Last days in Granada

I spent a few more days in Granada after that, mainly trying to decide where I was heading next. I met a group of women travelers, many of whom had been traveling alone but had met up on the road. There were two women from the U.S., two from Australia, one from Burundi who lives in Europe now, one from France, and one from the Netherlands. It was affirming to talk to them and realize that they had similar experiences to me and so interesting to hear their tales of travel up and down Latin America. We all went out to dinner one night and it was nice to have the camaraderie and companionship of a group of women who were on similar adventures to mine. The morning after we had dinner most of the women left for Laguna de Apoyo and then on to Isla Ometepe. 

I also met some Peace Corps Volunteers serving in Nicaragua and it was great to talk to them about their experiences in Peace Corps and share some of mine. It was also interesting to see the commonalities that exist in Peace Corps regardless of the country you're in. From having to fill out the quarterly reports on our projects, to the cultural faux pas that we all inevitably make, to the moments of feeling like we've finally been accepted into the community we live in.

My last night in Granada I went with Inga, the Dutch woman, to an old church called Iglesia de la Merced (built in 1534 then rebuilt after it was sacked and burned in 1670) that was rumored to have the best view in town from its bell tower. We headed up near sunset after paying our $1 US entrance fee. As the sun sank the light changed and lit up the roofs and buildings of Granada as long shadows stretched ever further. The silence was intermittently disturbed by the extremely loud church bells literally a few feet from our heads and rung with no warning whatsoever. But the views of the volcano, the lake, and the city were certainly lovely. You could even see Isla Ometepe of in the distance which is rare. However, it was definitely time for me to move on from Granada and see more of this unique country.

Iglesia de La Merced

Isla Ometepe with its dual volcanoes in the background.

 

 

Dia de los Muertos

After a few quiet days mainly spent reading and relaxing at the hostel (and avoiding the crazy Halloween parties going on in and around Granada), I was looking forward to the more somber and respectful celebration of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). It’s a much more humbly celebrated day in Nicaragua than you might see in some other Central American countries. I walked the 20 blocks or so to the huge cemetery in Granada. It really is a beautiful city, full of churches and brightly painted houses, some dating back to colonial days. 

The cemetery was full of people. Vendors outside the gates and wandering all the paths sold everything from flowers real and fake, to plastic statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, to all sorts of food and drink. It was a hot sunny day and people ambled by with umbrellas or sat in the shade of the large trees that dotted some areas of the landscape, or sat in the shade of the mausoleums for their relatives. People carried armloads of flowers, decorations, shovels, buckets, brooms, and paint for the graves of their deceased loved ones. 

I arrived in the afternoon and many people had come and gone again in the morning, leaving fresh cement, fresh paint, fresh flowers, and clean ground around the graves of their ancestors. But many others were hard at work clearing away a year’s worth of weeds, leaves, dirt, and dust. Some were mixing cement to patch the cracks that the intense tropical climate can create so quickly. Other were repainting the graves in white. Those that weren’t able to afford a plaque for the grave of their loved one repainted on the names or sometimes simply a symbol. And further back in the cemetery away from the roads were the more simple graves with only a rough cross made of stone or wood marking where they lay. Some were marked with a name, but many others were only the simple crosses, and still others that lacked even that, but were just as carefully tended and taken care of as the large mausoleums near the front of the cemetery. Some of the graves had flowers or trees planted in them that will continue to grow into the future.

There were huge walls of graves of the young men who fought against the Contras (who were trained and armed by the U.S. in the 1980s because of fear of the socialist leanings of one of the poorest countries in the region). Many young people on both sides died during this time and the stacks of graves of young men in their 20s was a harsh reminder of the true cost of war. The repercussions can still be felt in Nicaragua to this day. 

Volcan Mombacho

Thursday afternoon I arranged a tour for Friday morning to head up to the Mombacho Volcano. A driver and my knowledgeable guide for the day Jose picked me up at 8:30 Friday morning. We drove out of town for several kilometers to the park entrance where our driver would wait for us to return from the top of the volcano. Then we had to wait for the giant truck that would take us up the mountain. The truck looked like it was for African safaris with a short walled bed with seats, a canvas cover to block the sun, but mostly open on the sides and back.

We climbed into the truck up a small ladder with the few other folks who were heading up the hill to explore Mombacho at that time. The truck slowly wound up the very narrow, very steep, and very winding road. The driver was nice enough to stop and pick up some young people who were walking up the hill and drop them off near their homes. The road wound through coffee plantations dappled with shade (a must for decent coffee production) and jungles of thick trees covered with moss, orchids, and bromeliads. We made a short stop at the coffee plantation Café Los Flores for a quick look around and then loaded back up and continued the slow crawl up to the guide station near the top of the volcano. Volcan Mombacho is considered dormant and has four craters that can be hiked around. We were only going to hike around one of the four.

Coffee (not ripe yet)

A little coffee plant nursery

We headed down the path and were quickly rewarded with a viewpoint that looked down into a gigantic jungle-filled crater with a view of Lake Cocibolca and Las Isletas in the background. The pictures really don’t do it justice. Then we started down the trail though the jungles that surrounded the crater. I say jungles because in the course of the hour or so hike we took we passed through four different kinds of tropical forests. Jose was a wealth of information about the flora and fauna of the area. He pointed out a small plant that looked like a coffee plant with red berries and all but was actually quite poisonous and could kill you if consumed. He also pointed out a plant called picaya that resembled bamboo except for the hollow stems weren’t sectioned like bamboo. He said the indigenous people who lived in the area had used the picaya as tubes from which to blow poison darts while hunting. They also made spears from it to be used in hunting and fishing. Every now and again he’d stop to check out bromeliad leaves that had been torn out of the plant and tossed on the trail after being eaten by howler monkeys. We heard them, but never did see any.

My guide Jose

The weird poisonous plant that resembles coffee.

Pacaya

A bromeliad that's been picked at by monkeys.

The paths were lovely. Much of it was created from rounds of fallen trees on the volcano that they had used to make steps and most of the trail was steps. There were also wooden bridges to cross streams and marshy areas. The jungle was thick in many areas, particularly with trees laden with moss, orchids, and bromeliads in all shades of green, a site much more beautiful up close than viewed from the trucks. The air was cooler at 1150 meters (3770 feet) and alive with that dark, rich scent of moisture and decay that only a dense tropical forest can create.

We hiked down a narrow trail between two vertical rock walls that took us to a lovely view of the crater. Once upon a time the path led to a spring fed pool that served as the source of clean water for the indigenous people who lived there. However, that part of the trail had become unstable and, after some near death experiences from some visitors, had been closed. Another side trail led us out to some fumaroles where hot sulfuric steam, hot enough to steam up my glasses, came up from densely vegetated vents in the ground. This was near a spectacular viewpoint from which you could see much of the area surrounding Mombacho. I could see the Masaya Volcano, Laguna de Apoyo, the city of Granada, and Las Isletas that I had glimpsed from the rim of the crater.

As we headed up towards the end of the trail we went through a forest where the trees only grew to four or five meters (around 20 feet) tall, which was unusual for such a low elevation. Then we were lucky enough to spot a sloth hanging from a low tree near the path (okay, Jose totally saw him and pointed him out to me). He was quite a good sport and let me take several pictures of him without moving. We followed the rest of the trail back up to the guide station where we were just in time to catch one of the trucks heading back down the hill. Our driver was waiting for us and took us back into Granada where they dropped me off safely at my hostel.

Sloth!

I’ve come to be fond of these guided tours. As a traveler and tourist who is moving around a lot it’s quite difficult to meet the locals in a real way, but taking a tour with a local guide offers an opportunity to spend a few hours with a local and learn about their life, their country, and the things that interest them. While I could have done most of the tours without a guide, I feel it’s a richer experience to have someone there who knows the area and is excited to share their knowledge with a curious visitor. As I’ve mentioned, Nicaraguans tend to be more reserved so I cherish the opportunities when I can feel like I made a connection, however brief, with a Nicaraguan. And hopefully we both come away with a little more understanding of each other and the different places we’ve come from.