Granada, Take Two

When I started writing this blog post in my notebook, I was sitting in a gorgeous hotel courtyard in Granada that's home to a free museum all about chocolate! I sat at my table with a delicious cacao frio while a toucan whispered beside me and I almost laughed out loud at how happy I am.

It wasn't the first time I'd had that feeling today. Jose and the other volunteers are hiking Mombacho today, so I decided to tag along for the minibus ride and carry on to Granada on my own. I'm meeting them at our hostel later this evening. The last time I was here in Granada, we hardly got to experience it because we spent the morning getting drenched near Mombacho, leaving us only a couple hours here. I had been thinking about going back to Léon this weekend, but I'm really glad that I'm getting the chance to see Granada properly. Doing it all by myself has been an adventure!

There's a lot to see in Granada within a few blocks of the central square, but I decided to start with La Iglesia La Merced because of its bell tower. From the top, I had a breathtaking view of the city, the volcano, the cathedral and the enormous lake. I love the courtyard gardens in typical colonial houses, and it was really cool to see them as little green spaces among the red tile roofs. The people at the church entrance were very weloming and I asked one of them to take a photo of me at the top as proof that I was actually here! On the way up the 75 steps (it feels like way more) he told me that the church was originally built in the 1700s but that, like everything else in town, it was rebuilt several times after that because of damage from fires and pirates. After La Merced, I headed down the street to La Iglesia Xalteva and then back up to to La Casa de Santa Maria Romero, Central America's first saint. She did a lot of work with health care in Nicaragua and Costa Rica; there wasn't a lot of biographical information in the little museum, though, so I'd like to find out a little more on my own.

From the little green house, I headed northeast to La Iglesia San Francisco. The church itself doesn't look like much because it hasn't been kept up like the brilliant yellow cathedral, but the attached monastery/convent has been turned into an incredible (and incredibly free) museum. It has a historical mural, religious icons, 1500-year-old artefacts from archaeological digs and an art gallery! My favourite part - though it's hard to choose - was the wildly detailed scale model of Granada's historical center. It was pretty cool to be able to pick out the churches and the parks where I had just been walking.

Actually, it's been pretty cool to be able to pick things out in real life, too. I'm not exactly well-known for having an excellent sense of direction, so I get a rather substantial sense of pride every time I find my way to something on the first try, or come up with a better way to get there on the second. Improvised navigation isn't very difficult in colonial towns like Granada and Leon, though, because of the central park and all of the churches. When in doubt, it's easy to look up past the one- and two-story buildings and orient oneself using the church towers.

So today, I visited three churches and three museums, met two toucans and walked for about six hours. I'm glad to finally be at Hostal Mochillas, which I had Jose book us into on Thursday. It's big, colourful and full of growing things. I think we'll meet a lot of cool people here.

Jose, Brett, Danielle and Amos should be here any minute now, but Nica time being what it is, I could be waiting here a while. I imagine we'll get some showers, then do some wandering around and get some supper. Tomorrow, we're doing a boat tour on the lake - we might see monkeys!

Oh, I should mention that Brianne might actually be back in Canada now after her 24-hour journey home. It was strange to not have her in our room when I got back from placement last night, but I'll be seeing her in just over a month when she brings me our travelling necklace!

Despite not having Brianne there, I had a good time last night - John and I had dinner at Friends and then went to Diriamba for karaoke with some people he knows from the clinic there. Jose was right - Nica men take their love songs very seriously! I'd never done karaoke before, but I'd say it was a great way to start off my last weekend in the country. There are only six more sleeps until I go home!