Toucans, Tarpons, and Temples: Granada, Nicaragua

After the disappointment of Leon, Granada was a breath of fresh air. However, getting there was a bit of an adventure. Liam was feeling a bit carsick upon our arrival, and given his vomiting episode on the way from Antigua to Copan Ruinas, I wanted to make sure he had as close to a front row seat as possible. However, first things first, he had to puke.

As soon as we were off the bus we started getting mobbed by bus 'helpers.' I pushed through them and got Liam into a bathroom. Fortunately he was feeling better just being off the bus and no longer felt nauseous. When we walked back out into the bus station, the mob descended on me again. Men started grabbing my arms and my bags, and were literally pulling me in two (maybe three?) different directions at once, each shouting in my face, trying to get me and my family onto the bus *he* was working for. When one of them grabbed Lochlan's arm and started leading him off, Amy's tone of voice chagned significantly and my fight-or-flight reponse was triggered hard. I knew these guys were just trying to be helpful, but I was about to start swinging. Instead, I wrenched my arms free, raised my voice and said "TIME OUT!!!" They backed off, probably not because they understood my words, but I'm pretty sure my tone of voice and body language were very clear. I pointed at one of the men and asked if Liam could sit in the front of his bus. He said "Si si si!" We got on that bus, Liam sat in front, I calmed down, and everything went smoothly.

Our arrival in Granada was lovely. The streets were clean, the buildings were well maintained and freshly painted, and best of all, we met lots of friendly people everywhere. Our bus dropped us off just south of the Parque Central, which was full of trees and a functioning, clean fountain. The cathedral is beautiful and painted in striking yellow and white. Our hotel was just a block south of the cathedral. We walked up the front gate and were met by Gerry, a heavy set Irish man (!) who owns the place. Like many of the buildings in colonial Central America, it fronts direclty on the street and has an interior courtyard. This particular courtyard was filled with--a swimming pool! The boys were very happy to see it and were swimming in a matter of minutes. Gerry gave us a map and a very helpful rundown on the layout of the city, where to go to eat, sites to see, guides he recommends, etc.

The boys enjoying a shaved ice in the shade of the Cathedral in Granada

Cordoba, founder of Granada

Courtyard pool at our hotel. Our room is on the right.

Another shot of the hotel

In the pool the boys met Ana and JJ, two Scottish kids from Lochgoilhead in the highlands. Their mom, Annette, is a doctor there, and their dad, John, is working towards a doctorate in religious studies with an emphasis on Latin America (hence the trip). The kids were a bunch of fun and I threw each of them in the pool what felt like about 100 times.

We scheduled a tour for the next day through Gerry, then walked around the town, checking out the central park, the cathedral, and the local shops. We had a very nice dinner at an ecletic restaurant called El Camillo, which featured avocado fries (!) as an appetizer. I can heartily recommend this culinary innovation.

The next day we were picked up outside our hotel by a packed tourist van that took us up to lake Apoyo, which is located in the caldera of an extinct volcano. It reminded me of a less dramatic version of Crater Lake, but with jungle instead of evergreen forest on the slopes. The water was clean, clear and refreshing, and we spent the day swimming, kayaking, and playing on the beach. We stayed until the afternoon, when the van took us back into town. It was a very relaxing way to spend the hottest part of the day. We ended the day with shaved ice from a vendor in the park followed by another stroll around town and dinner at a restaurant that served us the worst Mexican food I have ever tasted. It was truly execrable. We were also visited by about 15 vendors, who walked right up to our table as we were eating and asked if we wanted to buy. It was pretty annoying and really detracted from the al fresco dining experience.

Lochlan paddling in Lake Apoyo

View of the lakeshore

Enjoying the water

Amy and the boys during our swim

The resort where we hung out for the day

Liam playing on the beach

Enjoying a tasty Nicaraguan brew on the beach

Enjoying a fancy drink at the horrible 'Mexican' restaurant

Amy gets serenaded

The fortunate part about eating at the horrible Mexican restaurant is we found Leo's Tours. Leo is a Nicaraguan, and a super duper nice guy. We signed up for a tour of the Mombacho volcano and left from his office at 9:30 the next morning.

Our guide for the day was a young man named Alejandro. He is studying to become a biologist and is very interested in conservation. He was so excited when he learned that Amy worked as a wildlife biologist! He told us that very few Nicaraguans are interested in conserving the counry's national resources, and he wants to work to change that.

We drove with Alejandro to the park entrance, where we had to wait about a half hour for the departure of a truck specially designed to carry large groups of people up the extremely steep slopes of the volcano. The road is paved almost the entire way with cobble-like stones, but at points the road is so steep I was convinced the entire vehicle would just topple over backwards. Fortunately for all of us it just kept climbing, slowly but steadily, like some kind of mechanical mounain goat.

At about 700 meters elevation the truck stopped at the Las Flores coffee plantation. We tried some of the Nicaraguan coffee grown on the slopes of Mombacho, and even though I don't like coffee per se, I could tell that this was very high quality stuff. They also had a specially protected garden area with a sign showing a red-eyed tree frog. Liam has wanted to see one of these animals since we moved to Belize, so he asked one of the workers if there were any frogs in the enclosure, and he said "Si! Estan aqui!" and he pointed them out. They were asleep, and so well camouflaged that we were looking directly at them and still couldn't see them until the guy picked up the leaf and pointed his finger right at the frog. He very gently prodded the frog through the leaf so it would wake up, and when the frog opened its eyes and moved its legs, all sorts of colors sprang to life--bright red eyes, orange feet, blue belly stripes--it was so beautiful! We snapped some pictures and watched for a couple minutes more until all the frogs went back to sleep.

We continued on to the summit of the volcano, which was completely wreathed in billowing clouds (hence the name, cloud forest). Alejandro led us on a hike around two of the craters, stopping frequently to show us plants, bromeliads, trees, fungi, insects, frogs, and various other organisms. He would often use the latin name for species and look at Amy meaningfully, as if she would surely know what he was talking about. It was pretty funny and I think Amy was flattered but eventually got it through to him that *everything* we were seeing was a new species to her.

The special truck that took us up the volcano

We stopped at this coffee plantation about halfway up Mombacho

We saw a red-eyed tree frog at the plantation!

After hiking around to the 'dry' side of the volcano we walked through a field of orchids (seriously) then sat down at a beautiful vista for some fruit salad. The boys agreed that the mangos we had that day were the best mangos of all time.

We cleaned up and continued hiking, and just before finishing our loop we noticed one of the other tourists standing in the middle of the trail ahead of us. We asked what he was looking at, and he just pointed up into the trees, where we saw---a SLOTH! After staring at him for a couple minutes, he raised his head to look down at us and he was very cute. We were all very excited, because a sloth is one of the species we were all looking forward to seeing on this trip.

On top of the volcano. Note clouds.

Found this tree frog in a bromeliad

In a slot canyon formed by flowing lava!

Amy with her arm in a fumerole

We saw this beautiful field of wild flowers...

...that turned out to be orchids!!

View of Granada and Lake Nicaragua from the top of the volcano

Interesting fruits we found on the trail. Our guide told us the name, but it is long and difficult to pronounce and has fled my mind.

Sloth! Of the two-toed variety.

The drive down was even more exciting than the drive up, and I kept thinking that we were placing a lof of faith in the mechanic who last serviced the transmission and brakes on the truck, but it was a very uneventful descent.

We bid adieu to Alejandro at the road junction and the driver took us back into town, where he said Leo had a surprise waiting for the boys. We returned to the office, where Leo gave each boy a t-shirt and he told us we could take out some of his rental bikes for no additional charge the nex day. It was a very nice end to the day.

In the morning after breakfast we walked back to Leo's shop and took him up on his offer. There were a handful of sites we hadn't yet seen, so we started biking towards the lakeshore where we saw a statue of Cordoba, the founder of Granada (490 years ago!). On the pedal back up the hill towards town, the rear tire on Amy's bike got jammed into the side of the frame and I could not unjam it without tools, so we walked the bikes back to Leo's shop, thanked him again, then picked up our stuff at the hotel and walked through the market to the bus station to find a ride to Rivas.