Nicaragua I: The Beginning

How do I love Nicaragua? Let me count the ways.

I left San José on the Ticabus at 6:00 am Friday morning. All three Shrek movies in Spanish later, we arrived to the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border. Ri. Diculous. The Costa Rican side was orderly and calm except for the cambistas outside exchanging currency, and we waited in line as an immigration official methodically stamped each of our passports one at a time. On the Nicaraguan side, however, the station was bustling with impoverished beggars and sidewalk vendors of sandals, ice cream, and pirated DVDs. We handed all of our passports to one bus official who had them mass stamped by a Nicaraguan official and handed them back to us.

We hopped back on board the Ticabus and rode around the outskirts of Lake Nicaragua (10th largest freshwater lake in the world) while observing everything from oxen pulling carts of fruit in Nandaime to people pulling rickshaws in Rivas. We arrived to Granada, a colonial city and former capital of Nicaragua on the northern shore of the Lake.

The city was beautiful, full of ornate churches and well-preserved colonial buildings. Marring the setting was the swarm of noticeably malnourished beggars and children selling cigarettes in the tourist sections of the city. They were at first difficult to turn down. Later, a notice printed on a restaurant menu advised us not to give to them because more often than not (at least in the comparatively rich city of Granada) the beggars just want tourist food like french fries and buying cigarettes from children encourages them to stay out of school. I still don't know how to feel about it because there were people there that obviously needed immediate help.

However, we pressed on with the exploration of the city. First, we went to the belltower of La Merced church which, for a $1 donation to the church renovation fund, offered a grand view over the city. In the background are the Catedral de Granada and Lake Nicaragua (known to locals as Cocibolca).

The city had several beautiful churches, among them la Iglesia Xalteva (first) and la Iglesia María Auxiliadora (second).

We wrapped up a day with a tour through Las Isletas, a group of 365 islands in the Lake formed by an ancient explosion of the nearby Volcán Mombacho. Today, everything exists there from a boat graveyard and an indigenous village to a monkey reserve and luxury mansions. Below is a picture of the ceiba tree on one of the islands, a tree regarded as holy by many indigenous groups throughout Central America.

We stayed long enough to see the sunset over the lake from the Isla del Castillo, site of a 17th Century Spanish fort designed as a lookout to protect Granada from pirate invasions. That's right. Lake pirates.

Some more high points from Granada:

1) Smoke on the horizon. We thought at first that forest fires might have been threatening Granada. Au contraire, a tour guide told us. The locals were in fact burning some trees to drive out iguanas, which they would catch, roast, and eat for the upcoming Holy Week.

2) Power outages. Granada experienced some rolling blackouts one night we were there. It was not a faulty grid, but downed power lines caused by falling trees (whether related to strong winds or to the iguana massacre, I know not). It was difficult negotiating through the hotel and down the street to the restaurant district with absolutely no light, not even from cars.

3) Azul. I bought the c. 1890 book by Rubén Darío, Nicaragua's most famous writer, while in Granada. I tried to read a couple of the included poems. I may or may not finish it.

Sunday morning we awoke early and left for Masaya and Managua, cities to be discussed in upcoming posts.