BootsnAll Travel Network



Granada, Nicaragua – Photos

April 2011 – Every year I plan a one week trip with my mother – this time she surprised me by announcing that she’d like to go to Nicaragua and that she planned on staying a few months to study Spanish.

I wasn’t at all familiar with Nicaragua (except that it’s very poor) and I’ve never been to Central America. But after having read up a bit, I was excited by the idea – one of the things I’ve never seen was a volcano. I was to see many in Nicaragua. I was also hopeful of seeing some of the wildlife; scorpions, monkeys, birds, even snakes.

We only had a week together, so we decided to stick to the area south of Managua; Granada, Masaya, Lake Nicaragua, Isla Omepete – a manageable area that wouldn’t require too much travelling around.

Our base was Granada, which is known as a city rich in colonial history. It was founded by the Spaniards in 1524 and was named after the city of Granada in Spain. It was chosen primarily for it’s location; on Lake Nicaragua with river access to the Caribbean as well as close proximity to the Pacific coast. Today it is the 4th largest city of Nicaragua. It is also the most touristy city in Nicaragua (“touristy” is relative – this is Nicaragua and not that many tourists come here. After having visited Europe the last few years I found it a relief to escape the tourist hordes…).

We spent three full days in Grenada. On the surface, Grenada is not that impressive; it’s not so much a city as a village, a bit of a sleepy place made up on one or two-storied pastel buildings, a few nice but weathered churches, and some modest colonial buildings. But it is when you step inside some of the buildings that you see the attraction of Granada – high ceilinged buildings with huge interior courtyards (many with fountains), tiled floors, intricate woodwork. Many of the buildings have been restored as luxury hotels with interior pools and are quite opulent. In many ways it reminded me of Cartagena – what was frustrating however in Granada is that the exterior of buildings are much more modest than in Cartagena and you would never know of the treasures inside. I know my mom discovered many interesting places after I left that we never knew existed when visiting the city together.

Laguna de Apoyo and Volcan Masaya

Within 30 minutes of Granada are the laguna de Apoyo (Apoyo Lagoon) and the Masaya volcano.

The Apoyo Lagoon (below) was created about 23,000 years ago when a huge volcanic blast left a hole measuring 6 km in diameter. With time this crater was filled up with rainwater and underground springs (Many Nicaraguans like to come here to swim)

Nicaragua is known as “The country of Lakes and Volcanoes” and has a chain of active volcanoes that run from north to south. One of the most active is Masaya volcano (below). You can drive right up to the crater of this volcano and look over the edge right into the crater, it’s pretty cool! (they have night tours as well and apparantly you can see the molten lava at the bottom of the crater). The volcano is always smoking in varying degrees (they call this “passive degassing” – the opposite of the explosive degassing I get from eating vindaloo). I was lucky to see the volcano when it wasn’t degassing too heavily, it seems that tourists are sometimes given masks and have to limit their stay at the crater to 20 minutes.

Below: Rudy from Oro Travel (I used Oro Travel for this tour of Masaya and the Laguna de Apoyo as well as for some private transport – they were great).

We stayed at the Hotel Con Corazon while in Granada and it was absolutely fabulous. The hotel is actually a foundation where all the profits are invested in local education projects. Besides being for a good cause, it is good value – very nice rooms, great breakfasts, super service, a nice swimming pool where you can enjoy a Marguarita at the end of the day. The bill came out to about $50/night. I give it a 4 ½ out of 5. We really enjoyed our stay in Granada and relaxing around the hotel was one of the highlights.



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