nicaragua...part 3 (finally!)

So, finally, here’s part 3 of 3 (promise) of my trip to Nicaragua!

Thursday, February 26
We got up early that morning to head out to Masaya, which is famous for its grand markets. We had not done a whole lot of touristy shopping, and although none of us are fanatic shoppers, we were looking forward to seeing what they had. It turns out there were no buses from León directly to Masaya, and as such we had to take a bus back to Managua where we didn’t wait long in catching another bus to Masaya. We arrived in the late morning, and immediately took a taxi to a local hostel that was highly recommended in our handy Lonely Planet book. The hostel, unfortunately, was closed for repairs, so we did some more searching. A friendly looking place across the street was open, but they didn’t have space for three. Our third stop finally was a success, finally getting a room in a small place with reasonable prices. We all decided that the interior, while clean and certainly cozy, was horrendously ugly, with terrible color coordination in the paint and furniture and bizarre works of art scattered about the lobby. Oh well, it all looks the same while you’re sleeping, right?
After locking up our stuff in the room, we headed out to the market. The first one we found was monstrous, with shops covering a couple city blocks, and all with a ton of stuff inside. A lot of it was very cool to look at, but, as it is with many tourist shops, most of the items we saw were the kind of things you say to yourself, “Well, what the heck would I do with it once I got home?” The whole set up was very, very touristy, but since the place was so famous we pretty much expected it. After a few hours of wandering aimlessly looking at various trinkets that quickly began to blend together, we sat down at a nearby restaurant for some quick lunch. Ashley L. was feeling a little better, and she at least had a bit of food, but not much. While seated, we had quite an eclectic variety of persons approach our table: a few kids simply asked us for money, one lady tried to sell us some chocolate powder (for cocoa? I’m not sure), another kid tried to sell us some pirated DVDs (I would have bought “Che,” but he only had one half of it), a dog continuously came back to see if we would share some of our greasy fajitas, and one woman actually managed to sell us some cookies which tasted something like ginger snaps (she got me good with the free sample).
Well fed and ready for a bit more exploring, we headed farther into town to look for a second market which many tourists down visit, but was supposedly a little cheaper and more local-based (not so touristy). We did find it, eventually, and it was even bigger than the first one! This market was all indoors, and it certainly had a different feel to it. Although most of the tourist goods being sold were similar to those of the first market, there was a large variety of other types of shops, selling everything from rice and beans to fried chicken to fabrics, and I saw one shop that I think was selling scrap metal (not sure…).
By this point we were pretty tired of tourist goods, and after Ashley² patiently waited for me to barter down a wall decoration as best I could we headed back to the hostel to rest. We played cards for a bit more, and even took a while to just rest on our beds. I wasn’t feeling terribly tired, but Ashley L. was still recovering from the day before and for an equally inexplicable reason Ashley H. was starting to feel a little under the weather as well. As it was late afternoon, we decided to just rest up before going out in the evening. While having lunch, we saw a group of men running around with speakers and cords on a nearby stage, and when we asked our waiter what for, he told us that every Thursday night (what luck!) there was live music in the market plaza. Later that evening, as Ashley² rested I watched a little bit of “The Departed” on TV (with both Spanish audio and subtitles…which I couldn’t really figure out).
Finally we headed out back to the market, where we couldn’t really figure out how to get back in the plaza until we found an entrance where we had to pay a cover fee. Approaching the stage we saw a sea of tables and chairs set up, and almost immediately a waiter approached us and led us to a table. This was around 9:30 or so, and even though Ashley H. by this point had completely lost her appetite (I was worried I was next), and Ashley L. ordered a small salad, I was completely starving and ordered a plate of chicken and rice which I downed in no time. The live music turned out to be more of a combination of bands that played by themselves (to which the crowd occasionally danced) and bands that provided music for a series of dancers who provided us with a wide variety of traditional Latin dances. The dancers were fantastic, and the traditional clothing they wore was beautiful! It was all very colorful, no doubt, in part, due to the fact that a good third of the audience was gringos. Overall we had a great time, and the only thing we regretted was not bringing a camera! Oh well.

Friday, February 27
Because our hostel did not serve breakfast, we went next door that morning to the second hostel that wouldn’t take us for the night but gladly made us something to eat. We sat down with a couple of Australians whom we had seen the day before and were staying in the same hostel. Waiting a while for our pancakes and gallo pinto to be served, we got to know the couple, Mike and Yenny, fairly well. Yenny is a native Malaysian who speaks fluent Mandarin along with English and her native Malay, and after moving to Australia a few years ago she met Mike and the two married. They had just begun an enormous four-month vacation, including basically every country of Hispanic America, Spain, and Finland (random ending, no?). Over breakfast we realized that both they and we were planning to go to Volcán Masaya that morning, so the five of us crammed into a taxi and headed to the park.
While it probably would have cost very little for us to continue the taxi ride up to the volcano crater, we decided to walk the road. The way up turned out to be considerably longer than we thought, and it was a very hot day. Fortunately we had plenty of water with us, and we made it up tired but hydrated! Volcán Masaya was very different from Telica, in that it had a parking lot directly next to the crater and it had a good-sized crowd peering into the crater’s depths from either the parking lot or a lookout point with a large cross stationed above. The other notable difference was the fact that we were actually separated by a barrier from the crater’s edge, and this time we couldn’t get as close. Nevertheless, the crater was pretty spectacular, and although the noxious steam was a little agitating when one got in its path, it was worth the walk. Since we pre-arranged a time for our taxi driver to come pick us up at the same spot, we soon had to turn around and head back down the long, hot path to the roadside ranger station.
When we arrived back in Masaya we had lunch with Yenny and Mike before bidding them farewell. Ashley² was still without appetite, and I was a little concerned that my friends were hardly eating at all, but we could do little else other than continue on our loose itinerary. After gathering up all our stuff at the hostel we made away to Masaya’s bus station, where a horde of rickety buses were coming and going in an unperceivable system directed by shouting drivers and young children who helpfully led travelers to the bus they sought. The chaos was only matched by the vendors in the area, who scurried from bus to bus loudly reciting the food, medication, or even book they were trying to sell. Finally our bus got moving for a short ride to Granada.
Granada is one of the oldest colonial towns in Central America, and it is certainly maintained better than most. Likely the most popular tourist spot in Nicaragua, it is also said to be the safest city in Central America. One of our friends from last semester highly recommended the hostel Oasis near the bus station, and thankfully they had space and we got our dorms for the night. It was a pretty nice place, with a layout extremely similar to that of LazyBones in León. On arrival Ashley H. was feeling particularly sick and exhausted, so Ashley L. and I let her take a long nap while we went out to explore the town a little bit. We found a couple of grand churches and stumbled upon the beautiful and active central park, next to which there is a cobblestone street with a long stretch of inviting restaurants boasting delicacies of myriad nationalities.
Finally we headed back to the hostel to relax a bit before waking up Ashley H. and going out to get some food at a Mexican restaurant we had seen on the cobblestone street – the food was delicious. During our meal there was a steady stream of street performers, who are eager to do their best to get the fine-dining gringos to empty their pockets just a bit more. Ashley L. did give some money to a group of teenagers who did some amazing break dancing. Other than the dancers, there were a couple groups who came by and did some really strange traditional (maybe?) dancing while wearing gigantic decorative costumes in the form of a woman in traditional clothing. After paying the bill, we headed back to the hotel very tired and ready to sleep before a more explorative day to come.

Saturday, February 28
On our final day of the trip (excluding our long travel day, which isn’t worth writing about), we got up and headed out to the edge of Lake Nicaragua, an enormous body of water that takes up a significant portion of the space within the country’s borders. Upon reaching the waterfront, we realized we weren’t entirely sure where to go. While thinking it over we were approached by an eccentric old man selling ice cream in a little cart, and being too cute to turn down we each got a little half-melted snack while thinking over our options. Fortunately, an option came to us. In the tradition of our extremely open-ended itinerary we decided to investigate the offer of some random man who walked up to us in the street, showed us a picture of his boat, and offered us a tour.
After leading us down the street and into the tourist area of the waterfront we had originally been searching for, he showed us the boat, told us a little about where he would take us, and we accepted. $20 for all three of us got us an hour tour of Las isletas, a miniature archipelago of little islands that hug the shoreline of Lake Nicaragua. Many of the islands have houses built on them, mostly inhabited by extremely rich Nicaraguans or gringos. The guy who offered us the tour, who was thankfully very friendly beyond the point of paying him, knew who most of the owners of each house was and told us a little bit about almost every island we boated by. An hour later we were back where we had taken off, and started walking back towards the center of town.
However, we had walked only a couple blocks when we spotted some horse-drawn carriages (which are all over Granada) and, having read the evening before that they were relatively cheap and provided pretty extensive tours of the city, we decided to hop on one. Our driver, happy that he could tell his passengers all about his city in his native tongue, let us know about many of the buildings and sights in the city we had either only seen or read about. The tour did not last terribly long, but by the time we got dropped off in the central park it was around 2:30. In light of the fact that my companions were still not healthy enough to remember to include food in the days plans, I kindly informed them that I for one was absolutely starving and would love to get some lunch even if they wanted nothing.
We (that is, I) ate at a small restaurant in a mini-mall plaza near the hostel with tables out on their patio. The meal itself was not extremely noteworthy, but as Ashley L. was feeling particularly charitable that afternoon we were joined by Francisco, a street kid to whom Ash offered what remained of the juice her troubled stomach wasn’t enjoying anyway. Francisco told us a little about his life, and after finishing his treat asked for some money (give a mouse a cookie…) for some school supplies. Wanting to be sure that the money would be spent likewise, Ashley² went with him to a nearby bookstore to get some pens and a notebook while I finished my meal.
After paying, we headed back to the hostel. Though we hadn’t done a ton of walking that day, the beating sun and heat more than anything had us pretty tired (though not having any food in their stomachs did not help Ashley²). As such, we decided to rent a movie from the hostel’s small collection and watched The Thomas Crown Affair with Pierce Brosnan. Decent flick. Anyway, Ashley² took naps afterward while I used the computers to check my mail and read up on how the world was doing since last I checked. They slept quite awhile, and upon waking up we decided to just go out to the same Mexican place we had been the night before.
There turned out to be a huge parade-style event happening through central park and down the cobblestone restaurant avenue, consisting almost entirely of men (and some women) on horses. There were so many horses! They stretched farther than I could make out down the street, and a steady stream of them came in from around the bend by the park for a good half-hour before the street cleared out. There were a couple of accidents near our table, and a couple people fell off their horses who were a little spooked by the thick crowd of their own kind. The food was excellent again, and again we were entertained by the same group of street performers.
Though we were planning on going out dancing that night, since it was our last in Nicaragua, we all realized around 10:00 (as we were changing to go out) that we had to get up at 4:00 the next morning for an early bus ride. So, we decided, we’ll celebrate our trip together sometime back in Heredia, and go to sleep instead.

And that’s my trip to Nicaragua! Thanks for being patient with me getting the whole thing up. I really ended up writing a lot more than I thought I would, but I hope you all enjoyed it! Since I didn’t have my camera in all the locations we were at, I’m waiting to get pictures from Ashley²’s cameras before I can put them up here on the blog. I’ll try to get a post up early next week to let you know what’s been happening since I’ve been back, and what’s going to be happening in the next few weeks. Thanks, again, and as always, for your prayers and support. ¡Pura Vida! and God bless!