Wonderful Nicaragua

• Candcsmith's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Granada

Trip Start Dec 03, 2007 Previous
Entry Trip End Mar 29, 2008 Next
Entry

  Granada, Nicaragua
Thursday, December 27, 2007

Our trip from Leon to Granada was one of our shortest trips, only 4 hours, but these hours turned into 4 hours of  Nicaraguan-Spanish lessons. Chris and I were sitting in the back seat of a crowded chicken bus when a big group of people got on the bus. A Nico lady and her niece were standing so we tried to make sitting room for them and carefully they sandwiched themselves between us. It was uncomfortable but the trip went fast as the ladies decided that they had to tell us all about Nicaragua, even though we caould barely understand them. The Spanish spoken here is a lot different than anywhere else that we have been. In fact, after a long discussion about typical foods, we finally understood that the dish we should try out was sloth - a greenish, grey slow moving animal with long toes and the size of a big cat. This is how the ladies described the animal. It was only later that we discovered that they had been describing a lizard, not a sloth.

Granada is a lovely colonial city with pretty churches, a palm covered plaza and good places to eat. Horses and carriages go up and down the streets and gives the city an old fashioned feeling. It is a city that we could have stayed in longer.

Our hotel in Granada though, was not our favourite. It was close to everything but there were a lot of ants in the rooms, no water or towels when we arrived and not very clean. Road construction was going on outside of our window and the shower was a faucet near the ceiling with cold water.

Pet Parrot

On the 27th, we went on an excellent tour, with 10 members of our group, in a nice van and with a knowledgeable tour guide. We started our trip by driving up into the Volcan Masaya National Park which consists of a pair of  volcanoes with 5 craters. One of these craters is still smoking and steaming and is very active. This area was described by the Spaniards as the gates of hell. Within one of the craters there are a species of parrots called chocoyos that nest beside the crater appently unharmed by the billowing toxic gases. We climbed to the summit of Volcan Masaya and had an incredible view of the surrounding countryside. Close to the volcanoes was a good museum which documented the history of the volcanoes and the wildlife that could be found in that area.

Following this we went to the prison that was used during the Nicaraguan revolutions. It was a sobering experience - the small, wet dark cells for large groups of prisoners, the torture area with blood on the walls and scratched notes left by the prisoners, the isolation areas. We walked into the underground prison as the people must have, in the dark, and lost our sense of time and space within minutes.

Our tour included a lunch so we went to a local market and enjoyed a typical Nicaraguan meal. We are not buying souvenirs as we have no room for them and are not willing to carry a lot of extra stuff at this time. It was fun looking at all the cool hammocks and local artwork - lots of paintings on feathers and gorgwous pottery. In fact we were taken to a pottery studio in a nearby town and saw how the pottery was carved into after firing..

We would have been happy to have ended our tour here but no ... we were taken to the crater of another  volcano and swam in the beautiful clear water of the lake in the crater. A fine end to a great tour.  Returning to our awful hotel, we were told that there was no water (thank heavens for the swim!) and we all went out to a wonderful pizza dinner.

All in all a great day in lovely Granada.

leaving to Ometepe

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Cathedral	The park	Group Dinner	On the prison wall
The Prison	Climbing up the wall	Connie on top of the volcano	On to the top
The crater	pretty awesome	The girls	Parrots live here?
The steam and vapours	The rim of the volcano	Active crater	More crater views
The Gates of Hell	Volcanic rubble	Market	Etching pottery
Crater Lake	Our Granada shower

Slideshow Print this entry Share Granada hotels

Previous Entry Next Entry