seekingmygreaterperhaps

Granada is the oldest city in the continental America’s, and it was a beautiful place to land in Nicaragua.

When I was planning my trip, I knew it was rainy season in Central America, but I thought- oh I’ve traveled in bad weather before! Well, it really is rainy season. I still did the activities I wanted to do, but my pictures are definitely not as luxurious as those on the travel blogs where I got the ideas from. That’s okay, real life isn’t like the internet anyways.

Thankfully, my hostel was a very fun place to be, and I enjoyed reading in the many hammocks they have, and their little garden in the middle helped too. I participated in all the hostel events (solo travel doesn’t have to be solo unless you want it to be)- traditional Nicaraguan stew family style dinner, a Bar Crawl, movie night, and pasta night. I met some neat people there, and would recommend staying at Hostel Azul.

My first full day was spent at the Laguna de Apoyo, just about half an hour outside of Granada. It is a large crater lake inside of a long dormant volcano. This is at the Paradiso hostel, where they have day passes for people just like me! The hostel provides free kayaking, inner tubes, a ping pong table, and they have a restaurant and bar. It was a great way to spend the day. After leaving Costa Rica, the prices seemed so reasonable (even though it’s spenny for Nica). Swimming in the water was warm, and I loved jumping off the dock like I was at camp again. We had decent weather, with only a brief rain shower. I even got a banana split- so American of me, but I don’t care.

The Cathedral of Granada is beautiful. I was impressed by how bright the colors on the outside are. Inside is… fine. It’s free to walk around, so I did to escape the rain, but I am very spoiled when it comes to cathedrals. I was blessed with about a 15 minute window of blue skies on my last day, and was able to snap a picture with the blue sky behind it! Also Granada is celebrating its 500th birthday this year! How neat.

I found Granada’s buildings and colorful paint on the outside to be simply charming. I love the architecture of a colonial city, and in the city center they’ve done a really good job of keeping the paint fresh.

In as many cities as I can, I enjoy a “free” walking tour. I learned a little bit about the history, we walked to the old train station, and the church there is one of the only churches to keep its indigenous name. I didn’t take a carriage ride, but I guess you could do that if you wanted to. I learned that Nicaragua was a leader of the independence movement to break away from Spain. I also got a little sad because we saw some areas of Granada where regular people live, which is what looks a lot like poverty to me. Nicaragua is the poorest country in central america, and some of the people have corregated metal roofs. And by some, I mean most just outside of the “pretty” part of the city. And yet, of the people I’ve met, Nicaraguan people are super kind, and our tour guide says- “it doesn’t cost nothing to be kind, you know?”

One of the highlights inside the city was the trip up the bell tower of La Merced. You can see the whole city, and I really like how you can see how each house has a courtyard in it. It reminded me of Chile a little bit. Walking around you see colorful, but boring outsides, and then you walk in and there is a terrific courtyard. It’s why exploring is so important haha.

The wettest activity I did was kayaking Las isletas. Not because I fell out or anything, but it was steadily raining the whole time. I actually really liked it because it gave off very The Notebook vibes where Noah tells Allie he wrote her everyday for a year. Once that popped into my head, I felt very glamorous. The sounds of the rain were really nice, and I was able to see a lot of different kinds of birds, and even a howler monkey! Our tour guide was so sweet, and we even kayaked by his parents who were fishing! We kayaked next to his house as well and his brother brought out a Tupperware full of his lunch. I took a look and saw that his family of 5 lives together in a small stilt house. They were on the back part of an island that had a big house, but our guide said that the people who own that one are hardly ever there, they just use it as a vacation house. Only 30% of the islands are owned by local people anymore. My heart beat for this guide and his family, and how much our lives are different- and yet they are just as happy (at least, to me as an outsider).

So far, I appreciate the quality and the price of Nicaraguan food. The banana burger is probably my favorite meal from Granada, it was absolutely delicious. It’s a burger served on two tostones and covered in excellent sauce. A shout-out goes to Smiles Cafe- they employ only people who are deaf, and you order in sign language or by pointing to the menu, and their space is designed to educate the public. I love the mission of this place.

My time in Granada is done, but it has left me with an interesting perspective and a good taste of Nicaragua. Stay tuned for my stop in León!