Chapter 3: Gracias Granada

Well this is the last night of my three week stay in Granada so I thought I should write a few words from the peace and tranquility of my new hostel. I moved out of the casa of the family I was staying with today – and was much relieved to have my own space and some slightly more luxurious surroundings. I don’t think I ever really settled in with my homestay family, feeling a more like a squatter infringing on their space than a guest in their house – but I defiantly gave it a good effort… hopefully the next one will be a bit more symatico. Here I can stay up as late as I like and type into the wee hours of the night time – which for me means about now (11:00pm). And there is no tv blaring, no kids shouting, no indoor barbecue fumes and no pumping 80’s hits from the cantina across the street.

So in my last week and a half or so I filled my time with Spanish lessons and volunteer work, and sitting in cafes and wandering streets. I think I’ve manger to scout out every hostel in the city since I’ve been here. I’ve become a regular at the international phone place by the language school (as international calls are incredibly cheap here). I have explored an active volcano,



visited a few crazy latin American marcados,




had a few negative run ins with some pan handlers/generally sketchy people, had several positive encounters with all kinds of Nicaraguan people, delivered school supplies to some very underprivileged schools,



visited an all too authentic neighborhood pub, purchased some local artisanal works, familiarized myself with the Nicaraguan postal system, sipped back several glasses of fresh orange, mandarin, star fruit and passion fruit juice, consumed deep fried cheese on an almost daily basis, took an ill-fated ride nicaraguense style on the cross bar of a bicycle the wrong way up a one way street, jettisoned my fear of walking alone after dark before 9pm, taught English to some local 20-somethings and did a lot of other things that I are just not coming to mind at this moment. And after all of this, I am left feeling very much in need of a vacation, which is slightly ironic considering I am on vacation, and I thought I was on a slow kind of vacation where I would have millions of hours of free time…so now I am fantasizing about escaping to the corn islands on the Caribbean coast,,, and I think I will fall asleep right now with that very pleasant vision in my head.

So in general Granada was a lovely city, so many beautiful buildings, the most beautiful of which were the ones that were run down and derelict. I will certainly try to spend a bit more time there in the future.