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Published: December 24th 2011
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A few musings:
Granada has plenty of tourism infrastructure, much more than say, Merida in Yucatan, Mexico. Although without some Spanish one would have some trouble getting around independently in either place. Now I understand why so many hotels and restaurants here are run by ex-pats, or natives who have lived overseas and returned. Srs. Victor and Carlos lived in the US for many years; Srs. Szkiny and Morgan are ex-pats. Not that we sought out foreigner-run places to stay! Locals don't quite get that Western tourists expect people in the hospitality industry to smile, and waitresses to return to the table on their own initiative sometime after serving the meal.
Nicaragua (like England) doesn't have much of a culinary tradition. The national dish, gallo pinto, is red beans and rice with spices. A Westerner tires of that after awhile. So restaurants offer pasta and smoothies and grilled panini sandwiches. The few Nicas eating out expect lots of meat; us backpackers and flashpackers and prefer some vegetarian options (besides gallo pinto).
Granada feels like stability on the edge of chaos. In a morning you'll see a few drunks passed out on the sidewalk, a few beggars with their
disabilities on display. Pockmarked roads are clogged with pedestrians, taxis, motorcycles, and those bicycles carrying whole families. Horses and people still work as beasts of burden, pulling wagons -- even some with wooden wheels! Worlds collided when I saw a woman pushing a cart uphill wearing an "Everybody's Somebody in Luckenbach" T-shirt.
Living in Casa Don Carlos, a beautiful big house in a poor neighborhood, makes me vaguely uncomfortable, and not because I feel unsafe. How poor is it? One day we saw boys playing baseball in a vacant lot with a mere stick as a bat. They were well-equipped compared to the boys we say playing with an imaginary ball and bat.
The differential feels unsustainably steep. Like your lifestyle is perched on a point. Maybe that's actually true everywhere; in Cary, NC we take for granted the electrical grid, powered by a nuclear plant only 12 miles away. The difference, I guess, is that in Cary we're all going down together (or not, hopefully). Here in Granada we're way out on the bell curve, and that feels uncomfortable. Perhaps I'm just used to living in the "middle" class? Rich Nicaraguans do not lose sleep over this,
perhaps?
You can build a really nice house here, even on your own isleta, but you still can't drink the water out of the tap, or flush the used toilet paper. You can't get decent broadband. On Ometepe, the power goes out daily. The music is heavy on rhythm and light on melody.
But several factors make Granada and Ometepe good places to visit, at least for us. You can get there; Managua's airport is less than an hour away from Granada. Tourism doesn't seem to dominate the local economy, so there's a sense of reality rather than artifice. Granada is a small city / big town, compact and eminently walkable. Taxis abound at a flat $.45/person when your feet hurt or it starts to rain. Gringo tourists are treated fairly - no one tries to charge you extra or shortchange you. Crime is under control. Natural beauty abounds. Ometepe offers even more adventure.
It was a good trip!
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