Peace, Love & Blog

So, about a week after my trip to Granada, Nicaragua, I finally have the energy/time/motivation to write about it. Here goes!

My purpose in Nicaragua, although officially listed on my customs form as “tourism”, was really to border hop and renew my visa. I can only stay in Costa Rica for 90 days, so every three months my job gives me time off for a mini vacation. My friend Amber, a fellow teacher, and I began our journey Friday morning….at 5:30am. This was considerably painful. The bus to Nicaragua left at 6am, and the trip there took a total of 9 hours. The drive isn’t quite as long, but we spent a lot of time at the border.

We were amazed, and a bit frightened, at the border’s policies. One of the men from the bus company came to our seats, collected our passports and entry fee…and threw them into a large garbage bag with the rest of our passengers passports. The bus company representatives busied themselves getting all our passports stamped while we unloaded our luggage from the bus for it to be inspected. “Inspected” consists of us lugging our heavy luggage through a line where the customs people didn’t even bother to open it. On the way back, the procedure was largely the same, except that we did have to open our bags, but they only looked at the contents on the top. Next time, I’m smuggling in some opiates or livestock, for sure.

We arrived in Nicaragua exhausted, and headed off to our hostel, Hostel Oasis. Our room was cheap – 19$ per night -, equipped with bunk beds and a fan that did little to keep the suffocating heat at bay. We ate our first meal at a restaurant called Nuevo Mundo, and were pleased to learn that the national beers were only $1 each. Score!

Granada is a beautiful city that, from what I here, differs greatly from the rest of Nicaragua. The streets are clean, the buildings are beautiful and well maintained, and the people are exceedingly friendly (note: the people in other parts of Nicaragua are probably very friendly too!). This classic beauty is partly due to the fact that Granada is a colonial city, maintained due to its status as “patrimonial city” of Nicaragua. The city is also a popular tourist destination – Amber and I ate most of our meals in the “Calle Calzada” a cobblestone street filled with restaurants and bars, all with outdoor seating. The street clearly caters to tourists, and offers very little, if any, typical Nicaraguan delicacies.

On Saturday morning we were feeling well rested, and decided to start of the morning with a tour of the city via horse and carriage. We negotiated with our driver, Javier, paying $12 total for the hour. He was knowledgable and accommodating, showing us the sights and even stopping at places so that we could get out of the carriage and have a look around. He brought us to the lake front as well, and hooked us up with a friend of his so that we could take a tour of the Isletas. Granada sits on the Lake of Nicaragua, a humongous lake in the center of Nicaragua. You can’t swim in at because it’s brown as heck, but it’s beautiful to see. It’s next to Volcan Mombacho, which once erupted into the lake, created 300 and something tiny islands, which Javier’s dear friend guided us through on his boat.

The islands were beautiful, but I was surprised to learn that most of them were inhabited by rich people from various countries. It felt a little bit like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, as our guide pointed out various lavish houses, saying “This house is owned by the … family, they own Flor de Caña”, and “This island is owned by Japanese people” and “this one is a German guy’s”. Probably the coolest island is called “Island of the Monkeys”. The details are unclear, but apparently at some point, someone brought a whole bunch of monkeys to this tiny island, and now they can’t leave. I felt that was pretty unfair, but our guide assured me that they live well. Tourists come all the time to see them and give them food. They often come on to the boats to collect their food, but they didn’t come out to ours, presumably because they had already eaten plenty. Still, it was cool to see a whole bunch of wild monkeys up close.

After our tour we visited a chocolate shop that sold Nicaraguan made chocolate of all kinds – coconut, coffee, peanut and chile, mango, everything. We each bought a couple of bon bons and sat in the park, trying to eat them before they melted. By this time, the Nicaraguan sun was beating down on us mercilessly, and we decided to take a nap before venturing out again.

At night, we went to Café Nuit, a bar that was featured on all the websites we checked out, so we figured it must be good. There was a live band playing salsa and merengue, so we ordered some drinks and sat down. Strangely enough, this night was the most unsafe I had felt the whole time I had been in Nicaragua. First, some guys invited us to sit at their table. We talked to them for a little while, but then decided to move on, went to the bathroom, and then to the bar. While at the bar, one of the guys from the table came up to us, saying he had been looking for us, and started getting a little too close for comfort. Soon, other guys were asking us to dance, and not taking no for an answer. We started to feel really uncomfortable – it was like they couldn’t take a hint, and it was slightly scary. Eventually, we ended up sneaking out of the bar to avoid any further problems.

Sunday, we decided to check out an artisan’s market in Masaya, a town about 30 minutes from Granada. We failed miserably. We showed up at a market alright, but it was not filled with handicrafts, but rather all sorts of random wares – clothing, toothpaste, dish soap, fruits, vegetables, seemingly rotting meat, and the list goes on. It was one of the dirtiest places I had ever seen – trash was strewn all over, and the women selling sweets were armed with things that looked like dusters, constantly swatting the flies away. It definitely make me realize that not all of Nicaragua is as beautiful and serene as Granada.

However, the conditions in Masaya shouldn’t have surprised me all that much. Most Nicaraguans live on 1$ a day, and even Granada is absolutely full of people asking for money and selling odds and ends – especially children. At the border, Amber and I were appalled to see children selling knickknacks and gum, and then taking their profits to an old gentleman, their “pimp” of sorts, who kept the money for himself. We even saw the children fighting with him, bargaining for their pay.

Another interesting thing about Nicaragua is that it although it is so close to Costa Rica, there are differences. Costa Rica is obviously more developed, but things are cheaper in Nicaragua. I felt that we recieved better customer service in Nicaragua – maybe because of their dependence on the tourism industry – something present in Costa Rica, but not in San Jose. Also, Nicaraguans and Costa Ricans are known to hate each other – someone even compared it to the Hatfield and McCoys. They have border disputes constantly, and Costa Ricans are always telling me how dangerous and dirty Nicaragua is. I was surprised that we didn’t hear more bad things about Costa Rica. Some of the guys at the bar told us that Costa Ricans don’t have any culture – a complaint that has a bit of merit, considering that CR is much more Americanized than most Latin American countries. However, the worst things we heard about Costa Rica came from an American. This man owned a bar in Nicaragua and had lived there for five years. He used to live in Costa Rica, and clearly something bad happened to him there because he went on a rambling rampage of the country’s faults, most of which weren’t even true.

Overall, I am very glad that I was able to explore another country, and would love to go back to Granada again – there were other sites that we didn’t get to see. Here are some photos – and check out my facebook album here