Colonial cities and hammock sprees!
Trip Start
Aug 09, 2009
1
11
28
Trip End
Mar 16, 2010
Where I stayed
Granada, Nicaragua
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Granada is a very flat city. Due to various volcano eruptions and earthquakes a lot of Central American towns and cities consist of mostly one or two storey buildings, very squat and square. The highest point overlooking Granada was at a church down the road from our hostel called La Merced just 2 blocks down from the main square. The bell tower provided a lovely view over the city at sunset and the dollar we paid to climb the stairs was well worth it. Apparently the money goes towards the refurbishment of the church.
Nicaragua is common for two things: Pharmacies and Rocking Chairs. Everwhere we went we saw rocking chairs, sometimes we would walk past a building and a room would be filled with them, with people sitting in them just rocking away. Sometimes we would walk past people sitting in them on the pavement watching the world go by. Nicaraguans must be either the most healthy people in the world or the sickest people in the world. Every street corner has a pharmacy located on it, every street has at least two pharmacies and every supermarket will have one attached. Al and I marvelled at these two sites over and over again and not just in Granada. Al loved telling me the story about this English couple him and Julian met in South America that had spent 9 months travelling through Central America. Apparently when they were in Nicaragua they ended up buying a rocking chair as an impulse purchase! They spent 3 days running around trying to get this thing couriered back to England and the person they bought it from had to dismantle it and pack it up nice and carefully for them. What a mission! Unfortunately Al and I were not that far off as we wanted to pick up some wooden hammocks, another thing that Nicaragua is famous for, but we were going to wait till we got to Masaya to purchase those.
Anyway, back to Granada. We spent most of our first day walking around the city, hanging out in the Parque Central, checking out the child buskers and all the horse carts offering tourist rides. The child buskers wore masks and danced around, some standing on others shoulders to make a giant woman dancing around the square. I liked the feel of Granada and felt like I had hit a cultural spot.
That night we hit the rum again, albeit a very cheap and nasty variety in the hostel before heading out. There we chatted to various other travellers, some we had met along the way in other parts of Central America and some new. We also swapped a few horror stories and one in particular was very chilling especially for me and my snake phobia...
This girl that we were talking to was telling us about a roomate of hers at uni, who had a friend whose family collected snakes back in England. Apparently they had quite a variety and used to let the snakes roam around the house. They also used to (freakishly!) let some of the bigger snakes eg pythons and such, sleep at the foot of their beds at night! Anyway, the snake that this girl normally had at the foot of her bed suddenly stopped eating and at night the girl would wake up and find the snake lying right next to her, straight as a ruler. She thought this behaviour was a bit odd and was also concerned about the lack of eating so took the snake to the vet. The vet was not very informative about snakes and said that he would put in some calls to reptile specialists and snake specialists and come back to her about it. Meanwhile the snake was still not eating and still did the strange thing of lying right up next to her in bed, straight as a ruler.
One early morning, probably around 5am, the phone rang and it was the Vet. He said that the snake must be put in a secure area immediately and not let out. Apparently the snake was starving itself and by lying up against her was measuring itself so that it could eat her!!!!!!! By being straight as a ruler it was seeing if it could swallow her. This story really gave me goosebumps and there were some screams when the ending came out. Ew.
After all our horror story swapping we decided it was time to hit the town. Unfortunately the usual group thing occurred and we all faffed around for way too long before actually heading out, thus leaving us with very limited options on places that were 1) open and 2) were not charging exhorbitant entrance fees. This left us with Cafe Nuit, a bar around the corner from our hostel that had live music on Friday and Saturday nights playing salsa music and a largely Nicaraguan crowd. We got some beers and settled in to watch the swinging hips and flying feet of the salsa dancers, deftly avoiding actually having to do any dancing ourselves! One particular man took a liking to Alan and starting putting his hand on his crotch and making some suggestive comments to him. Alan then scuttled over to where I was and made me stand close by him for the rest of the night.
We had decided to go to Lagono Apoyo the following day and surprise surprise, we woke to another beautiful sunny but terribly hot day. Apparently Lagono Apoyo has depths reaching over 200m in the middle, being a lagoon formed in a volcanic crater. A short hop skip and jump on the chicken buses and we were lazing in extremely warm waters, surrounded by beautiful scenery. That day though, none of us wanted to do anything more strenous than the odd lazy swim with perhaps a bit of floating on the water and reading our books on the beach. We had met a fellow South African in our hostel the day before, an Afrikaans guy called Phillip who was travelling for six months through the States and Central and South America. I think he was relieved that he could speak Afrikaans with us and spent the day at the lagoon regaling us about how he has run the Comrades Marathon 14 times! Amazing achievement! He also managed to flag down a 4x4 vehicle to take us back to Leon for free that afternoon. The rest of the day was spent doing laundry, watching a very weird movie with Jon Cusack and generally just chilling in our new hostel/hotel, Kulala Lodge, right next door to where Jules and Lyndsey were staying at the Bearded Monkey.
Monday we spent the morning going to the supermarket, La Colonia, to pick up some groceries and first aid replacements after our volcano expeditions had wiped out the supplies. We walked back from the supermarket and found it relatively easy to navigate Leon on foot, we also managed to get a new combination lock for Al so he could finally lock his bag!
We met up with Jules and Lyndsey for a refreshing drink under the trees in the Parque Central. Al and I shared an amazing juice blend of fresh orange and melon juice, and had a laugh with the little kids selling baskets filled with little hair clips and combs and hairbands. They are such cheeky little things, but always in high spirits. After our relaxing half hour Al and I left Jules and Lyndsey to nurse their hangovers from another rum filled evening and walked through Plaza Independencia and on to the Convent San Francisco. It used to be a convent back in the day, but is now an interesting museum showcasing local art from various decades and also a photo history of Leon dating back to the 1920´s through to the ´60s. My how things have changed since! I also got to relax in a nice Nicaraguan rocking chair for a little while, trying desperately to escape the humid heat beating down on us.
We had decided to check out the next day and split the group up for a little while. Jules and Lyndsey were heading to the Pacific Coast for a few days to chill on the beach. Al and I wanted to head to Masaya to look at purchasing some hammocks for this home that we have still not purchased. The chicken bus took just under an hour from Leon to Masaya and passed in a pleasant enough way, although the sweat was running down us. Once at the bus terminal we got a taxi to the central area of town and found a very cheap private room at Hotel Regis for $9 a night for two people, absolute bargain. The hotel was also run by some of the friendliest owners we have met and also the most helpful and informative and the bathrooms were of the cleanest we have seen on our travels. We were also right opposite a place that did the best smoothies in Nicaragua and we decided to have lunch there, two fruit smoothies packed with tropical fruits. After that we headed up to the infamous Mercado Viejo, where local artisans sell their wares including leather goods like sandals and bags, woven fabrics, wooden carved objects including a lovely ice bucket that Al and I had to unfortunately put back due to lack of space and... hammocks! After doing a walk round and sitting in various hammocks we decided that we would get a proper hammock with wooden frames on both sides to make it more stiff, and a swing chair - possibly the most comfortable seat you will ever sit on. However, we wanted to get them from the families that make the hammocks instead of going through the market where the hammocks have sometimes already been sold to shops who then put a price hike on the items. We wanted to support the families direct and headed to the neighbourhood that houses most of the hammock making families. We eventually decided on a family that has been making hammocks since 1950 by the name of Hamacas La Siesta, choosing a single wooden hammock with a blend of colours of cream, green and blue and the matching swing chair. We paid for the swing chair that afternoon and promised to return in the morning to pay for and collect the hammock. That evening we celebrated our purchases with a massive pizza at our hotel, loving the tranquility of the place.
After picking up our hammock the next morning, we headed out of town to the Pueblos Blancos, a collection of little towns known by the name due to their white houss, about 40 mins away. Each town is famous for a specific type of craft including wood carving, ceramics, textiles and also, garden nurseries. We decided to check out Catarina and San Juan del Oriente. We walked around a center of crafts just outside Catarina just looking at what was on offer and from looking at the hammocks on display, decided that we had definately made the better choice getting ours in Masaya. We took a little tuk tuk up the hill to Catarina to go to the viewpoint, or Mirador, overlooking Laguno de Apoyo. What a sight! We walked along a little path for a while enjoying the tranquility of our surroundings and then headed back down into Catarina to walk to San Juan del Oriente. This town is tiny! Its right next to Catarina, but life here moves at a much slower pace. There was one bar and no restuarants at all. We would have to go back to Catarina to eat something. We walked past a little room that just contained a desk, an old fashioned typewriter and a tv on the wall. Alan was curious as to what this room was and we had to laugh when the man sitting inside the room said it was the local police station. It was run by him and another policeman. Not much crime around there then... or maybe its just not reported. San Juan del Oriente is famous for its ceramics and we walked around a few places checking out the wares. We saw some lovely pieces, but unfortunately they were all just too big for us to carry for the rest of our trip and we feared that they would break so we sadly didnt purchase anything.
We decided to head back to Masaya a while later to get some food and to escape the heat, which had now become unbearable. Alan was also not well with a bad stomach and we spent the rest of our afternoon lazing in our room finishing off our respective books. A nice relaxing few hours spent together.
The next day we headed to the Masaya National Park, but that adventure has already been told, albeit not in a good way.
* Note, the next day was the day got robbed, so there are no photos for Masaya or the Pueblos Blancos on the blog as they were unfortunately on the camera that got stolen.
