Granada

12/08/09 - 18/08/09

From Ometepe we took a boat to Granada at midnight on the 11th, arriving in Granada at 4.45am on the 12th. It was an uncomfortable journey as the boat swayed a lot and the air conditioning was up so high that we were both freezing, but we tried to get some sleep and the hours soon passed. As a birthday present to Vic, we were going to spend our first night in Granada in the beautiful Hotel Darío (named after the famous Nicaraguan poet Ruben Darío). It made such a change to the cheap hostels we have grown accustomed to, and having been allowed to check in at 6am, we were able to enjoy a full 24 hours of luxury :) Our room was huge, with two double beds, and the bathroom had a bath with hot water!!! The hotel had beautiful gardens, a gym, a swimming pool, a buffet breakfast with all of the usual delights you find at a good hotel, and its own cafe and restaurant...it was simply perfect! That first day, I also signed up for an intensive Spanish course (five classes of four hours each), starting the next day. My teacher was lovely and got through a lot in the 20 hours. I also had a lot of homework, so several nights I was up past midnight getting it all done, as we usually spent the afternoons sightseeing. It was completely worth it though and hopefully it will help my Spanish to improve even more before we finish the trip. I was presented with a certificate on my last day, and there is a picture of me with my teacher below.

Granada, along with León, is one of the oldest cities in Central America, having been founded in 1524 by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, a Spanish conqueror, who was born in the Spanish city of Granada (hence the name). Over the years it has been the victim of several attacks, including at least three assaults by pirates. The most famous, however, dates back to 1856 when most of Granada was destroyed in a fire, which had been ordered by the North-American filibuster William Walker (yes, he is infamous in Nicaragua as well!). He had been contracted by the Liberals in León to help them fight against the Conservatives of Granada, and all went according to plan until Walker named himself President of Nicaragua and insisted that English would be the new official language, which obviously didn´t go down to well. What had been a civil war between the eternally rivalrous Granada and León turned into a war against Walker and his men, who eventually surrendered and returned to the US. Walker was later executed in Honduras in 1860.

Prior to Granada being founded, the area had been occupied by an indigenous tribe known as the Chorotegas, and Granada has a museum dedicated to indigenous artefacts, which have been discovered by archaeologists over the years. We visited the museum during a tour we did one afternoon and saw, among other things, funeral urns which were used as containers for the skeletal remains of someone once the body had decomposed in its grave. The tour was very original as our guide was also a singer, so throughout the afternoon she sang us a few songs, and she was even wearing a typical folklore dress. She knew so much about Granada, both before and after its foundation, and instead of the three hours that we had agreed on, she walked around with us for five hours, talking constantly. It was very interesting, although after a four hour Spanish lesson that morning, it was quite a lot for me to take in :)

The main square in Granada is surrounded by several impressive buildings including the cathedral and several houses belonging to people of importance such as the bishop, the family Pellas (originally from Italy, this family are the owner of several business interests in Nicaragua including the famous Flor de Caña, the national brand of rum) and Vasquez de Coronado. The latter was another Spanish conqueror, and the building still has its original door dating back to the 16th Century and now houses a cultural centre and historical archive, where Vic spent a few hours chatting to a historian while I was in class one day. He had to pretend that he was doing some research in order to get in :) Away from the main square, there are also several other houses that once belonged to important people, inlcuding former presidents, successful business men and the poet Ruben Darió. This building is now home to a café which has great doughnuts, which we treated ourselves to a few times :) Granada also has several churches, apart from the cathedral, including the San Francisco church, which is the oldest in Granada and also has a convent attached, the Guadalupe Church, which is situated on the way to Lake Nicaragua and the Xalteva Church, where we were able to see a special mass given by the bishop himself.

After our first night of luxury, we obviously had to return to sleeping in hostels, and we eventually ended up in a place with a Spanish owner, Antonio. He moved here from Valencia four years ago to set up a restaurant, having been working as a waiter in Valencia. A tropical storm left him stranded in the the middle of nowhere for a week, with no electricity, no drinking water and no means of communication. The storm had claimed the lives of several victims and seeing how little these people had, he decided that he wanted to help in some way. Four years later, he has a successful hostel and social project up and running, and he is fondly known as "Tio Antonio". All of the funding for the project comes from friends and family back home in Spain, and next to the hostel he also has a hammock workshop, where he employs young homeless people. Here they can learn a trade, earn a salary and transform their lives. Each time the hostel turns a profit of $100 a month he is able to employ another person, and he currently has 38 young people under his wing. He has successfully sent five of his employees to university, when before they might have never even thought it a possibility. Over the next few years he is planning to expand the project and has already purchased a big piece of land for which he already has several ideas. He has already achieved such a lot and helped so many people, and we wish him all the best for the future and hope that everything works out for him and the people he helps. If you´re interested in knowing more, their website is http://www.tioantonio.org/.

On the one day when I didn´t have to go to Spanish, we took a bus to Masaya for a few hours, which is famous for its handicrafts. There are two markets there, although we were not interested in seeing the main market, which is huge, crowded and very dirty. Instead we headed straight to the handicrafts market, which is fairly new and a lot smaller, cleaner and calmer. We bought a bracelet each to add to the ones we had bought in Costa Rica, and Vic also bought some old bank notes from 1985 for his collection. We were really tempted to buy a hammock as they were all so beautiful, but apparently the postage to send one back to Europe would cost more than the hammock itself, and there is no way we can carry one around with us, so unfortunately we had to decide against it in the end. Another time maybe. After so many days in Granada we were feeling quite settled and it was kind of sad to be leaving, but we still have a long way to go before December, so I guess we better get a move on :)

(Video from the mass that we saw at the Xalteva Church)