679a Nordic Roots; Dutch Towns; Bridge to Nicaragua

25:26So it's a very safe place to ride. It's a safe place to ride, but it's not a very safe place to walk if you're a tourist oblivious to the silent bikes that come whizzing by. Many times I've nearly walked right into a bike. And if a little chirpy little handlebar bell ringer can sound angry, I've heard those. This is true. When I started learning Dutch, usually if you learn a language, the first thing they teach you is, hello, good morning, that sort of thing. The first thing my Dutch textbook taught me was, keg out, je stout op fietspats, which is, look out, you're on the bike path. Whoever wrote that book said the number one thing we want people to learn is to get off the bike path.

25:56Say it again? Kijk uit, je staat op het Veedspad. I would think that's probably one of the key survival phrases. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking about the Netherlands with Relinka Blooming and Tim Tendik. When we're in Haarlem, it's amazing. I mean, it's a charming little town, but you step into the church and you have the mightiest pipe organ I've ever seen. Mozart played it. The whole wall is just a tower of pipes. And that's sort of the traditional culture that's going on. And you've got, of all the Dutch masters, Franz Hals is one of the greatest, and there's a museum dedicated to him.

26:29He's a hometown boy. Corrie ten Boom. If you're frustrated with Anne Frank's house because it's so darn crowded, you have the equivalent in Harlem in a certain way, Corrie ten Boom. And this is made famous from the book in the movie The Hiding Place. And this is a tour that the family there actually welcomes in 20 people at a time, four or five times a day, I think. And you actually hear the story of how they hid their neighbors from the Nazis. and I just found that was a powerful little extra visit while you're in Harlem. Tim, we've been talking about mighty cities and cute small towns. What's a village?

27:02There's a lot of villages, and I'm sure you've stumbled onto some. Is there one you'd like to share that would be worth knowing about? My favorite tiny town, it's one of these ones you see as you go through on the train, and it's these little houses, and you see a church steeple standing up, and you think, how do all these itty-bitty towns have these amazing steeples? But I went to Holst is one, right down by the border there with Belgium. And it's a really remarkable town. It's very small. It doesn't have too many things people would see. But even there, it manages to have a lot of medieval ruins and replicas.

27:31It has, namely, a big fortress in the middle with its moat still there from the 1500s. But they have the Basilica of St. Willebrod. St. who? St. Willebrod. There's too many R's in that name. I don't know how they put them in there. And this is Hulst, H-U-L-S-T, near the border of Belgium. It means holly from the shape of the fortress in there. Okay. But that basilica is really remarkable to me as just really an exemplar of Dutch tolerance in history because they, for a while after Napoleon, they basically kind of built a little wall inside there and made a simultan kerech, which is like a simultaneous church.

28:06So they actually shared it with Catholics and Protestants. They said, we both worship in the same place. Isn't that interesting? So they've had this, they've gone with the European tumult when it comes to, you know, Catholics and Protestants fighting each other, but they've sort of been accommodating. I know when you're in Amsterdam, you find a lot of hidden churches, and anybody would know there's a church there, but they just keep a low profile, and they let it be. As long as you behave yourself, we'll let you be there. And there's a lot of, you know, quote, victimless crimes that are accepted today, as long as people use discretion in the Netherlands.

28:39This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking with Rolinka Blooming and Tim Tendik about the Netherlands. Relinka, a lot of people just think flowers when they go to the Netherlands. I believe your last name, Blooming, means flowers. Yes. Did your ancestors sell flowers, or how would somebody be called Relinka flowers? I have no idea. Must have been. Maybe your dad started one of these Kuchenhoff markets or something. I'll ask Papa. Right. But there's two things high on people's list. The Allsmere Flower Auction near the airport at Schiphol, and Kuchenhoff, which every spring has a magnificent tulip festival.

29:12Can you describe the Allsmuir flower auction and then Kuchenhof? So the flower auction is in one of the largest industrial buildings in the world. It's just enormous. And there's a lot of activity, but you have to be very early in the morning. And then you can walk around there and enjoy the fast movement of the flowers and the plants that go into the auction hall. Because the whole idea, it's got to be fast because they've got to get the flowers to market today. and you see little train loads of flowers coming by that people are bidding on. Yeah, like millions of flowers go through it in the morning.

29:46But you know what? It's a bit, it's not anymore as it was before because the people that work at the flower auction, it's more and more they can bid through the internet as well. Oh, this is not what it used to be because it used to be a really high energy, amazing spectacle. They had this strange kind of bidding to me where they would go from the top price down instead of everybody upping each other. the price would come down and the first person to say yes would get it. Yeah, I think it's called the Dutch clock. The Dutch clock. Okay, so how about Kuchenhof? How's that doing? Kuchenhof is fantastic, but it's only eight weeks a year, of course, so it's only in the springtime.

30:21I think it's one of the largest spring flower gardens in Europe. Millions of flowers, beautiful patterns, beautiful colors, the smell, lovely to go. It's a giant orchard of, It's just like a wonderland. I'm not even that into flowers, and I've been to Kuchenhof several times. If I'm ever in the Netherlands in the spring during Kuchenhof, I make a point to go there. And it cost a reasonable fee to get in there, 10 euros or something like that. And then you've got free run of this vast park and so lovingly landscaped and filled with explosions of colors, along with plenty of Dutch clichés. You've got your little syrup waffles and your wooden shoes and your windmills that you can check out.

31:03And the main thing for me is just the magnificent flowers when they're in season. Absolutely, yeah. It's a highlight. Kuchenhoff. Rolinka Blooming, Tim Tendik, thanks so much for a better understanding of the amazing Netherlands. Thank you, Rick. My pleasure.

31:22Cake out, you start up with feet, Pat. Next, we hear how a trip to a humble town in Central America can change your life. Penny Reed's trip to Nicaragua was a way to immerse herself in learning Spanish, but it also showed her how practicing peace and creating goodness for the people around you can be a lot more rewarding than just trying to accumulate material wealth. Penny turned her notes from learning new words and concepts in Spanish into a memoir of the places and people that still tug at her heart from Nicaragua. She tells us about it next on Travel with Rick Steves. She's the kind of person who always identified with what you might call the underdogs.

32:05So Seattleite Penny Reed decided to try an immersion course in Spanish. It could help her better identify with the second language in the United States and what many students in her school system speak at home. So Penny took time off from work as a school psychologist to join a church group on what was billed as a transformational travel trip to Nicaragua. It included homestays and experiences in humble rural communities and small cities. Her group saw firsthand what people there really need to help alleviate one of the highest poverty rates in the Americas. It turned out ecological tourism may be a part of the equation.

32:43Penny writes about her experiences in Central America in her self-published book called Bridging Languages, Cultures, and My Life. Penny, thanks for joining us. It's wonderful to be here, Rick. Thank you. Man, paging through your book, It just reminds me what a powerful opportunity travel is. And it also reminds me how it can complicate your life. And it sounds like your visit to Nicaragua complicated your life. Definitely. And I would also say that it expanded it manyfold. You know, when I was contacted by your producer and asked to come in, I said, this story is not about me. I would be happy to come in, but I really want to have someone here from Nicaragua, as we will later on.

33:25And just the learning was expansive. What took me there initially, of course, was my connections at church, but also that I felt almost desperate to learn Spanish. I was working with children with families in the school district. About 30 percent of them heard Spanish spoken fluently in their home. I recognized that this was an opportunity for me to, as a middle-aged person, to be immersed in culture and Spanish again. Why Nicaragua as opposed to other South American options? Well, it was an invitation at church. Someone had given a gift to our church saying, I want this to go to the people of Nicaragua, following up on a feeding program that we had had prior.

34:08Okay, so that's the reason you went there instead of Guatemala or something like that. I found that every one of these countries has unique struggles, but fundamentally trying to get people dignity and trying to live in challenges that we can hardly imagine. Now, let's talk just a moment about traveling in Nicaragua. There's the capital city, Managua. There's the interior. And then there's the Pacific Coast and the Caribbean coast, right? Correct. Describe each of those just briefly. Well, I visited all four of those, spent most of the time in the mountains of Matagalpa. So that would be the central area that you describe, about two hours driving north of Managua.

34:44Managua is a huge city in itself. Lots of action, lots of activity, progressive, lots going on there. And then the West Coast, I've been to Lyon, which is where a huge university is. Lots of art, history, lots to learn there. And then the East Coast, so the Caribbean side, is Bluefields and Corn Islands. And that's got a black heritage, a slave heritage. A lot of African influence there. Yeah, and quite a strong, a rich culture there that's different than what you'd find in Managua. Can you imagine the variety of, you know, the diversity in that country is really spectacular. One of the things I love about visiting there.

35:26Now, in my experience in Latin America, you have the modern capital cities. And these days, to be honest, there's a lot of gang violence. There's a lot of desperation. I'm not that comfortable in Guatemala City or Managua, but I am comfortable in the colonial capitals. In Nicaragua, you'd go to Granada. In Guatemala, a lot of people go to Antigua. What's your take on Managua versus Granada? Oh, interesting. You are a historian, Rick. I recognize that. And I am a psychologist. Okay. And so I come at this not remembering or not necessarily having all of the details down about the history. Of course, I've heard it.

36:08I've learned it. And it does add to the wealth in my experience. But what I go for is the people and getting to know them. And, you know, I've been surprised in Nicaragua time after time that they welcome me. Even the history that they have with the United States, the Iran-Contra affair way back when, they basically opened their arms and were willing to forgive me as a representative of the United States in a second. Well, forgive, meaning looking at the negative impact we've had on them as we've favored and supported the corrupt governments and the giant corporations that turned them into a banana republic.

36:48Beautifully said. But I'm with you there, Penny, because I never knew mi casa su casa, what that meant, my house is your house, until I went to Nicaragua. I was so inspired by not just the friendliness, but the friendliness in the midst of such difficulties. You know, I would agree with that. And I would also say that they are striving entrepreneurs. And especially now, it's been so interesting to me not having been there since early 2018, seeing what Ernesto, my friend, has done in order to address lack of tourism, which was really a huge business for him and his company to change it up and to know what the people needed.

37:34Yeah. Now, I can hardly wait to talk to your friend Ernesto, but before we get to Ernesto, Penny, you were talking about meeting the people, and my most vivid experiences were in homestays. And when you've traveled there, you've taken advantage of homestays, not staying in a business hotel in Managua, but in somebody's home. Yeah, the first time that I went, we were there for 10 nights, and the first night I was assigned to share a house with a young woman who was traveling in our group. She was 13. And we went into the home and we were assigned to the only twin bed that was in the home. And I remember looking with Anna and saying, how are we going to do this?

38:14Yeah. And we decided, you know, that my head would be at this end and her head would be at this end and we would get a night's sleep. And I'll never forget that night of being awake most of the night and hearing most of the sounds. And hearing the animals. Yeah. And being grateful. I mean, this was in the city and there were still roosters waking me up. You had such vivid moments that came across in your journal, in your book, Bridging. And in this book, you talked about staying in Marlena's house and how you wanted to give some tangible gift. But you were instructed by the organization that had you there that giving tangible gifts complicates relationships.

38:49So instead of giving them some nice present, what would you give them? Well, I know it sounds like a cliche, but I think giving our hearts, giving our presence, giving our attention, genuinely is... That's the biggest gift you can give them. Yeah, that's the biggest gift. And I will say that I've gone back several times individually, and there is a place for tipping. And aside from the advice from Witness for Peace, when I have stayed with Marlena and her family for long stays, I will give them a tip at the end that seems not gargantuan to me, but it replaces her roof. It makes a difference. It makes a difference.

39:30This is something I've struggled with is stewardship. You know, you're spending, I'm spending a lot of money to go down there and just to learn from being in a world that's struggling that way. And I really struggled with that. How can I be a good steward and have all of this touristic, almost voyeurism, if you want to put it in a negative sense. And I really have come to the conclusion that the best thing I can do as a stewardship is not to feel guilty about spending a lot of money to fly somewhere where there's a lot of desperation, but to come home and have empathy for those people. And share your story.

40:03And share the story. Because some people don't have enough courage to do it or don't have the opportunity to do it. That's what you're doing with the book I'm holding right here, Bridging. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're exploring the potential of thoughtful tourism in Nicaragua right now. And Penny Reeds, a teacher from Seattle, who writes about her experience in Nicaragua in her book, Bridging, Languages, Culture, and My Life. Penny had a great experience with her first guide. in Nicaragua, and he's joining us on the phone now. He's the director of the Aguali Biological Station in Madagalpa, Ernesto Ocampo.

40:36Penny, can you welcome Ernesto and start this conversation? I'd love that. I met Ernesto on my first trip to Nicaragua over 10 years ago. He was one of our tour guides, and I consider him a terrific entrepreneur. He really knows what's needed on the ground. He has created activities and what people need at the station. Nice. Ernesto, thank you for joining us. And thank you for having us, and thank you for that beautiful introduction. You must be a wonderful tour guide, considering the impact you had on Penny here, and that was many years ago, and you've had a complicated political situation. Tell me, first of all, What is the situation for tourism now?

41:20Because you welcome tourists at your biological reserve. Yeah, I do work. I lead a biological reserve called Aguali, and I also work for Matagalpa Tours, which is the company that hosted Penny and her colleagues as well when they came to Nicaragua. And the situation in Nicaragua is we are having some people traveling again after three years of being very, very quiet. We don't really have that many travelers, but, yeah, we are having some. Tell us about your biological reserve. You're working, I understand there's an aviary and beehives and organic production. Yes. Aguali, I would say that is a social company that is under the umbrella of Matagalpa Tours.

42:10with the political crisis in Nicaragua, it was very complicated for the company to hold the jobs of around 22 people who used to work with us. So there were only three people left eight months later after the crisis. And we decided to create, to do more work, environmental work, and to ask people for help from different parts of the world in order to give opportunities, not only to the people who were working here, but also to give the opportunity to other people, to young adults and families, complete families, to be part of the conservation program and to forget about a little bit of the violence that was being lived in Nicaragua.

42:51So we do this. Everything that we do in our farm or in our biological station is basically to teach young children and young adults. For example, we do organic farming. We do organic honey production. and a little bit of research in the forest as well. But our main focus is education and conservation. Now, Ernesto, my richest travel experiences have been on what I call reality tours or educational tours in Central America. I wonder, is Madagalpa tours in normal times? Are you a kind of educational tourism or is it a sightseeing kind of a tour? Everything we do has to be educational. I mean, we like to connect people with people, people with the reality of Nicaragua, and people with nature as well.

43:39Because when we try to do conservation, we're not only talking about conservation of the environment, we are also part of the environment. And I think it is very important that people understand what is going on in the country, what is going on with the environment and with its people, that people can have a real takeaway when they come to Nicaragua. because beautiful pictures you can have everywhere, but a real life-changing experience is what we want to develop or to give to people. But at the same time, I will say that we have done that over 14 years, but now that we have the biological station, it's even more that we want to show people the reality of Nicaragua.

44:23So I think we are even more educational nowadays than we used to be three years ago. Wow. It sounds like you have a strong educational philosophy, and it also sounds like because of the political situation, very few people can actually come down and enjoy that like they could in normal times. Given the political reality now, what's the best way Americans can help Nicaragua, and what is a wrong way to help Nicaragua? Do you have any advice for us? It's a very interesting question, I would say. I think the best way to help Nicaraguan is by traveling to Nicaragua and seeing the reality of Nicaragua.

45:02But at the same time, to do a little bit of research if you want to support, for example, local initiatives that are making a change in young people or in children. and somehow Nicaragua right now is really really safe to travel I think by traveling to Nicaragua you're also supporting the local families for example the homestays hotels restaurants and that's a way of Nicaragua and getting back on their feet as well yeah because if you travel to Nicaragua right now and you go to like the a five-star resort you're not really making a change in people's lives. And also learning and connecting a little bit of what's going on in Nicaragua and not only what all the media is showing.

45:49The media can really give you the wrong impression, but if you travel, as Ernesto was saying, you can travel in a way that almost makes things worse by putting your money in the wrong place, or you can travel in a way that empowers local people and local businesses and hardworking entrepreneurial people that have a resilience. And one thing I really enjoyed reading Penny's book is these little vivid images of resilience of the Nicaraguan people. Yeah, and that is resilience is such a perfect word to describe what I witnessed over and over and over again. One of my favorite stories is we developed a fund to support microcredit, and someone borrowed$50 in order to buy a freezer, a woman who was the butcher for her town.

46:37And can you imagine? $50 to buy a freezer got her business on its feet, and then she made money and paid back the funds so that that money never goes away. And that's called micro-lending. Yeah. Ernesto, what's your experience with micro-lending? Because a lot of people in the developed world like the idea of mini-loans. It just takes a couple hundred bucks for a family to buy a couple of cows, and all of a sudden they've got a dairy business going, and then they pay back the loan, and it is recycled again and again and again. It sounds almost too good to be true. Do you like that concept of micro-lending between the developed world and the developing world?

47:15Thank you for the question. And I think the key of everything is educating the people how to use the money. And that's actually what we do at the biological station. We try to educate the people so they can use their own resources or if we give them a little bit of resources that they can get more resources out of that. It's like if you give a child$100, what will the child do? I mean, with no education. So it can happen with adults too. We're on the phone with Ernesto Ocampo at the Aguali Biological Station in Marigalpa, Nicaragua. It's where he's training young people from his community to become eco-tour guides.

47:56Our interview first aired in 2022 when Ernesto reported that tourism to Nicaragua was down 98%, scared off by political upheaval from a few years earlier and the pandemic's border closures. We hear it's been slowly recovering. Ernesto was the first guide to introduce Nicaragua to our guest, Penny Reed. She writes about her transformative adventures in her memoir called Bridging and with personal updates online at alwaysbridging.com. I want to remind our listeners that we'll have a link to Ernesto's biological station in the notes for this week's show. Ernesto, I could enjoy talking to you for such a long time, but we're out of time.

48:37But what I would like to hear from both you and from Penny to wrap things up, one beautiful word in Spanish that you hear again and again when you travel in Latin America is esperanza. Ernesto, what does esperanza mean to you when you think of the struggles of your countrymen and women? For me, the word esperanza or hope is not to give up because it's not only in Nicaragua, it's all over the world that you hear bad news every single day. And I think trying to give people opportunity, knowledge, techniques, skills for life is giving them hope as well and giving something to ourselves to work for, to create more opportunities for our people, our environment, and our children too.

49:26And Penny, what do you think of when you think of Esperanza in the context of Nicaragua? One of my favorite things about that word is that it comes from the verb esperar, which means to wait and to hope. It means both things. And I now am so encouraged hearing Ernesto say that I can travel there again because I have been hoping, I have been waiting for both of those things. In your book, Penny, you wrote that my Nicaraguan family's sacred and beautiful gifts of forgiveness acceptance and cooperation will forever compel me to choose the side of hope. Ernesto, my heart is so with Nicaragua and I'm just so happy to be able to talk with you and get that sense of hope that you share.

50:12So thank you for joining us and best wishes. Thank you, thank you. And Penny Reed, thank you for sharing your journal which so vividly and thoughtfully shares your experience in your book, Bridging Languages, Culture, and My Life. Thank you. Travel with Rick Steves is produced at Rick Steves Europe in Edmonds, Washington by Tim Tatton, Kaz Mera-Hall, and Donna Bardsley. Affiliate relations are by Sheila Gerzoff. Our website is managed by Andrew Wakeling. And our theme music was written and performed by Jerry Frank. Special thanks to our colleagues at Iowa Public Radio in Iowa City for helping out today.

50:47You can find links to our guests, listen to a podcast version of the show, and search the archives at ricksteves.com slash radio. We'll look for you again next week with another Travel with Rick Steves. Hey, I'm Rick Steves. Since 1973, I've spent about 100 days a year exploring Europe. My mission? To empower Americans to have European trips that are fun, affordable, and culturally broadening. With my 100 well-traveled colleagues, we produce America's best-selling guidebook series and organize small group tours to take over 30 ,000 travelers every year to Europe. If you're dreaming of a European adventure, whether on your own or with a tour.

51:27We'd love to help you make it happen.