Granada, Nicaragua with kids---magical.

Granada is a colonial beauty of a city in Nicaragua. We've had a fantastic 48 hours here and are pushing off to a crater lake in a short while.

An easy 7 hour bus ride from San Jose, Costa Rica (if you don't get hung up at the border with a seat mate who is trying to bring in eight bags loaded with undeclared Kosher foods!). Our "Ticabus" zoomed through the tropical, mountainous terrain of Costa Rica and on through the flat, arid and hot cattle lands of the province of Guanacaste.

After crossing the border (where we grabbed a tasty bus terminal meal--- it was really good), it was a quick ride on into Granada. The bright colors of the adobe buildings are as bright as the sunshine which was truly cornea-searing.

       


Granada was founded in 1524 and you can feel it.
The city is grand in architecture and teeming with history.

Including the embarrassing chapter when American, William Walker declared himself 'President' of Nicaragua in 1856. Seriously?? He was defeated by a coalition of Central American armies in 1857. One of his Generals set fire to the city and scrawled the words, "Here was Granada" as they left the city engulfed in flames. Much was destroyed. The church in this picture below still bears the fire damage.

 The majority of the city and its churches are painted jaunty earthy colors ranging from neon to sublime. The people are extremely friendly and we love the red beans! Across the street is a local bar with the biggest pot of wood-fired delicious red beans cooking that cost $1 to over-feed 6 for dinner!

Granada sits on Lake Nicaragua, the world's 20th largest lake. We had a great time visiting 'monkey island' and enjoyed meeting Lola, our driver Freddy's 'friend. Our visiting friend, Sam, even fed her tomatoes.

The guys took advantage and went for a swim while we waited for our lunch. That is the Mombacho Volcano behind a flying Sam.

The heat is sweltering in Granada between the sun and the humidity so people came out in droves as the sun went down. Most folks had big rocking chairs that were brought out on to the sidewalk as people gathered in clusters to shoot the doo-doo.

Attending Palm Sunday mass in the Granada cathedral was beautiful.

The kids however, voted the 'make your own chocolate' tour the hit. 

Gigi even won the competition of who could make cacao paste the fastest. They declared her winning bar "delicious"! We're on our way to pick up the bars they prepared and flavored themselves. Too bad you can't taste-test through a blog!