Granada

So leaving Selva Negra was interesting. The plan was to walk the 2k to the main road and catch a bus heading south. It was pouring rain still, though, and we were dreading it. We happened to chat with the two Californians from our tour of the area the day before, and they mentioned they were going to Masaya, an artisan village near Granada. When we mentioned that was our destination too, they said we could join them in their rental car for a road trip down there! Genius!

We agreed to meet up in half an hour. We were already packed and ready to go, so we walked around the lovely goose-inhabited lake until it was time to meet up again with Scot and Caitlin. It turned out that they accidentally locked their car keys in the trunk. Someone from Selva Negra tried to jimmy into the car, but no success. Luckily someone from the car rental agency drove up from Matagalpa and managed to break into the car rather than break a window. So after a couple rather tense hours (during which the rain stopped of course, but we preferred to stick around for a direct ride to Masaya rather than strike out for a bus), the four of us headed off.

Scot and Caitlin are really cool. Caitlin has spent quite a bit of time in Nicaragua and taught us some of the things she's learned in her time here. We stopped at a quesillo cafe and Chris and I got our first taste of this common dish. It's a thick tortilla with thick strips of quesillo cheese on top, lots of onions, and then a bucket load of sourish cream poured on top. It's eaten without utensils and is messy (and unhealthy) beyond belief. It was really tasty actually, but Trace had to stop eating hers once the quesillo cheese got cold. (Quesillo is a very stringy cheese we first tasted in Oaxaca, Mexico. When melted, it's pleasantly stringy like Mozarella. When it's cold, though, it's like rope fiber.) We followed Caitlin's example and had a double quesillo, which included two tortillas and was HUGE.

Due to the delay caused by the keys locked in the trunk, Caitlin and Scot no longer had time to go to Masaya. They needed to go straight to Managua instead, but they very kindly dropped us off in Tipitapa, the town at the fork in the road between Managua and Masaya. After thanking them profusely and waving them on their way, we caught a bus to Masaya. We were excited about the artisan element of Masaya and had high hopes of finding a nice gift for Kirsten there. Instead, we found a huge market of the same tourist tat sold everywhere else. It was really disappointing in that respect. We'd planned to spend the night there, but instead we made our way back to the bus station and headed to Granada.

Having already visited Leon, it seemed fitting we should get the other side of the story in Granada. Granada is at least half responsible for the bitter rivalry that existed between the two. Leon eventually upped the stakes in 1855 by hiring a 'colourful' (or perhaps insane?) American mercenary: William Walker, who captured Granada. However, the story goes that he had himself 'elected' president and decided to conquer the rest of Central America too. Eventually he was driven out of Nicaragua, but not before he'd torched Granada's principal buildings and left the place in ruins. Unsurprisingly, for visiting such destruction upon the country, Leon's Liberals found themselves out of government for some time after.

Anyway, this was over a long time before we got there, so luckily for us, eveything has been rebuilt. Granada is a great place to walk around. They seem to have made a special effort to make the square and the avenue leading down to Lake Nicaragua suitable for walking and people watching from the innumerable cafes and bars whose tables look out onto the street. It's not unlike a European city in that respect. We did a lot of walking around the square and down to the lake. Granada also has a few decent museums and churches to nose around. Most of the churches were closed but we did get to look at the church and museum of San Franisco. Rebuilt after William Walker's departure in 1856, it's a pretty blue fronted colonial church. The museum holds some interesting exhibits including carved stone figures from ancient times (not sure when – signage ws a bit sketchy...) and some exhibits on pre-Columbian life. For me though the highlight was just wondering around the museum. It was a lovely temperature and just sitting for a moment in the adobe clad terrace gave me something of a glimpse of how the rich colonial landowners must have enjoyed themselves. Then I remembered that the place was sacked by pirates a lot and there was constant danger from natural disasters, hostile natives and ambitious political rivals. Maybe it is better to be a 2008 museum visitor after all.

We stayed in a basic but welcoming hostel near the market. The market itself was a disorganised chaotic affair – not a tourist market by any means. They were selling fruit, hardware, music and DVDs (mostly pirated seemingly), housewares and pretty much anything else you could imagine. They were even trying to sell cheese. Now most of you know I'm a big fan of cheese, but given that there was no refridgerator, the temperature was about 90 degrees in the shade and they were constantly having to ward off hoardes of flies all keen for a spot of lunch I think that it'd be wiser to go cheese shopping at the supermarket. To my mind you'd be lucky not to pick up some sort of stomach bug one way or the other. Anyway, the lady who ran the hostel was very nice and kind and helped us out a lot. All of the people who worked/lived/hung out there (it's difficult to know the difference) were very helpful when we wanted to know where something was or looked a little lost or confused.

So all in all we had a great time in Granada. The only problem was that we weren't able to get a boat straight to our next destination, la Isla de Ometepe. Fortunately we were able to bus it to San Jorge and hop across the lake that way.