Granada

The first stop on our trip was the beautiful colonial town of Granada, located at the northern tip of Lago de Nicaragua (the largest lake in Central America). It was an excellent start to our adventures: clean, easy to navigate and conveniently located with a view of the volcanoes.

On our first morning we wandered around taking photo after photo of the brightly colored buildings and beautiful churches near the city center.

This is the town center of Granada. We ate our first breakfast in Nicaragua at a little cafe just to the left of this building.

Granada Cathedral. Very large and very yellow. And I imagine very hot once its packed with people. We did wander in to see the insides, which were nice but I think I like the outside better.

After only a few hours we decide that it was too hot to stay in the city and headed to Laguna de Apoyo. The Laguna is really a crater lake in an extinct volcano, approximately 30 min by public bus from Granada. Our hostel was located fairly close to the "bus stop" and since the bus driver's assistant's only job is to call out the destination whenever the bus spots people, it was fairly easy to catch a bus for the first leg of the trip. We each paid our 9 Cordobas (about $.50) and repeated our destination to the driver enough times for him to remember to tell us to get off the bus at the right spot. The lake, of course, is located at the bottom of a very large hill, which, of course, isn't served by public transit. But luckily for us, we only had to wait about 15 min for some locals to flag us down a ride to the bottom of the crater.

We spent the afternoon at a little restaurant on the lake edge relaxing and swimming. Much cooler than a day in the city!

On the way out, a nice group of university students from Managua stopped for us and gave us a lift to the top of the crater (for free no less!) where we were able to catch a bus back to Granada.

That evening we went out to try the local food at a small street vendor near our hotel. Dinner consisted of BBQed chicken, fried plantain and a spicy cabbage salad served on large leaves, all for less than a couple of $ each. The street vendor ran a very popular stop, sort of like a drive through, where people in cars would pull up to her BBQ and order dinner to go.


We finished off the night with a drink at a local bar before heading back to our hostel for some much needed sleep.