people?" The man went about collecting money from the other passengers and then headed back up to the front of the bus. I couldn't help but smile, as I remembered a scene from a Mexican film I had recently seen in Monteverde. A Gringo tries to trick the main Mexican character out of money, and the Mexican in turn pulls his own trick. Driving off, the Mexican laughs, saying (this is a very loose translation) , "the Gringoes want to fuck us over, but we Mexicans are the biggest fuckers!"

Anyway, I got to Masaya and asked where the market was, because Masaya's main attraction is an artisan's market. Unfortunately, I didn't specify that I was looking for the artisan's market, so I ended up, with full pack, in a fairly poor area of town at a large open air market. I felt a little bit vulnerable, walking around with my big travelling pack, being the only white person within a square kilometer. Walking out of the market, someone threw a rock at me, hitting me in the leg.

But I took a taxi (for 30 cents!) to the artisan's market and found a cheap hotel (3 bucks a night) where I think I'll stay at least for a couple of days. Transit wears me out.