Granada. . . hot, colorful and endearing.

It was close to 100 degrees today but we liked Granada so much the first go around that we are back for several days.

The colors are addictive. Every block leads to color schemes you couldn't have imagined a moment before.

Everyone has their favorites.

Seeing the straw sticking out of crumbling adobe that has held for more than 100 years is something.

 

Many people say, "you have to visit Nicaragua to get that it's different." It's true, the people have a remarkable quality of playfulness, and endearing confidence and openness that calls you to have a seat and get to know them. 

It's true that it is the second poorest country in the hemisphere- after Haiti, but it's not the poverty that calls attention.

Even though it is visually with you, always.

The streets are teeming with 'busy-ness' that is almost medieval. Pushcarts, horse and buggies, baskets on heads, no chain stores. Oddly, there isn't a freneticism to it all, impossible with the heat.

On the contrary.

It reminds me a bit of Morocco in the best way. 

 There is no doubt, a trip's success is absolutely dependent on where you hang your hat. Period. If sleep ain't had at night, ain't nobody happy! Struck gold we did with our VRBO houses. First, with Casa Camila, a house from 1945 but filled with 100 year old relics and enough patina to sink a ship.

Everywhere you turn is another pinch-able view.

The house is so beautiful that it feels like you are in a dreamscape. It's something out of a Hollywood set.

 The rooms and furniture oozed history.

The place just had a quality of fun

 that is hard to put your finger on but you know it when you have found it.

I know I am gushing but we were all smitten.

The fact that it was across the street from these beans didn't hurt.

Like much of Granada, unassuming facade is the name of the game.

The pot. I am dreaming of it. It is as big as a coffee table. If you strain, you might see the gigantic cloves of garlic swimming on the surface. The smell was out of this world.

On our 'phase-two' of our Granada stay we have landed in Casa Camila's sister house, Casa Paloma. Suffice it to say, she is just as beautiful but in a different way. She is a grand dame of a house but what we have loved most are the peddlers that call right through the door and windows as they sell fruits and breads and more.

There is something fantastic about fresh-baked bread being handed through old wrought-iron.

We all enjoy it.

From our quick visit to Laguna de Apoyo

To chocolate-making. . . Granada and the Laguna have left lasting-impressions.

Grinding cacao.

Even the sunrise from Casa Paloma this morning left me replete with the promise that lie ahead.

 Fundamentally, Nicaragua has a tapestry that is unexpected and colorful; it is charged with history and never far from making one think. . . about the past, present and future.