Day 14: Hello Mudda, Hello Fudda

Here I am at Camp Granada.

As soon as we drove into the town I immediately knew I wanted to spend more time in this city. Granada is much like León. It is built colonial style with tons of amazing architecture. The city is also very cultural and boasts tons of museums, art galleries, shops, and restaurants. We saw many North Americans in the city as tourism is picking up a ton here. It's a backpackers delight.

We stopped in first at Tio Antonio's. Antonio is a transplant from Spain. He has a very interesting and creative project in Granada.

Antonio has a program of sorts that benefits the deaf, mute and blind. On one side of the building, they make hammocks, including this huge one. On Sunday they were finishing a hammock for the Pope himself.

Cat hammocks

The other side of the building is a cafe called Smiles Cafe (Cafe de las Sonrisas). The student in the program who are deaf are the servers and the cooks. Antonio really stresses teaching life skills to the students and showing them not to think they have to result in a life of begging but can take care of themselves. You can read more about Tio Antonio's here (http://www.tioantonio.org/).

Hammock for the pope

We then took a tour of the city. It was fairly quiet since it was a Sunday. Every street was unique. There is tons and tons of detail in every piece of architecture.

Hammock for the pope

Every city has a plaza (square) near a church. We made our way around this one and did a little shopping as well as sightseeing in local galleries.

And the pic I got in trouble taking. Oopsie.

The saddest part of the city is the trash. And we have seen this problem in almost every city.There is trash everywhere. In Granada we heard there were 29 trash cans. 29 for a city of 150,000. You just don't see them. And it's not only the city, it's also the lakes and streams. I am ready to start adopting streets and sending teams to clean them. There is just not a culture of even thinking about tomorrow, let alone how throwing down one piece of trash is resulting in mucking up the city.

And the pic I got in trouble taking. Oopsie.

After the tour of the city, we had a late lunch at Antonio's and dropped off our luggage at our hostel for the evening.

And the pic I got in trouble taking. Oopsie.

Our hostel

A much welcomed view

Little critter in our room

Our host had arranged for a boat ride around Lake Nicaragua. This lake is huge. To give you an idea, Nicaragua is comparable to Missouri as far as size is concerned. Lake Nicaragua is the southernmost lake.

Walk the plank matey

Walk the plank matey

Christi was not happy I was stopping to take this pic

Jimmy catching some sleep while he could

Monkey Island

We were able to go home and freshen up and met Antonio out for dinner for antipasto and pizza in the restaurant district. I was so very thankful of this considering Sarah and Alissa had sent me a pic of Bambino's minutes before this and I was missing my fave spring Sunday tradition.

Our time in Nicaragua has been a different kind of exhausting than El Salvador. In Nicaragua we traveled almost everyday and met with four host families (five if you include the owner of our hotel who treated us like family). Everyday for the past four days we have toured a new city, met with new clubs and people. It was mentally exhausting trying to keep the days straight and completely live out of a suitcase and not get settled anywhere.

With that being said, it has been an incredible opportunity to see much of the western part of the country and meet so many people. Each city was drastically different. The people in each city each had their unique flavor. I know I keep saying it, but I can not express how welcomed and loved we feel in each city. Our hosts are so kind to accept us into their lives like family. In my mind I am already planning a trip back to Nicaragua. I feel like I just got a small taste of something so sweet.

 

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