Nicaragua is Hot, pt.1: Granada

Finally, after much talk and much delay, we made it to Nicaragua. Our Tica Bus brought us all the way to Managua, but rather than stay in the huge, uninviting capital, we decided to head for Granada. As luck would have it, we found a nice fellow from El Salvador who was also headed that way and he accompanied us, even loaning us cordobas along the way (we didn't plan our money situation well, obviously). We got to Granada, checked into an overpriced but comfortable hostal, and got some pinto gallo. Our hostal is the typical backpacker, happy hour and cheap vegetarian food, folks from all over the world and everyone speaks english, movie hour and hammock type of place. I haven't stayed in a place like this since Livingston and before that, I can't even remember. Still, it's relatively cheap and eh.

I woke up early and we got out of the hostal to explore this new place. Granada is beautiful and bright in most places and fading and crumbling in others. According to something written on a concrete wall that I saw when we were entering the city, it's the oldest city on the American continent, but I'm sure that's disputable. And most of it had to be rebuilt after William Walker burned the city to the ground when they threw that overly intrusive yanqui out of his self-proclaimed presidential fantasy.

In the morning we found a little cafe where we could eat outside AND where the owner walked up to us carrying the largest guanabana I've ever seen in my life. He was impressed that I knew what it was, but I just couldn't get past why he wasn't offering me a piece yet. Finally I just asked for a little dish of it and ah, it was beautiful and brought me back many memories of one summer in Chiapas.

In the afternoon we got on some rusty bikes and rode all over the city. To our credit (amazement?) we only had one semi-close call with an oncoming vehicle and it really wasn't even that close to get worked up about. We rode to the Lago de Nicaragua (or, Lago Cocibalco), a brown and smelly thing but also an enormous freshwater lake home to many little islands and even sharks (the only freshwater lake sharks, apparently). We rode a couple kilometers along the lake, down a road that was lined with so many rusty and empty playgrounds (why?) and towering, sweet mango trees. Mangos were literally dropping in our path and squishing under our tires! People were laying on the side of the road on big sacks of mangos! This city is just dripping with small green-orange-red mangos, how lovely. There were also trees covered in red-orange flowers, trees that looked like squatting oranguatans, trees with broad, bright green, shining leaves, trees with enormous roots jumping up out of a lily-covered swamp. And all along the way, the birds sang like crazy and the breeze pushed us along.

Later we rode to the old train station, through the wild, narrow-streeted market and on to a fort where Somoza used to interrogate and execute prisoners. Climbing up a wobbly wooden ladder in the fort we could see all across Granada to the lake.