Managua Trip - Part 4: Granada

As we rolled into Granada, Stephanie and I were both amazed to discover that not only did the streets here actually have names, but that they were written on the buildings at every corner. Excited to finally have something by which to orient ourselves, we pulled out the only map we'd brought with us and started scanning streets. Not really having much idea where we wanted to go, we simply got off as soon as we knew where we were. From there, we headed in the direction of the central park with the idea that we'd rent one bed somewhere so we could drop off our purchases and lock up our passports before heading out to pass the night partying with all the city-slickers that travel to Granada specifically for that reason.

As we stepped off the bus, we found ourselves on a beautifully paved sidewalk that ran alongside a perfectly maintained cobblestone road. On either side, beautifully maintained buildings ran uninterrupted with glimpses into gorgeously furnished living rooms with leather chairs and mahogany bookshelves. Feeling as if we'd walked onto an alien planet after several months in the grit and poverty of Bluefields, we were astounded to be among such wealth. As we headed towards the center, the elegance of design and the level of detail dedicated to each building only increased. Soon, we stumbled upon a gorgeous old cathedral that was in some disrepair, but still stunning. A few more steps down the road we stepped into a small hostel to ask about getting a bed for the night. Finding the price of $6 to be worth our while, Stephanie checked in and took our belongings up to 'her' room. It was tiny little thing with 2 bunkbeds that must have been built in place as there's no way the could have been maneuvered into such a small space, but there were locking cupboards on the wall, which was all we really needed. Putting away our few belongings and locking up our passports, we headed back out to the street.

On our way out, we asked the guy tending the front desk if he knew of a place to shoot some pool. After looking at us as if we'd just asked whether we could buy cheese on the moon, he slowly responded yes, but why do you want to know? When we explained that we'd like to play, his face went pale and he seemed a bit taken aback. Apparently not that many young ladies come by and ask to play pool in this particular town (or in any other around here for that matter). In any case, he reluctantly informed us that the only pool hall in town was just around the corner and we took off with a spring in our step. Passing by the pool hall just to make sure we knew where it was, we headed off for a meandering walk through town to see where we had landed ourselves.

The further into the center of town we got, the more European the whole place felt. There were colonial style mansions, Roman-inspired promenades and French-style chariot rides through the central park. It was all a little disconcerting, but also equally refreshing. In any case, we walked the length of the main drag where every other storefront was a restaurant or bar with outdoor seating, and were about to head back up to make a dinner selection when Ricardo finally got around to calling. Apparently he'd actually made it to town and wanted to meet us for dinner. Hiking back up the street until we ran into him, we discussed our options for dinner and decided on pizza as the only affordable alternative in this true tourist trap. Luckily, it was the best pizza either of us had tasted in a very long time. Apparently the owner is Italian and you could certainly taste it in the food. Not to mention, the service was impeccable. I can't even begin to describe how entirely different dining in Granada is compared to Bluefields, or even to Managua. In Bluefields, you're lucky if someone comes to your table without whistling across the room repeatedly and possibly even getting up and going to the kitchen yourself. And god forbid you need anything in the middle of your meal. Basically, if it's not on the table when they bring your food, it's not gonna show up any other time. In Granada, the waiter stands just a few feet away waiting to jump should you need anything at all. You don't even have to ask for silverware, they just bring it!

Anyway, we followed up our delicious meal with some equally exquisite sorbe at a small shop just across town. I honestly haven't had sorbe that yummy since the last time I was in Italy. Not to mention, I ordered starfruit flavor, which I'm pretty sure doesn't show up on the menu most places.

Well, it was still kinda early when we finished eating, and we had a full night ahead of us, so we opted to shoot some pool before commencing the night in earnest. This was a truly entertaining experience. At first, Ricardo informed us that we couldn't go into the pool hall as it was 'dangerous' and the boys were gonna shout at us. Giving him a moment of consideration, we thought about this and then burst out laughing. The truth of the matter is, there isn't a single place in Nicaragua that Stephanie and I can go and NOT get hollered at. So, after confirming the lack of another location, we led our reluctant friend into the dark underbelly of Granada.

The pool hall was brightly lit with tables spaced perfectly to allow uninterrupted play. The tables were also reasonably flat and well taken care of, quite a treat in our experience. Watching Ricardo play on the other hand, was more than just amusing. I'm not sure if he'd actually never played or simply didn't care, but I've honestly never seen anyone play even close to that poorly. This fact produced quite a few grins from the boys at the table next to us as Stephanie and I repeatedly sunk balls and Ricardo was lucky to even contact the cue ball. Well, at least I think that's what they were grinning about. It could also have been the slew of pictures they were not-so-serupticiously taking of us with their cell phones...

In any case, we killed an hour or two at the pool hall before Ricardo's friend called and invited us all over to his house. We drove a little way out of town and pulled over in front of a rather non-descript wall just as his friend was pulling into the very, very narrow garage door. Surprised that he made it through without nocking off both rearview mirrors, we followed him in to the most magnificent home I may have ever been in. The garage was bordered by an open air courtyard with lush tropically shrubbery and a brillant green lawn. Through an archway a wide, covered walkway led around another beautifully landscaped courtyard with thick columns supporting the upper story(ies). As he led us in, we could see into a few of the rooms immediatly off of the veranda, each with at least 15ft ceilings intricately decorated with carved metal crates and textured plaster. The furniture was made of solid, hand carved wood and the floor was tiled in exquisite style. Settling into one of the many sets of seating arranged around the covered veranda (which must have been at least 20ft wide), we were introduced to our hosts and asked to make ourselves at home. Both Stephanie and I were floored by the opulance of our surroundings and weren't exactly sure how we had managed to end up there.

As we sat back, our host brought out his laptop and set it to play a political documentary that discussed Nicaraguan history. Although I was only able to understand a small fraction of the film, the discussions the flew back an forth among our friends were tantilizingly interesting. Again, I wasn't able to catch quite enough to relate those conversations, but they covered every angle of politics you could imagine. Not to mention, everytime a new specialist or political figure appeared on the documentary, our host would point to him or her and relate some story of personal connection. I'm still working on figuring out exactly whose house we stumbled into that night, but I have a feeling they hold quite a few strings in this country.

Eventually tiring of politics, Ricardo invited his friends to join us for a night on the town, which they unfortunately refused, and we headed back into the city. Our first stop of the night was Cafe Nuit, a flashy little place with some live music and all the tourists you could stomach. We ended up at one of the only non-tourist tables with some people Ricardo knew from Managua, but they had all been educated in the US, so it wasn't a particularly 'genuine' Nica experience. In fact, the whole scene was a little odd. The entire time I've been in Nicaragua, I've only really spent time with people who exist relatively low on the economic food chain. Here, I was surrounded by young, rich blooded, college-educated individuals. It was a bit of a culture shock to see these very latino guys talking an acting like US frat boys. Not to mention, they weren't really interested in talking or getting to know us, just in convincing either Stephanie or myself to 'go for a ride' with them. Especially uncomfortable was the indifference they exhibited as to which one of us they wanted to take home. They simply tried one and then the other when they were refused. For the most part, we managed to ignore this and chat with the lovely girl from Argentina that was also at the table, but when they asked us to go back to Managua with them to party there for the rest of the night, we opted to decline. In fact, we were kindof hoping they'd take Ricardo with them when they left as he was getting progressively drunker and more annouying as the night went on. No such luck. They headed off and Ricardo stayed.

Then the lights went out.

Taking this as an omen, Stephanie and I discussed how we might be able to ditch our now inebriated friend without too much bad blood, considering he's a friend of our 'boss.' Just as we had decided to use the power outage as an excuse to call it a night and run, they got the generator going and the music came back in full force. We danced a couple more songs then told Ricardo we needed to drop off a few things at our hostel. He very reluctantly walked the 4 blocks with us after we refused to ride in the car with him. It was really interesting to see how uncomfortable he was with being on the streets. I have a feeling that being wealthy in Nicaragua comes with its own dangers, possibly even more so than being a foreigner. In any case, we made it back to the place we had rented with only a minor detour due to poorly recollected directions. Once there, Steph went up to the room and informed me that it was my job to get rid of Ricardo so we could go back out and enjoy the rest of the night. Using her as an excuse, I lied through my teeth and told him we weren't up for anything else that evening and we were gonna call it a night. After a very akward conversation, I finally managed to say goodnight and proceeded back up to the single bed we had rented. This was accompanied by a few odd stares from the young man at the desk, but he thankfully didn't say anything.

Hanging out in our room for a few minutes to give Mr. R a head start out the door, we started chatting with our bunk mates, 2 gorgeous European guys who were on backpacking trips. Despite our best efforts to rouse them from bed and have them accompany us to go dancing, the were insistent on calling it a night. Instead, we regaled them with tales of Bluefields and the Caribbean Coast. Pretty sure they only believed half of everything we told them, and I'm positive they thought we were drunk beyond belief, but we were just high on life by that point in time. In any case, after a very amusing little while, we decided the coast had to be clear and snuck back out into the night.

Finding ourselves quite to be rather starving, we wandered around town for awhile looking for some sort of food, but to no avail. It being well past midnight by that point in time, everyone had closed up for the night, including most of the nightclubs. However, we had heard that the real party got started down on the lake front when the town center shut down, so we flagged a cab and made our way to 'Kayak.' This place was a really cool little spot with a thatched hut bar and dance floor accompanied by seating scattered along the beach. Some of the tables landed beneath a beautiful old tree whose branches easily spread 40ft across with gorgeous, dense leaves of a rich, dark green. Kayak also served food, which made us exceedingly happy.

Stephanie and I sat down, very happy to have a private table a good distance from all the oggoling men across the way. No sooner had our waiter returned with our drinks than he informed us that the guys over yonder had asked permission to come join us. Amused, but not interested, we refused their offer and managed to make it through our delicious meal of frijoles cremas, fried chicken and plantains relatively unmolested. Of course, our privacy was too good to last. Not 5 mins after we'd finished eating, a very talkative young man approached us and began chatting. When he realized we both spoke Spanish, he sat himself down and entertained us with non-stop chit-chat. Luckily for him, he was thoroughly amusing and spoke very clear, fluid Spanish, so we let him stay. Then we discovered the real reason for his approach when he called 2 of his friends over to join us. We all chatted for awhile until the first gentleman, who was by far the most interesting, mysteriously departed and left us with his two rather inebriated companions, both of whom were more interested in convincing us to come back to their place than actually talking to us. We tried switching to dancing, but that didn't last long as both of them were more interested in feeling us up than actually dancing. Instead, we both ended up being informed we were the most beautiful women in the world and that our respective boys were each desperately in love with us.

Watching the sunrise over the lake, we decided it was probably time to ditch the guys somewhere around the 7th time they tried to kiss us. Telling them we were gonna walk back to town, we started heading up the beach accompanied by their incredulous stares, but thankfully not their presence. Wandering back along the beach and through the back streets to our hostel, we got a very different view of Granada than the one presented by the main streets. In the back alleys, there were no grand homes with tiled roofs and porches that spilled onto the street. Instead, there were the same ramshackle wood and tin structures that we had become accustomed to in our less touristy travels. Happy to see that Granada did in fact have real residents, and not just foreigners passing through, we eventually found our way back to the hostel. There, we each passed out for a few minutes in the hammocks swaying in the foyer before rising again and getting on our way.