Granada, Nicaragua

Swooped up on a fast microbus to Granada, Balen and I found ourselves crammed in with a bunch of locals commuting to work outside Managua. Balen ended up in a seat next to some friendly abuelas and I crammed my backpack and myself into the back of the bus, with a couple of very friendly gentlemen. One thing that I noticed quickly about Nicaragua was how different the accent was from anything I had heard before. While I found it very easy to understand people in Guatemala, I found it almost impossible to understand anything that these guys said. Nicaraguans do not complete words. I was able to understand a fair amount after asking my new friends to speak as slowly as possible, but even still, I resorted to smile and laugh politely when, after several attempts, I still had no clue what they were talking about. I did have a nice chat with Frankie, the guy next to me, who told me about his job and his family members living in Leon, Nica and in Oregon. He loves the Sandinistas.

Arriving in Granada, it was HOT (see horse waiting to pick up tourists), and settled down in the nice Parque Central to rest a bit and get our bearings. We checked into a bed and breakfast owned and run by a local family, though after a night in the stifling heat, we booked it out of there and moved into Oasis Hostel, which was much cooler and had air conditioning and a pool.

In spite of the heat, we really liked Granada. A less touristy colonial city than Antigua, though more expensive, Granada was a nice place from which to explore the area and relax. Some of the things we enjoyed:

We walked down to the Lago de Nicaragua. We walked around many lovely old churches, my favorite being La Merced, where we were able to climb up the church tower while they held Mass to check out the views of the city, nearby Volcan Mombacho, and the sunset. It also had a nice and much missed BREEZE!

We visited a Spanish fort from the Colonial era in the shape of a pentagon, which a beautifully maintained courtyard. 

We hiked Volcan Mombacho, which was certainly less thrilling than Pacaya in Guatemala, though beautiful. It is only about 1200 meters high, and we rode an “ecotruck” to the top, passing a coffee farm on the way. We took a walk around one of the craters where we could see the Isletas of Lago de Nicaragua (a huge lake, by the way) which were formed by an eruption of Mombacho.We also hiked the Puma Trail, winding around around the craters at the top. There was a big sign at the start of the trail saying that entering the trail without a guide was prohibited. As it was a mere 4 km and we had heard from other travelers it could easily be done without a guide, we snuck on by ourselves and rehearsed the "oh, we must have gotten lost" speech for if we encountered anyone. We came across a family of very loud howler monkeys and listened to birds up in the canopy. But sure enough, after about an hour we ran into a guide and two Korean hikers who seemed a bit incredulous that we could have gotten lost. The trails were incredibly well marked, and there were maps everywhere. Perhaps I am a better liar than I thought, because as we turned to follow them back the way we came, they seemed to think we were nice enough, if not particularly adept at reading simple maps. The good news is that we were able to reach all the best lookouts before being caught - we could see all they way to the Pacific and into Costa Rica! And the landscape was beautiful. We considered going ziplining on the way back, but decided to save up for Costa Rica, which we thought would be considerably better, if more expensive.

We spent a day at a "beach club" where, for $5 we sat and relaxed by the pool and engaged in some great people watching. It felt a bit like a rap video shoot, with white towels and exotic birds and a bar next to the infinity pool. It was indulgent.

We went to Mi Museo, a free museum containing pre/Columbian pottery and had a tour of the different types and uses. After our tour, of which I understood about 20 % due to my issues with the Nica accent, we met a very friendly ex/pat, Glenn, from Austin, TX, who is buying up properties in Granada. On his suggestion, we went for dinner one night at Jimmy Threefinger's, a fantastic BBQ place with a patio blaring Beatles songs. Yum.

We spent a lot of time on chicken buses in Nica (old American schoolbuses, with awesome paint jobs and people crammed in). We took a chicken bus to Masaya, a great market where we bargained for hammocks. We chickenbussed it to Mombacho, and also took a chicken bus to San Juan del Sur, which I will write a bit about in another post. Chicken busses are quite an experience, not to be missed. They are cheap, and they also make for fantastic people watching. On one trip, high school evangelistas sang about Jesus for several hours as we sat squished against a window by a large man on the inside of the seat...it was an adventure. On another, a man stood up, trying to sell medicine for intestinal parasites. A young kid sang and played music for money. At every stop, women with big buckets of food and drunk climb aboard, offering anything from soda to fried bananas for a small fee. Despite hot sweaty quarters, I have liked the chicken buses.

We spent several days in Granada and on Monday left for San Juan del Sur. We had been planning to go to La Isla de Ometepe, a large island in Lago de Nicaragua with 2 volcanoes, good hiking, and local culture to explore. However, we heard from several people that it was even hotter than Granada, so we decided to skip it. We were disappointed though excited to get to San Juan del Sur and then Costa Rica since we only had a little over a week left in Central America!