Nicaragua – Granada
After our border crossing, we found ourselves in Granada. A Spanish colonial styled town that is being considered as a UNESCO heritage site. The town was beautiful, and old, in fact it brags about being the oldest city in all of Central America. A dubious distinction in my view as Casco Viejo in Panama is indeed older, but the Nicos claim it is a mere neighborhood of Panama City, and so while in Nicaragua we re-learned a few times that Granada is the oldest. I learned to nod to get along.
On a couple of occasions we walked down to the lake on which the city sits and found it was dirty and overflowing from all the recent rains that had hammered the region. To get another perspective we booked a kayak tour through the island chain called las isletas on the lake. The tour promised a show of some of the local birds and other wildlife. Luckily enough we got an up close extra treat though, a troop of howler monkeys that hung on branches nearly touching the water, we floated idly for quite a while just watching them eat and do other acrobatic feats. Later we learned the lake is also home to bull sharks! We had no idea sharks could live in freshwater. Still a little skeptical of that claim, we didn’t see any, not that we could have as the water wasn’t clear enough.
The people were very welcoming, and the nightly activity in Nicaragua, particularly in Granada, is to pull your rocking chairs out onto the sidewalk and sit there chatting with family and friends. Air conditioning isn’t common so this was a great way to cool off from the high daytime heat as the nights were pleasant. It felt like stepping back into another era.
Right next door to our Airbnb was a little local bakery with no exterior sign that had the best coffee in Granada. It was full of locals day and night. They also had beautiful creations that were cakes, and delicious desserts. Dangerously convenient. We started bringing our own cups and saucers over for them to use for our to-go coffee, which always brought a smile.
Speaking of our Airbnb, we had rented a traditional, Spanish-style house in the city, which had an open courtyard in the middle. I’ve always wanted this style of house, and staying here didn’t dissuade me from it – it was fun when it rained. In the middle of the open air courtyard we had what we called a cold tub, it was a small pool, about as big as a hot tub, filled with cold water. It was so refreshing! We used it a lot because it was in the 90s the entire time we were in Granada.
Due to traveling between cities/countries on weekends, we had one full weekend during our two weeks in Granada. We only went on one hike, but it was an interesting one. Called the “Puma trail” on Volcan Mombacho. A four-mile hike in a cloud forest with an opportunity of seeing inside the calderas of this still active volcano. This opportunity didn’t avail itself to us. Cloud forests are aptly named, especially that day, and our visibility was probably less than about 100 feet. It had its own beauty, but we didn’t see inside the caldera. The most interesting part of the hike was through the “dead forest.” Named for the gases that emit from the volcano’s crater having killed all vegetation in one area of the forest. Approaching this area through lush vegetation you have no idea anything is about to change, then you cross an invisible line and enter this eerie landscape. The air here was heavy with sulfur, with the cloud vapor sharply stinging our eyes as we walked through. We walked as quickly as we could to get to cleaner air, but it was really interesting to see. While researching this hike, self doubt started flooding me with several internet posts explaining how arduous the hike was. Finally wondering if, perhaps, we might just sit this one out for our age bracket. A fretful evening on the hike’s eve, Denise urged me off the ledge. On perhaps a hotter day that might have been true, but good grief those warnings were way over blown. Hard, yes, and steep, but so long as you’re in reasonable shape certainly doable at near any age, bad knees or otherwise. Don’t believe everything you read in print, dear reader. Our gpx hiking tracks.
The big food discovery here was the inimitable nacatamale. Similar in construction to a Mexican tamale, but so much more. It’s rice, masa (smushy corn filling like in Mexican tamales), veggies and pork wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. They are much larger than tamales, very filling, and we could easily split one and be full. They are usually sold out of people’s houses on weekends, and are particularly popular on Sunday mornings. Stuffing ourselves as we ate our first one in a park with our hands, it was a worthwhile mess. We went neanderthal style because we had rented a motorcycle for a day to check out some artisan villages and didn’t think about the need for silverware when we bought it from a man on his porch for about $4. That meal made us feel like we were really traveling again, rather than mainly working remotely in a hot climate.
In the end, Granada offered a mix of history, beautiful colonial architecture, local flavor, and natural beauty that made it worth the visit. The nacatamales and howler monkeys on the kayak tour stood out, and evenings spent with locals in rocking chairs on the sidewalk gave the city a welcoming, laid-back feel. However, as much as we appreciated Granada’s charm, we were more than happy to see it in our rearview mirror, escaping the heat and moving on. Or so we thought.
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Hi guys, Yes Bull sharks can live in both salt and fresh water. They have been sighted in the Mississippi River as far north as St Louis.
Wow, that’s incredible. I had no idea.
“Or so we thought…” Dang, Pete, a cliffhanger! I’ll just nod, to get along… 😉
Completely different experience than we had in Grenada. We stopped in Grenada on a cruise. We had decided it was a beach day and took the City bus, asking for the beach. They dropped us off at a goat path at pointed… nervously, we made our way and ended up at Club Med that was a nude beach ~ not where you want to end up with your parents!
Safe travels!
That’s hilarious! Definitely a different place — I suspect you were in Grenada, the Caribbean island, and we were in Granada, a city 30 minutes from the Pacific Ocean.
What great pictures! I can really get a sense of the town! What an amazing adventure!