Driving through the Nicaraguan Countryside

After a long exhausting day in the heat of Nicaragua, we were driving through the countryside and I took a few photos. We'd had a great time in Granada and the sun was setting.  You can see some of the shanty houses they lived in.  There's a lot of poverty here.  The landscape and countryside, in spite of this is overwhelmingly beautiful.  We were grabbing our last photos of the day.

Lake Nicaragua

This video of Nicaragua shows the Lake, Lago di Nicaragua (El Cocibolca - Las Isletas) nice place to visit when you are near Granada.

Lunch at the Casa San Francisco Hotel

Dining in Nicaragua. Actually we were in Granada and found this great place to eat. We had lunch one day at the Casa San Francisco Hotel, this nice boutique hotel in Granada. The hotel is really nice, it's small and kind of charming. Lunch consisted of pork and rice and some vegetables and my friend had fish and rice. A small salad accompanied the meal.

Both dishes were delicious, the fish especially fresh and tasty. They served good bread with the meal and a nice dessert. The restaurant opens up to the fresh air, in view of the pool, lots of palm trees and tropical plants and is home to a couple of parrots who seemed to object to our being there. There is a bar called Los Chocoyos right in the hotel offering all types of beers and liquors and wines.

The Casa San Francisco hotel offers rooms at $45 to $75 dollars a night, but if you stay longer, they offer a 10% discount. There's a really nice swimming pool, small but very attractive for a quick dip.

Lunch was good and the hotel seems quite attractive and offers all the amenities you could want, such as air conditioning, the pool as I mentioned, private bathrooms, WIFI access, and a great rooftop terrace with some good panorami views of Granada. Everything is charming.

Nice hotel and nice lunch.

Masaya Volcano

Visiting the Masaya Volcano in the National Park was truly exhilarating for me. I would never admit to being a “nature lover” and I would never describe myself as a person interested in seeking out a tour of, say, a rain forest or that features “wildlife.” However, while we were in Nicaragua, we went on a tour to the Masaya Volcano national park.

The Masaya Volcano is still smoking – sulphur gases which rise up out of its depths. Inhaling the sulphur is not supposed to be bad for you as long as you are not asthmatic or have some other lung problems. The tour takes you right up to the edge of the volcano. I was fascinated by this “smokin’ volcano, I could look down into its depths and see how deep into the earth it goes. Also, the land around the volcano is formed out of previous lava eruptions. At the highest point around the volcano, there’s a cross, to ward off the devil.

While looking down into the volcano, I felt like I was staring into hell. Not a nature lover am I, but this trip to the Masaya Volcano was truly amazing. I’d go again.

Granada Nicaragua

Granada, Nicaragua is a very nice small city in Nicaragua that is wonderful to stay in and visit for a while. All the houses are painted pretty bright colors. There is a center town square which is busy in the afternoons and evenings, with people selling stuff, music, people talking, sitting in cafes. It's a popular gathering center.

Surrounding the square, you will find beautiful buildings and hotels also painted in bright colors.

Granada has some nice restaurants and good hotels and the prices are cheap. Thought you might like this pic of Granada featuring the pier on Lake Nicaragua. Nicest one of the hotels in Granada that we visited was the Hotel Alhambra. We'll definitely go back here.  There's lots of ex-pats here, maybe some who took a tour of Nicaragua and fell in love with it, retired and now taking it easy.  On the other hand, there are young entrepreneurs here, taking a chance in Nicaragua.

Granada is a very nice place to walk around, have a drink or a meal at one of the hotels or one of the many restaurants or bars you'll find in this city. It was once the capital of Nicaragua.

The Flag of Nicaragua

Just in case you were wondering what the flag of Nicaragua looks like, here it is: It's a blue and white flag with the emblem of Nicaragua in the center.

The emblem has 5 volcanoes on it with the Cap of Freedom on it.

The Market in Masaya

This is the outside of the market in Masaya, Nicaragua. The walls outside the market are very old examples of the colonial architecture. Lovely market, great for tourists because it sells everything, from t shirts, to pottery, to cigars and stuffed iguanas. Just about everything for souvenirs you will need to buy from Nicaragua.

A Man in Granada

I like taking photos of people and this is one of the photos I took of a man in Granada, Nicaragua.

I loved the colors of Granada, the colorful Caribbean pastels of the Colonial houses along the narrow streets and the people, who sometimes unaware, posed for me.

Visiting Nicaragua

The method by which we first arrived in Nicaragua was via a one day trip there from our hotel in Costa Rica. The hotel was offering one day trips to Nicaragua and I really wanted to go. The cost of the trip was expensive or so we thought. It was $145 US.

This made my husband reluctant and like everyone else, he thought that Nicaragua was dangerous. We thought of renting a car but then decided against it. I mean, what if Nicaragua was dangerous. We didn't speak Spanish, the roads are not great in Costa Rica and the drivers are kind of awful.

However, another couple said they wanted to go. I guess people are afraid of going to Nicaragua. I mean, the last thing you heard in the news about Nicaragua was about their civil war, but that ended in 1978 or 79. Then they had ten years of communism. Then you might have heard about some assassinations here and there and then nothing new about Nicaragua. No wonder people are afraid to go there for vacation. But the next day when we were to book the trip, they chickened out. Needless to say, I wanted to go, so husband bitching, we were going. He was bitching about the $145 US mostly.

The bus left at 5:55 a.m., and we made it.

Our tour guide was a nice Costa Rican guy.

The trip to the border was about an hour and a half. We were glad we didn't rent a car because, for one, our guide knew the roads and he could speak Spanish. And he knew how to speed things up through the border. Ten dollars US and a cold can of pop will get you through the border. Mind you, we had to wait at the border for a while and there were all kinds of guys walking around with wads of cash, trying to exchange money with you. Forwarned, we did not do our currency exchange at the border. I kind of like real banks.

We were tired when we crossed the border and we were told that breakfast would be in a half hour when we arrived at the town of Rivas and were taken to a splendid little hotel where I'm sure only the rich of Nicaragua dine. Breakfast was excellent and then we hopped on board the little tourist boss and headed for the town of Catarina.

Along the way, I looked at the houses of the people of Nicaragua. There is a lot of poverty. Sort of like the poverty of the countryside of Cuba. What Nicaragua needs is a large dose of tourism, and I'm sure that will start to cure the problems of poverty here. We will see.

Hola Nicaragua

Hola, Nicaragua,

I never dreamed I'd meet you, beautiful Nicaragua. If you don't like the poetry, then here it is plain and simple: I never dreamed I'd travel to Nicaragua. Sometimes, the best vacations are the places you've never dreamed of going and somehow by chance end up there.

Most people never dream that they would go to Nicaragua and have a vacation. Many of the peopleI spoke to were afraid to go to Nicaragua. Even my husband was afraid to go to Nicaragua and I had to force him. After the end of our visit, he loved the trip to Nicaragua so much that he now wants to live in Granada.

We had a very short trip to Nicaragua and that was enough to exite us to take future vacations to Nicaragua. We want to learn more about the country. So, I've started this blog to place my photos and stories of Nicaragua and what I find out about the country.

Ciao for now.