Granada
NICARAGUA
Granada, Gringos & More Gringos
By AARON
Monday, July 14, 2008
So Lyndi and I arrived in Granada, which is a short trip down south from León, making just one layover at the Uca bus terminal in Managua. We arrived in Granada around 1pm, and started looking for a place to stay. Granada is absolutely beautiful, with a huge Parque Central, and probably one of the prettiest cathedrals we’ve seen so far. Most of the buildings are painted anything from a mustard yellow to an aqua green, which suprisingly does a lot for the face of the city. So Lyndi and I are not ones to plan ahead, i.e. calling ahead to make reservations, or calling ahead to make reservations. So when 90% of the hostels said they were full because people had called ahead to make reservations, we started thinking, “gee, maybe we should have…” well, you get the point. Luckily, we found a place that could house us for 2 nights, which lo and behold, was all we needed in this quaint little town!
Our hostel was located on a street that runs straight into Parque Central, and also takes you right along the cathedral on the east side. We soon started calling this street “gringo alley”, as the number of tourists easily outnumber the locals 3:1. Nothing against gringo alley though – lined with restaurants, bars, cafes, travel companies, and internet shops, all lit by street lamps every 10 meters – you can easily forget you’re in a foreign country, and think that you’re taking a stroll through the art and culture district in (insert your city here).
Our first full day in Granada was pretty laid back, with catching up on our internet, studying Spanish in Parque Central, and hunting down the local drink specials for that night.
Unkown to many outsiders, the main sport in Nicaragua is actually baseball, not soccer (futbol) like it is in neighboring countries. So when Lyndi and I found out that there was a local playoff game going on that night between Managua and your very own Granada Tiburones, we were game (no pun intended). The game started at 6pm, and we were told to arrive no later than 4 to get tickets and a seat. So when we arrived at 4pm and bought our tickets for $2 each, we walked into an empty stadium. But hey, on the bright side, we got our pick of any seat in the house! We actually had fun watching the teams warm up, take batting practice, and get ready for the battle royale between the 2 biggest cities in Nicaragua.
The game was great. Lyndi and I enjoyed our concoction of beer mixed with a really cheap rum, something we learned at the rooster fights in León, and cheered our Granada Tiburones to victory. As it turns out, Granada was currently in first place in the league and was the clear favorite in tonight’s game, so cheering for the home team was pretty easy. All nine innings were action packed, with some great double plays and a 2-run homer in the bottom of the 4th to put the Tiburones up 2-1. Granada ended up winning 4-1, and Lyndi and I walked back to our hostel, stuffed on Nicaraguan ballpark food, and beer/rum. Normally this potent combination would destroy the inner lining of any normal person’s stomach, but after me being sick once, and Lyndi 4 times on our travels, our stomachs can pretty much withstand anything short of an e coli burger with a side of intestinal bacteria (mmmmmmm… intestinal bacteria).
The next morning, we took a minibus for the day to Masaya, which is a small artisan town about 20min outside of Granada, between there and Managua. Known for its unique and completely overpriced pottery, leather works and ceramics, tourists from all over flock to this city to “bargain shop”, and buy gifts such as a leather rum-bottle carrying case, or small alligators that have visited a taxidermist, Cuban cigars, or for my nephew – a vintage Nicaraguan baseball jersey, sure to impress all of his 4yr old friends back in New York. Lyndi and I spent the night at Hotel Rivas, and feeling that we didn’t quite punish our stomachs enough the night before, headed to a corner to eat some street food for the night.
