Last day in Granada

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Friday. One of the best days of the week! I'm up early and out of my hostel at 7 am. I'm heading back to Hotel Con Corazon for a boat tour on the lake. It's a great walk this early. The city is bright with the morning sun and quiet. Street vendors are beginning to slowly set up their stands. Shop owners are cleaning off their front stools. Its the quiet slow motion of the morning that can be the best time in a city.

I arrive early for my tour and grab a quick breakfast at the hotel. I said yes to the juice and I'm pretty sure it was watermelon. One thing for sure...It was good! I meet my fellow companions for the morning. Steffi from Germany and the two guys from France. Never did get their names. They are here for a good friend's wedding. Talk about a great wedding destination! The four of us are off and I'm excited to have a little time with some English speaking people again. We begin to trade stories of our travels here and Steffi is taking notes. She only arrived yesterday and has four weeks in Nicaragua. Lucky her!!! Germans really know how to travel!

We make our way easy toward Lake Nicaragua. As we near the water the center space in the road widens and turns into a beautiful park. At the water there is a long pier jetting out and waiting for boats or ferries to arrive. One of the ways you can arrive in Granada is by boat. We turn south and follow the water down and around. We pass by more park and now beach areas, a few buildings, down a tree lined canopy road, and then finally arrive at the marina. It's early and the sunlight is magnificent on the water. We climb aboard and head out. The lake is massive. Massive. This is less of a lake tour and really and island tour. We are exploring the area known as Las Isletas. It's a grouping of 365 (or so they say) islands that formed just off shore thousands of years ago when the Mombacho volcano erupted. The first thing you notice is how all of the islands are made up of black rock. Massive black rocks. The guide is busy pointing out birds and I mean hey, birds are cool, I'm all about nature, but what I'm more amazed by are the small black rock islands and the houses that are built on them. The sunlight is sliding it's way around the islands and trees and bouncing off the water to give this whole ride a magical feel. Lush and tropical and cover with palms and mango trees and all sorts of colored flowering plants, I can't take my eyes off the islands. We pull up and hop out at o e that holds a fort. The fort was used to fight the pirates that used to invade the city. Four days in Granada and I still can't get over the pirate thing! The fort feels completely rebuilt and new but the wall looks old. The view back to the city is lovely and the massiveness of the lake ever more apparent. We climb back into the boat and carry on. The nice thing about going this early in the morning is that the only other boats on the water are local fishermen in their small narrow brightly painted wood boats powered by oars. One even let us peer into his boat to see his catch so far. Our next stop was at monkey island which has two different kinds of monkeys on it. I asked why only this island and never really got a response. We cruised past another island that was for sale. Yep that's right...you can buy an island which you can then only access by boat. This island had a nice size and well built/maintained house with a small pool on it and was going for a whooping $35,000. The guide talked about how expensive that was. Granted here in Nicaragua that is extremely expensive. But compared to what we pay for housing in the US, it's pennies. So if you're looking to own a house on your own island, this may be the place for you. Some of the islands house very poor people as well. You could quickly figure out the rich from the poor based on which island had electricity strung to it. We were out on the water for two hours and it was glorious. The bird watching was great as well as the island watching. I highly suggest this if you swing thru this area.

Back on land, we make our way back to the hotel. I pay and chat with the staff one last time. I also learned that they are opening more hotels in additional countries in the coming years. Keep your eyes open for them in Mexico and Cambodia!

After my thanks yous and good byes, Steffi decides to join me for an AM snack. I'm starving and craving the fruit plate from yesterday. She's game so off we go. We both get an iced tea (which I have to admit I'm pretty sure was an Arizona Iced Tea poured into a fancy glass) and the fruit plate. Steffi is very happy she decided to join me. We talked about our jobs and life at home. Our travels and funny stories. Learning languages. And then what to see and do in Granada. I tell her how I plan to check out some of the art shops I've seen and she tells me about a leather shop she visited and loved. I tell her that the cemetery is a must see. After sitting for about an hour and a half, we part ways and wish each other luck on our journeys. Moments like this are the reasons to travel!

Over to the one main road and down it I walk. I come upon Soy Nice and fall in love. Leather workers are set up in the back of the shop making belts and wallets and bags. They are hand dying and creating interesting and modern designs. I'm in trouble. I immediately know I'll have to get my credit card out! I you d a couple of cute things to purchase and then make my way back along the street. I end up in another craft store and then head to the coffee shop for my daily dose of espresso and reading! After an hour of this I head over to the main square to try out the street vendor food. Steffi told me what to try so on the hunt I went. Yuca, cabbage and pork rhines. That was to be lunch. I've never had a pork rhine in my life. I'm not even sure I'm spelling rhine correctly but today I'm trying it. I found a woman selling it and I sat down at one of her little plastic tables on a little plastic chair. Within a minute I had a bowl in front of me filled with some sort of leaf, boiled yuca, pork rhine and cabbage. It looks so amazing that I can't wait to dig in. I immediately take a bite of yuca and cabbage and quickly realize there is jalapeno in this. So after moving that to the side I try the pork. This is not good. I can barely bit it and once I finally get it working in my mouth it's so chewy I can't swallow it. The woman is watching me so I can't spit it out and therefore on I chew. I finally swallow it and can now check this off my list. I move the pork over with the jalapeno and carry on. I finish the rest of my cabbage and yuca which was very good and move on with my day!

Next stop is the Mi Museo to see the pottery. Today they are open and I'm very excited. Inside are several rooms filled with pottery and ceramics from 300 BC to present. I slowly make my way thru the rooms and soak in all the pieces. Most of them are bowls of various sized and then there are incense burners and then larger pots that are burial urns. Some are more ornamental and painted. Others are more plain. About half way thru I decide that I want to learn how to do this and now plan to find a class back home.

From here I decide to head back to the hostel for a little pool time. It's about 2:30. I end up hanging out with Daniel, the Australian who is also staying her with two high school girls. They are actually in a big group on a group trip but one of these girls had her bag stolen so he's been here sorting that out. We chatted about traveling and coffee. He put a bug in my ear about going to Sri Lanka. Just what I need...another travel bug. Haha

After some lounging and reading I made my way back out and hit up another art/antique shop. Then onto a restaurant I wanted to try. Sadly it was closed. So I instead went to a Lonely Planet recommended place and had a horrible meal. I won't even waste time describing. Who knew that the fruit plate was going to be my food highlight of the day.

Now I'm back at the hostel. Finished up for the night. Packed and ready to move on. If you're coming to Nicaragua make sure to see this fabulous city.

Tomorrow I'm off to the north west for some real adventure. My week long surf, yoga, volunteer and other miscellaneous activity filled week. No more WiFi past tonight so keep an eye out for more blogs later on. I'll be sure to finish them up once I'm home.

Travel on my friends!

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