Our Weekend in Granada

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We spent this past weekend in Granada, Nicaragua at the suggestion of Meradith and Drew.  Granada is a colonial town that has a much different feel than anywhere we’ve been so far.  The architecture has a lot of Spanish influence, the buildings are painted in bright colors, the city is laid out around a central square and it’s huge compared to Potrero.

Our trip to Granada began with a 4:15AM wakeup time since we had to walk half an hour to meet our transportation to the bus station in Liberia.  The bus took us through immigration and customs at the Costa Rica and Nicaraguan border.  Our first stop at immigration was simple enough, we just waited in line to get our passports stamped then got back on the bus.  Customs a few minutes later was equally simple as the customs official waved us off before we could even open our bags.  Mind you, Customs consisted of one very unconcerned man standing at a table outside, no x-ray machines, no official line that every one had to go through, just him.  The funny thing was that we could have easily just kept walking straight on through to Nicaragua without anyone knowing or caring.

Upon arrival in Granada we found our hotel, La Islita and after getting settled into the adorable room we went to get lunch. Pretty much as soon as we got to the middle of town, which was only about five blocks away, it began to rain so we took refuge in a restaurant overlooking the square that was showing the World Cup.  This was also the restaurant that offered the bucket of 10 beers for the price of 6 that Todd mentioned in his earlier post.  From the balcony of the restaurant we had a perfect view of the cathedral – a gorgeous mustard colored structure from the days of Spanish colonization – the way it stood out against blue sky was just gorgeous.

After the rain cleared we went to Las Cabañas Amarillas to catch a boat tour of Las Isletas de Granada, a group of 365 volcanic islands in Lake Nicaragua that were formed when Volcán Mombacho erupted thousands of years ago.  Our boat captain, Cesár, was a great guide and told us about how we could buy one of the islets, showed us which ones were available.  He also pulled the boat over by an icaco tree so we could pick the fruit to feed to the spider monkeys that live on Monkey Island.  He told me that we could eat it so I took a bite.  Instantly my mouth went dry, my lips stuck to my gums, it was instant cottonmouth.  Turns out you’re supposed to peel it before eating it, oops.  The fruit is the size of an apricot with a red peel and snowy white on the inside and it doesn’t taste like much.  Good thing the monkeys liked it better than I did, they came right up to the boat!  It was so cool to see the monkeys in their natural habitat just running around and swinging by their tails, it was so neat!  I’d been looking forward to seeing wild monkeys since we arrived so Monkey Island was a real treat.

After the tour we headed up to La Islita’s rooftop terrace and read while enjoying a mango tree, a view of the cathedral, a Toña (Nicaraguan beer that’s better than most or all Costa Rican offerings) and incredibly fast internet.  Later that night we had a delicious steak dinner at El Zaguán a cute restaurant located right behind the cathedral and called it an early night.