There may not actually be an Irish bar in Leon, but the Emerald Isle was well represented on this, their own national fiesta.
I had a return of the Man-aaah!-guas, the Nicagonies, the Leon-my-back-all-day-cos-I’ve got-a-sore-belly…so had to pass on the Volcano Surfing on nearby ash-covered Cerro Negro. Judging by the number of people wandering around Leon with their arm in plaster, this may have been a blessing.
Anyway, so I hit the market for some respite from the punishing sun, eat some dubious substance wrapped in banana leaves, and went with a young guy trying to found tourists to help him pay for a pair of shoes for a tour of Leon.
We checked out the tunnels that link all the churches in Leon, a relic of the struggle in the 1970s for a socialist democracy, and various murals that depict that armed uprising against the dictatorship.
The evening, I met Peter, whom I had stopped calling “Holland” on account of him no longer baiting me about how many times his country had beaten Scotland in important football games…ooh we’ve gone all italics….interesting….I’m on a notebook by a lake on Isla Ometepe, three days in the future, and it’s not the most reliable of machines…. So, yes, where was I. Aye, so we met up in Bigfoot bar for some pizza and mojitos with a girl from his hostel, then made our way to a bar a few blocks from the centre for the big Paddy’s Day party. Oh what a night! A local band was belting out the Irish numbers (mostly Cranberries and U2), then a few Irish girls took to the stage with guitar and sweet harmonies for a few quieter tunes. We danced and generally made merry. For the first time I felt like an ex-pat, maybe because most people actually thought I was Irish. But then tonight everyone thought they were Irish, in particular a young lass from Connecticut who insisted, despite being born in the US, brought up in the US, and having parents from the US, that she was more irish than Paddy O Flannery, the Leprechaun from Tipperary.
