Drug trafficking and volcanic eruption evacuation simulation

It seems like there is always something going on around here, but we never know about it until we stumble upon the event.  There are trucks driving around announcing upcoming events, but if you don't hear it, you don't know and there are no other local news sources.  At any rate, Raul and I decided to walk down to the lake this morning before it got too hot.  Once we got to the promenade/main road leading to the lake, we saw military men with big guns, and noticed the road was blocked off.  They didn't stop us so we kept going and saw lots more people and military in front of the lake, including the Red Cross.  We asked someone what was going on and they told us they were doing a simulation of two things:  an evacuation of Ometepe Island in the case of a volcanic eruption (we recently visited Ometepe and I'll write about it soon.  They have two volcanos but only one is active I believe); and an apprehension of drug-traffickers by the equivalent of the Navy or Coast Guard.  It sounded and looked interesting, so we found a shaded spot in front of the lake and settled in to see what happened.  Very unfortunately we did not have a camera so don't have any photos of the simulation.  However, I do have a photo of the sign for the volcano eruption evacuation route on Ometepe--I'd never seen such a sign so took a picture not knowing we'd actually witness part of a volcanic evacuation exercise.

The government had brought two large ferries to the Granada port that usually transport folks between the mainland and Ometepe island (you can see more about Ometepe here: Ometepe webpage ).  There is a ferry that actually goes from Granada to Ometepe that takes 4 hours, but there are other ports with shorter rides.  They also brought about 20 or so smaller boats that normally do tours in the lake. About 5 or 6 Navy or Coast Guard-type boats were also there, complete with well armed soldiers. A good deal of time was spent getting the volunteers/"evacuees" loaded on the various boats, and then they sent the boats far out in the lake to simulate their arrival in Granada after fleeing the volcano in Ometepe (remember this lake looks like the ocean because it is so big, so we could barely see them at one point).  On the shore, various tents were set up by the Red Cross, there was a line of emergency vehicles, and not sure who else was present.

While this was occurring, more and more spectators were arriving and it was getting hotter.  It took a long time to get the boats loaded, they went really far away, and then they seem to just stay out on the lake forever (this is my way of saying I was getting hot and tired of waiting for something to happen). We knew the most exciting/interesting part would be watching the arrival of the boats and the assistance to the pretend evacuees, but were discussing whether we should just leave.  Just as we were having this discussion, some real excitement began.  The military boats started speeding back towards the shore and we could hear distant gunshots.  There were two boats of "drug traffickers" and the military was trying to intercept and apprehend them.  There was no joking around--these guys were taking this very seriously and were going really fast and shooting a lot.  As they got close to the shore, there were gunshots from the shoreline also.  All of the boats landed roughly with the drug traffickers making a run for it and the military catching them, putting them on the ground, searching them, cuffing them and then arresting them.  Everyone on shore was cheering and running to get a better view.  We were told they were just shooting blanks (and I'm guessing its true or else a lot of folks would have been hurt), but it was still a little frightening, yet thrilling.   I definitely would not want to be around if it were a real drug chase.  Its actually interesting that they were doing this drill as we have not heard of cases of drugs coming in on the lake to Granada.  They definitely have drug issues on the Atlantic coast, but nothing to note here as far as I know.  However, its good that they are prepared if the situation arises :^)

We left after the drug bust as the boats started offloading people up the shore quite a ways from us.  While we didn't get to see how the eruption "evacuees" were rescued, we nonetheless had an unexpectedly interesting and exciting morning!