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Published: August 3rd 2006
Intro to Granada
Nicaragua's finest colonial town, Granada has the trim churches, the fine palm-covered plaza, and the colorful architecture you might expect of a city founded in the 16th century. But the old village nesled on the edge of teh lake has more to offer than just its pretty facade. Behind its carved wooden doors in beautifully restored courtyards you'll find some of the best eating and drinking spots in the country. Take an early morning stroll through town as shopkeepers are just opening their doors, or sit in the plaza at sunset as working Granadinos are puttin the day to rest, and absorb the sights and sounds (and smells - if a horse and carriage are parked nearby) of this vibrant city. Stay around long enough, though, and you might have a hard time tearing yourself away. The many expats who have settled here in recent years have yet to free themselves from Granada's bewitching spell.
History Nicknamed "the Great Sultan" in reference to its Moorish namesake across the Atlantic, Granada is Nicaragua's oldest Spanish city. Founded in 1524 by Francisco Fernandez de Cordoba, it stands at the foot of Volcan Mombacho on the northwestern shore of Lago de Nicaragua. With access to the Caribbean Sea via the lake and the rio San Juan, Granada soon became a rich and important trade center and remained so into the 19th century. The same Caribbean passage made Granada an easy target for English and French buccaneers, who sacked the city three times between its founding and 1685. From early on, conservative Granada was locked in bitter rivalry with liberal Leon, with which it vied for political dominance. Their rivalry intensified after independence from Spain in 1821, erupting into full-blown civil war in the 1850s. To gain the upper hand, the Leonese contracted the services of American filibuster William Walker, who conquered Granada and ruled Nicaragua from there. When Walker was forced to flee in 1856, he ahd the city torched, with his retreating troops leaving only the infamous placard "Here was Granada." In more recent times, Granada was the scene of brief stree fighting between Sandinista and Somocista forces, but it was spared the shelling suffered by other Nicaraguan cities.
Our Experience
We pulled into Granada around dinner time, caught a taxi to Parque Central, and found the hotel we wanted with no problems. It was a pretty nice place and was reasonably priced. We turned right around after checking in and went out to grab dinner. I had previously looked up our options for food, and I had memorized how to get to this local pizza place that sounded great (the book said it was very popular with the locals and tourists). Unfortunately, the place didn't exactly exist anymore. Argh. This has really happened to us a number of times recently. The worst part about this one was that 1) no other place looked good 2) I was really looking forward to a good pizza, and 3) Lila hadn't eaten in a long time, and she was starting to feel sick. After a couple minutes, I just decided to go to this more expensive place right next to us. It turned out fine (although I still really wanted pizza). They had good salad, and I got some decent ribs while Lila got some amazing seafood pasta. They also had this pureed guacamole that
tasted like it had a little something else in it. Oh man. I put it on almost everything short of my ribs. At the end of the meal I wished I had had a plate of bread to finish it all off.
After dinner, we were both feeling better, and we decided to grab some dessert at a cafe on Parque Central. We relaxed for about 20 minutes, and I decided to go around the corner and check my email while Lila read for a bit. When I got back, we called it a day and headed back to the hotel. The hotel had a great view of the fading sunset.
Intro to Masaya
Colorful horse-drawn carts shimmy along bustling streets in this working-class city south of Managua. Lacking the colonial charm of Granada and the university pull of Leon. Masaya bills itself as the epicenter of artisans. Its recently restored Mercado Viejo carries quality work from all over the country; the market has become a focus of the city's social and cultural life. In 2000, a series of earthquakes in and around Masaya left much of the city's downtown area in ruins. Fissures marred nearly every church, and hundreds of old buildings collapsed, their unreinforced mud-and-pebble walls unable to withstand the repeated tremors. At least 30 people were killed and thousands left homeless. Although reconstruction should go on for quite a while, life goes on too and visitors are welcome.
Our Experience
The next day we decided to bus to Masaya, a nearby city know for it's craft market, but first we had a BIG breakfast at a local cafe/restaurant our book recommended. The small restaurant was packed and our waiter was busy, but the glasses of orange juice were huge and the breakfasts were too! Our waiter addressed us in English, but he also spoke Spanish (naturally) and another Northern European language I couldn't identify. Joe said it must be Dutch, but
I was suspicious because the waiter seemed to be speaking it at almost every other table in the cafe. Before we left Joe asked the waiter what language he was speaking and it was indeed Dutch. Way to go Joe! Such a seasoned European traveller!
After lunch we found our way to the area where buses bound for Masaya departed and hopped on one. The bus ride lasted about 45 minutes, and before we knew it, we were in the dusty Masaya "bus yard." Not knowing which way to leave the yard, I steered us in the direction the locals were headed, which turned out to be a large, sprawling, labyrinth-like market place. The market was not a crafts market, but rather a place where the locals bought all sorts of household goods. It was impossible to navigate, so I just walked in a direction more or less towards the main road we'd arrived on. I enjoy all sorts of markets! Although they can sometimes be a bit claustrophobic in nature, they always amaze me. Joe, however, was a bit overwhelmed and not in a good way... I better let him explain...
Joe's Take on the Market: I
was fine; my nose was not. As with many markets down here, they simply aren't the cleanest places in all the land. Markets for locals always sell a myriad of food amongst many other items. Food on sale everyday + Heat + Poor sanitation = The stench of rot and decay. It's been tolerable elsewhere. This was borderline unbearable. Imagine walking through a dirty, never ending market in pretty hot weather while being constantly bombarded with new and unwelcome smells of decay and decomposition. It wasn't like one smell that I could get used to. It was constantly changing, never getting better, and thwarting my efforts to put it in the back of my mind. It was the Borg of terrible smells: always adapting before I could defend against it. Mmm... Borg reference.
Lila's Retort: I didn't think it was THAT bad. But, I don't have Joe's sensitive nose.
After making our way out of the market we decided rather than spending an hour orientating ourselves, we'd just take a cab to the Mercado Viejo (translated: Old Market) which had been nicely converted into a hand crafts market. The cab took us directly there.
The Mercado Viejo
was a pleasant place complete with lots of stalls full of wonderful crafts (wood carvings, jewelry, clothing, paintings, etc.) and a couple of restaurants. We spent the better part of a day walking in circles taking in the entire market (possibly twice). It was an especially impressive shopping day for Joe. We broke up the window shopping bonanza by stopping twice to drink some sodas and have a bite to eat.
After exhausting the Mercado Viejo we walked around the city and then took a taxi back to the bus yard. From there we bused back to Granada and the night progressed as it usually does: Dinner (pizza and beer! yum!). Internet. Shower. Sleep.
Granada (Again) and Lago de Nicaragua
The next morning Joe realized we were in desperate need of Cordobas (Nicaraguan cash). It was Sunday. Owing to the fact that Granada is a large Nicaraguan city we supposed it would have a plethora of ATMs that accepted Visa and/or MasterCard debit cards. Our book, however, only listed two such ATMs. The first was in a supermarket near the town center, so we headed there. No ATM. Anywhere. The only other ATM our book mentioned was in
an Esso gas station on the edge of town. We flagged a cab and spent a third of our remaining Cordobas getting ourselves to the Esso station. We walked in, saw a guard (normally posted by ATMs) and a sign saying "Cajero Automatico" (translated: ATM), but no ATM. Just a hole in the wall where one should be. Grrr. I asked the guard if there was one and he said no. So, I asked him if, per chance, a bank in town had an ATM. BanCentro he said. Right-o. Time to catch another taxi. We walked for a bit before we were able to flag one. It took us to BanCentro. BanCentro had an ATM... but it was out of service. Luckily, I had spotted a bank further down the street with an ATM sign - and FINALLY (thankfully) the bank had an ATM that took every possible credit card. Hooray! Cash! After we left that bank we passed another one with a working ATM. Where was our guidebook on this one? These awesome banks were smack in the middle of downtown. We'd basically travelled in a circle until we found them... without any real help from our guidebook.
With cash in hand, we were finally able to afford breakfast... but by now it was time for lunch. So, lunch we had. We each ate a delicious bowl of pasta in a downtown restaurant. As we were walking away from the restaurant toward our hotel a girl ran up to us. She asked if we spoke English. We said yes. She said she and her friend were interested in going down to the lake and paying for a boat to take them out to see some islands and swim - would we be interested in going and splitting the bill? We said absolutely! - and agreed to meet them at the docks in an hour.
This turned out to be a great idea considering we were more or less going to do the same thing that day anyway. After going back to our hotel to change, we flagged a taxi and headed down to the water. We found the two girls we had run into earlier right where they said they would be. It was then only a matter of finding the guy with the boat. The price that the two girls had been quoted earlier of 200
Cordobas (roughly $11.50) was only for a half-hour trip out and a half-hour trip back (basically to see some of the cool islands near the coast). All of us, however, wanted to swim, so we tried to see how much it would cost to let us swim for an hour. The price quickly doubled, so we all eventually agreed on a half-hour of swimming in the middle of the trip for a grand total of 300 Cordobas (roughly $17.25).
The small islands near Granada on Lago de Nicaragua are great. Many of them have expensive houses on them (some easily over $1 million). Many of them are close enough together to simply run power lines on poles above ground between the islands. Any boat over 5 or 6 meters high better watch where it goes. We stopped at an old fort and walked around for a bit. We then stopped next to an island full of monkeys. Monkeys in and of themselves are entertaining. This stop, however, quickly proved to be quite a site. A boat that was stopped there before us had a number of tourists on it feeding the monkeys. The monkeys decided they wanted more and
quickly boarded the boat. Hilarity ensued. The first monkey just started posing and standing on the side of the boat while his compatriot climbed along the top to the rear of the boat. The latter monkey then stole a (hopefully empty) carton of oil and tried to drink out of it. The first monkey soon realized it had had enough and disembarked, but the second monkey wasn't going anywhere. He ditched the oil carton and started climbing over everything. We left while the driver of the boat was still trying to coax it back onto the island.
After the island with the monkeys, we swam for a bit. The water was quite warm on the surface but it quickly got colder below. After swimming, we loaded up and headed back. We said goodbye to the s we split the boat with, and started enjoying a nice walk along the coast in the direction of town. After a while though, we simply hailed a taxi to take us the rest of the way.
After changing again at the hotel, we set out for dinner. Unfortunately, it was Sunday evening so many places were closed. We finally found a half-decent local pizza place. We looked around town for a bit afterwards, found some internet, and headed back in the direction of the hotel. We did stop, however, at another restaurant for what quickly turned into dessert/drinks/second dinner. It was a fun way to end our stay in Granada.
The next morning, our plan was to grab the 2PM ferry from Granada to Isla Omotepe. The only would-be problem with our plan was that there's no room for error: the ferry only operates twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. When the ticket windows opened at 10AM, I walked down there to acquire tickets while Lila sought out a few other necessities for us. Unfortunately, I was not entirely successful as I needed both of our passports to purchase two tickets. This wasn't much of a problem as we met back up afterwards, walked back down, got tickets, and took a taxi back to town to get lunch. Fortunately we were able to leave or bags at the hotel until 1:30 when we grabbed another taxi to take us back to the port. The ferry ended up leaving almost an hour and a half late (around 3:30PM), but we soon found ourselves on the way to Isla de Omotepe.
The ferry ride was four hours long. Joe and I had accidentally bought first class tickets. First class, in this case, meant AC. Joe sat inside and finished a novel he was reading while I took my book outside into the wind and heat and read. The boat was fairly large (although it wasn't a car ferry). We stayed near the shore for most of the way from Granada to Isla Ometepe. The views from the top deck... which was where we and other first class passengers sat... were spectacular. The sun was setting across the lake from us as we docked at Isla Ometepe.
Up Next
Isla Ometepe... the emerald isle of Lago de Nicaragua.
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Jane
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write your own travel guide
you can write your own since you have now made numerous corrections to the one you are using...