Granada, Nicuragua

Granada Granada how I love thee!!!

Our tour leader Rollins somehow got us a deal and we had a personal van drive us from Leon to Granada. So instead of taking a chicken bus and it taking 5-6 hours to get to granada the van only took us 2.5 hours. So we arrived there in the early afternoon which meant we had almost 2 full days to explore Granada. Our hotel was another beautiful building, with another garden courtyard. From the street you never know what the hotel looks like. In all these colonial towns everyone keeps there doors closed and from the street you see nothing but a wall and a door. You have to knock on the door and once allowed in its like a different world. Plants and flowers everywhere, open ceilings as if you are outside tucked away from the rest of the world. During siesta time which is around 1-3 pm everyone closes all their doors and no one has signs as to what is behind the doors, so in the afternoons when you are walking around you have no idea where anything is.
Before we could get settled into our rooms it started to rain. Its the first rain ive seen the whole time ive been in central america. And apparently its the first time its rained at this time of the year in granada in 10 years. It was literally a downpour for 2 hours!! Now this city is a huge tourist pit, which i sort of enjoy because it feels safer and there seems to be more things to do. We spent the afternoon walking around marvelling at the coloured buildings. Think of a Lemon yellow church right beside a huge colonial building the color of an orange, followed by a blood red building. The main square was beautiful, full of little cafes and people milling around.
That night we had a group dinner and went out for ........ THAI FOOD, how wierd is that, thai food in nicuragua, an authentic restaurant with all asian decor and music. The food was amazing but most of us wanted to experience local food instead of food you can have at home. After dinner us 4 gals once more attempted to go out to the bar, but this time we hit the jackpot. We headed to cafe nuit (yes its a french place), once again you just have a door on the street you pass through the door and walk down a long path next thing you know your in a huge courtyard sitting under the stars with half of the area covered with a roof that holds the local salsa band. This evening we were accosted by the local drunk, who apparantly comes to the bar everynight behaving like an idiot. He wouldnt leave us alone because we were the gringas and i nicknamed him 'smashed sunday' because he was completely smashed on a sunday night. He kept going on the dancefloor by himself and waving his arms around and swaying side to side like a monkey. At one point we told a security guard that he was bugging us and a local girl told us to ignore him that he comes to the bar everynight and is an alcoholic and he usually gets kicked out, which he did, so we could finally relax. I can honestly say every single person in a latin country knows how to dance, the girls were so fascinated with the men and there dance skills. The local dancing was amazing and we were all afraid to go up on the dance floor.Laura and Steph finally got up the courage or should i say liquid courage to hit the dance floor. All in all it was a great night.
The next day me and laura discovered an art studio workshop that houses local artists. It was amazing and the artists allow you to come into their space and look at their work. I got a chance to practice my spanish again and ended up talking to a local artist for an hour, he was so excited and he showed me and laura his whole portfolio. I got a picture with him and im supposed to email him when i get home to show him pictures of my work. Today our whole group also took the masaya volcano tour. We left in the early evening and were taking to the town of masaya where we had 2 hours in the local craft market where i of course bought to much shit. Laura however likes to buy things that are huge, if she could i think she woudl buy a 3 ft pot, just like the 8ft long textile table runner she bought. Shes a little nutty when it comes to her sizing of things. I on the other hand keep things tiny, my backpack already weighs a huge amount and i get reminded everytime a local picks it up that its heavy. After the market we went up to a volcano and were shown active craters that were steaming that wonderful rotten egg smell. After that came the best part of the night_____ the bat caves!! yes thats right we got to hike into a bat cave and walk through swarms of bats. It was amazing!! most of the girls were freaking out and i thought the bats were so cute. After the bat caves, we were taken to a lookout point on the volcano where we could see flowing lava, we had to wear gas masks it was pretty cool, however the lava was so far away so all we saw was a little smudge in the dark night glowing below. But it was still neat to see lava activity. Tommorow we head to the island Ometepe in Nicuragua.

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