Granada

Granada is just one of many quant cobblestone stones we’ve visited in Central America. Easily lost among the ranks of San Juan del Sur, Suchitoto, Antigua, and a slew of other towns we didn’t have time to visit. What sets Granada apart is its reputation as the art and cultural center of Nicaragua. When we arrived we opted for one of the less crowded hostels. We were pleasantly surprised when our double room turned out to have not only a double bed, but also a bunk bed and second room attached.

We made our standard tour through the town. Asking the reception where the closest market was (which we didn’t find till 24 hours later), checking Lonely Planet for good places to eat, and roaming the streets. We grabbed a bag of mango from a lady on the corner and made our way to the central plaza. Joee and I were sitting on a bench splitting the bag of very much unripened mango when a little girl came up and asked for a piece. We gave her one and another for her brother and sister, playing with I assume to be their mother on the bench opposite us. The younger sister came up and asked for another piece and we willingly handed over the rest of the bag. Moments later the first girl came back and asked for a dollar. I politely told her in Spanish, that we weren’t going to give her a dollar. It was at this point that she had a few choice words to throw our way. I started laughing, mostly in shock, and told Joee whose reaction was on par.

We were less pleasantly surprised when we went back to our room after dinner to find that the one light bulb for our giant room was burnt out. After asking the three women at the front desk if they had a spare, each of them coming to our room in succession to make sure that our light bulb was indeed burnt out, they finally found one. The problem now was how to make the exchange at 12 feet without a ladder. Joee’s game plan: drag the bunk bed to the middle of the room, stand on top of it and make the switch. I expected the women to react with murmurs of safety issues, possible law suits, etc., but they were completely onboard with the idea. Ten minutes later, we had light.

So Handy

The next morning Joee and I took a tour just outside of Granada to go zip lining in the canopy. It was here that I made the cardinal sin of traveling: I forgot the camera. For this there are no pictures of either of us zipping down on a cable suspended 40 feet above the jungle floor. We took turns between going solo and pairing up with the guides for feats such as “The Monkey” or “Superman”. On our last run they asked us if we wanted a surprise. We said, “Yes”. They asked us if we wanted to go down regular or upside down (“The Monkey”). We replied, “Monkey.” They strapped me in for my last run and as I made my way down I could see one of the tour guides waiting at the bottom. Only this time he started pulling down on the cable. At first I bounced up a little bit, he pulled down harder, the line bounced harder this time, and I bounced a lot. Suspended upside down, zipping along a cable 20 feet in the air I started to laugh because that’s all I could do from stopping the wave of nausea and motion sickness that was washing over me.

The next morning we set off to Granada to catch one of the nicer buses to El Salvador. We’d heard mixed reviews about the country. Both guide books and fellow travelers telling us it wasn’t worth our time. Either way we knew there would be good pupusas and decided to go anyways. Our $50 bus ride, by far the most we’ve spent, was three hours late.

King Quality slightly made up for this by providing delicious snack packs, playing The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with English subtitles, and taking care of everything at our two border crossings through Honduras. Nonetheless I was still slightly nervous when we landed in San Salvador at 1am with no idea where we were, no reservations and no idea what would be open.