Granada!

When we finally left San Juan del Sur (Friday, May 9, 2014), we took a bus into the nearby town of Rivas hoping to get a transfer into Granada, a Spanish colonial town which many other travellers had recommended to us. Upon arriving in the small market/bus station in Rivas, several taxi drivers began accosting us while we tried to figure out where the next bus we needed to take would stop. A young, teenage boy informed us the next bus wouldn't arrive for another two hours, so we decided to take a taxi instead. The taxi driver was happy to drive us the 70 km from Rivas to Granada. I even managed to convince him to drive us for C$150 (about $6 CAD) instead of the C$250 he had originally asked for. It wasn't much money, but I was proud of myself for having successfully gotten a better deal. It is interesting how Nicaraguan taxi drivers are happy to drive to another city more than an hour drive away, while Canadian taxi drivers will only drive in one city.

We arrived in the central square in Granada just before dusk and immediately made our way to the Hostel Oasis, which my sister had recommended to us. I paid for my room key and was searching for my dorm when we ran into our friend Bryan! I had to do a double take. We had said goodbye to our Manitoban friends twice already, once in La Fortuna and then a second time in San Juan del Sur after unexpectedly meeting up with them, so we definitely did not expect to be staying with them yet another city. This was a pleasant surprise, as Bryan, Vanessa, and Rob are always fun people to spend time with, and they had already spent a day in Granada, so they knew their way around and were able to recommend us a place to get quesadillas for dinner.

A local Mariachi band performs three songs for only C$100

That evening we went for drinks with Bryan, Vanessa, Rob, and Sam, another traveller at our hostel who was from Vancouver. I ordered a rum and coke, which cost C$120 (about $5) similar to what it costs in Canada. However, the price was where the similarities end. I was brought a regular glass bottle of coke and a full mickey of 4 year old Flor de Cana rum, as was advertised. Then, to my surprise the server gave me a second half-mickey of rum. I told him I hadn't ordered it, but he said that it was a special promotion. So for the same price, my rum and coke came with about 10 times as much rum as I would receive back home. Needless to say, I did not finish the rum. Fortunately Nicaraguan liquor laws are very lax, so I simply brought the remaining rum with me when I left the pub. While we were socializing that evening, several Mariachi bands were walking around trying to get us to hire them to play some songs for us. I wasn't that interested in paying C$100 just to hear music, but Bryan decided to hire a group of three men to play three songs for us. They played nylon-string guitar and sang traditional music.
We spent one full day (Saturday, May 10, 2014) in Granda exploring the city, seeing the various historic buildings there. As a Spanish colonial town, the architecture is beautiful, however much of it is unfortunately not well maintained. We also visited several museums mostly displaying art and pottery.

Iglesia de la Merced

Our first stop was the Iglesia de la Merced. This church has a tall clock tower, and we were told by both our guide book and by other travellers that it was possible to climb the clock tower for $1 and we could get an excellent aerial view of the city from the top of the tower. Unfortunately, no one was working there as it was the weekend, so we could only admire the church from the outside.

After seeing a museum, we headed west and came across an art gallery. It was free entrance so we went inside and looked around. The place was packed full of art and was much more crowded than any Canadian art gallery I had ever visited. What's more, all the items had prices as if this was not a gallery but a store. The prices were way out of my price range, but Hugh had his eye on a ceramic plate with a traditional lizard design on it. Out of curiosity he enquired about whether or not it was possible to ship an item he purchased back to Canada. A few minutes later he was on the phone with the gallery's owner who offered to sell him the plate he was interested in for much cheaper. Hugh couldn't turn the deal he had been offered, so we went to the bank and when we returned the gallery's owner had arrived to sell Hugh the plate. He ended up purchasing it and was able to mail it, wrapped in foam, back to Ottawa

A painting of Granada at the local art gallery

We found exactly where the picture on the
cover of the guidebook was taken!

Arguably the most famous building in Granada is its cathedral which is situated just off of the main square. This building is so iconic that it can even be found on the front cover of the Lonely Planet's Central America on a Shoestring, our travel guide which we picked up in San Juan del Sur and prevented us from getting too lost on our trip. This cathedral was one of the few buildings which was open to the public. Many people inside were praying, making it very difficult to get a good photo without random strangers in it.

At the far west end of our map, there was one last stop I wanted to visit: Fortaleza de la Polvera. This appeared to be an old Spanish fort. When I was 18 and 19, I spent two summers working in Canadian historic sites at Fort George and Fort Henry, which are British forts from 1812 and 1867, respectively. I was excited to see a Spanish fort built in 1748 to see how it differed from the ones which I have worked at since it was built by a different country in a different time period. The fort was quite far, way outside of the touristy part of town and pretty soon, we were the only people there who did not look local. We decided to stop for lunch and ended up in a little cafe. This cafe was very out of place. It served fancy, expensive, vegan food and craft beer. It was run by a Nicaraguan hipster, a demographic I was previously unaware of the existence of, yet it was located in a poor neighbourhood which I can only assume was filled with people who were neither vegan nor had the means to buy vegan food with the prices this cafe was charging.

Viewing el Fortaleza de la Polvera from
outside through a musket port

After a very expensive salad, we continued on to the fort. To my great disappointment, the doors were securely locked, and it didn't appear that the fort was ever open to guests. I was still able to look at the fort from the outside. The fort's limestone walls formed a star pattern with bastions at each corner in the perfect location to fire weapons along the walls at anyone attacking the fort. This design was common to both forts I've worked at and all other British forts I've seen, so I was not surprised to see the Spanish had used the same technique. Another common feature was the numerous musket ports around the fort. These are small holes in the wall, just big enough for someone in the fort to fire a musket through. Luckily for me, these holes were also the perfect size for viewing inside the fort!