Roaming the streets of Granada

It’s difficult to plan your day when you don’t know what’s going on. Initially, we were meant to leave Granada at 2pm today, and had the morning to ourselves to explore the town. This got brought forward to 12 noon, and then we were told we’d have a briefing at 11am.

We have breakfast in the hotel as the place we had in mind – with good organic Nicaraguan coffee – doesn’t open on Tuesdays. And then as we’re ready to go and explore, Dennis told us that the briefing is cancelled; we’re not moving on and will be in Granada all day. Oh.

Our first excusion took us to La Merced church. As we admired the stunning facade of the church, a man passed us holding a squeaking piglet in each hand. The church is a lovely old building. We went in and came across some funny odd looking saints. We paid 30 cordobas each (about 84p each) and climbed a very narrow staircase to the roof which offered great views over the city. The wind up there was relentless, and we both held on to the railings a couple of times.

The wind… the very reason we are stuck in Granada for an extra night.

We moved on to the Central Square which we have been banned to visit at night for security reasons, and to the cathedral which is currently being renovated. The new murals are striking in their unusualness.

We headed back to our room briefly to put on lighter layers (we had dressed for an air-conditioned bus ride today, not sunny Granada).

I insisted on making a trip to the supermarket to buy some rum to take home. From there, it’s a small walk to the railway station via the Poets’ square. We paid a man 30 cordobas each and got access to an old engine, the former platforms and a few carriages (including the presidential one). Andy is a happy bunny.

We continued to the San Francisco church and former convent – now a museum. There are five strands to the museum and we take our time (there isn’t that much to do in town). The first patio is dedicated to religious festivals and folklore – all the descriptions of the ceremonies describe people roaming the streets. The next bit is a model of the city and we tried to work out what we have done and seen so far. We passed some wooden doors, presumably rescued from colonial buildings. Next, there are two rooms full of art from local artists – colourful naive style. Some depicting the gruesome history of Nicaragua. This is followed by religious artefacts and odd looking wooden representations of saints and Jesus. The explanation is that carving wasn’t a local skill until the Conquistadors came and trained locals in the art. The last part was reproductions of mesoamerican stonework, and some old pots. It’s a very odd museum. The good thing about it is the layout; it’s in the old convent so all the rooms face internal courtyards with palm trees and rocking chairs in the shade.

We stopped for lunch at the amazing Garden Cafe. We tucked into a fresh avocado, carrot and hummus sandwich and a tabbouleh and hummus wrap. Delicious. I ordered a mint lemonade and Andy got a machiatto (the best coffee he’s had in a long time). We’re about to go when we noticed a hummingbird darting about; we observed it for a while. They’re funny little things.

We explored a few more back streets on the way back to the hotel, peaking inside various art galleries.

We had cold drinks by the pool, wrote our diaries and waited for our 6pm briefing. The winds haven’t let off; our prospect for tomorrow is not great: we either stay another day in Granada (please no, we really struggled to fill our day today) or leave Nicaragua for Costa Rica a day early and forget about the Ometepe Islands (we were supposed to have two nights there, tonight being the first of these but the ferry’s cancelled due to the high wind). We’re still in the dark about our plans for tomorrow; our next briefing is 9am tomorrow.

Oh weather, why are you so hard on us?