Granada, Nicaragua

Wednesday, July 6th- Friday July 8th
Granada, Nicaragua

Sorry everyone, I've been on a volcanic island for awhile and I've been a bit lax about posting. I left Leon on Wednesday and headed to Granada. My microbus went to the edge of Managua and dropped me off at another terminal where I quickly grabbed a ride to Granada. I was on the trip 3 hours, easy, and I found my way to the Bearded Monkey Hostel, which had been widely recommended to me for its chilled out atmosphere, which certainly was present. Really Granada was an R+R stop for me more than anything else, but I did manage to do some really nice things there.

Both Leon and Granada are towns built in the colonial Spanish style and both are very beautiful, safe, and fun to walk around. The Nicas, as the people of Nicaragua are called, are amazing- very friendly and beautiful people. In Leon I never ended up making it to the volcanoe to board down, mosly because the owner of the hostel charged 20 bucks for the trip, which after all this time here I truly felt was a rip off, especially considering it cost me 4 dollars a night to stay there. Instead I opted to go to the public library and pull out old newspapers and look for photos of the Revolution. I found all kinds of headlines about Somoza, the former dictator, and his atrocities. I have a few snapshots of the papers and I'll post them soon.

Granada was very cool as well. I went to the Parque Central there, which is absolutely gorgeous and I hung out in a beautiful afternoon sky and watched the kids in front of the church shoot of fireworks, as they do several times a day there. I managed to meet a very poor man from Granada and we got to talking and I decided to ask he and his quiet friend to take me around the city and show me things, knowing that he would appreciate a tip much later on. We shot the breeze and he asked me how much money I thought I'd been spending on food every week. I told him 40 bucks and explained to him how I try to get to grocery stores to buy cheaper food but a lot of times because of my travel I don't really get a chance to and I have to buy food at restaurants or on the street. Nevertheless, I thought a budget of under 6 dollars a day for food was good. He then explained to me that he and his son live on 8 dollars a week, in total, to eat. They eat only rice and beans, Gallo Pinto, the food which is considered the most basic typical Nica food. He wasn't asking for a handout, just introducing me to his world. He took me to to the old Railroad Station, which actually still has a locomotive and presidential car on it's property, although it's now been converted to a park. He also showed me around to a few churches and a building where Somoza used to live before he was assassinated. Overall it was a very cool day and I learned so much about the city and Nicaragua, and I gave him the equivalent of $1.50 as a tip for his kindness.

I went out to a Nicaraguan dance party that night at the edge o Lake Nicaragua, which borders the city on it's eastern edge. It was a blast, but the area around the party was really sketchy and I definitely almost had some issues with a few people there. Just a lot of drinks were passed around to people and some of them couldn't really handle it. The next day was a day to stroll the city, rest, get money, and prepare myself for the road ahead. On Saturday morning, on to Isla Ometepe. I'll have to post a map here because Ometepe is amazing. Two enormous volcanoes sprang out from the middle of Lake Nicaragua, on it's southern end, as twin volcanoes forming one island. Volcan Concepcion is 1610 meters tall, while Volcan Maderas is 1390 meters tall, although it is steeper and harder to climb. On to the next post...