Where to have the last tipple of this trip? Where else but in a rocking chair on the porch of Granada’s Alhambra hotel. And it has to be Flor de Cana rum, topped with fresh limes and ice cubes. Even 12-year-old Centenario costs less than $3 for a sailor-sized tot.
Apart from the blistering heat and water shortages, this experience has been fun. Not quite the “Nicaragua Uncensored” reports you expected? I don’t blame you…I was certain it would prove another rogue-ridden Latin American hellhole. Somewhere fit for neither man, beast, nor Roving European Editor (for all my Nicaragua reports to date, see below).
Granada? How could I not sneer at a place that had stolen its name from my all-time favorite Spanish city. Even my $30-a-night hotel had audaciously pinched its title from the real Alhambra palace.
But writing up notes in its palmed and fountained courtyard, I realized I was enjoying Granada’s languorous lifestyle. Enjoying wandering its colonial streets lined with brightly-painted adobe houses…its volcano backdrop and lake dotted with myriad islands…being greeted as a regular in the Internet café and supermarket.
Very different to Spain’s Granada, but the vibrancy is almost as magical. What I’d feared was being stuck in a place whose life had been sucked out of it: a gussied-up gringoland with locals banished into wretched slums. Warranted or not, that was my impression of Panama City’s colonial quarter, the Casco Viejo.
Yes, some houses here are shabby, many people are impoverished, and Granada’s sidewalks are as ankle-breaking as expected–but it’s no slum. Streets are continuously swept clean. And the only place you’re guaranteed gringo company is Kathy’s Waffle House at breakfast (once was enough. I’m not gregarious in the mornings, and enforced chit-chat is too high a price to pay for a bagel.)
Even the hawkers seem amiably languid. There’s no abuse if you spurn their cashews, palm frond trinkets, or home-made besoms. Noise? Although reggaeton hits are probably blasting out on Calle Real Xalteva right now, the only sound here is the wistful plang of a Spanish guitar.
I’ll long remember the school kids doing morning aerobics on Parque Central…the weeping mourners following a horse-drawn hearse…the urchins bearing trays of impossibly pink and green raspados (shaved ice cones)…the women returning from the market carrying baskets on their heads.
Of course, a darker reality clouds the color. Not all kids attend school and buying provisions often involves working for a daily pittance of less than $2. Water and electricity supplies are unreliable; public buses are a ruination; roads are mostly disgraceful. Highway verges serve both as grazing grounds for scrawny cattle and stinking garbage tips.
Yet despite the poverty, the infrastructure and the mostly horrible food (rice and beans appear with heart-sinking regularity), this trip wasn’t a penance. Boredom doesn’t stand a chance with so much to see: the pueblos blancos villages, the islands of Lake Nicaragua, the beaches of San Juan del Sur, the volcanic lake of Laguna de Apoyo with its jungle full of howler-monkeys.
No, I couldn’t contemplate living here. But for mischief, I asked IL’s office in Granada (nicaragua@internationalliving.com) where a writer could park a rocking chair. Here’s what they suggest:
* In Granada, you can find unlisted properties that need complete renovation for $20,000 to $40,000 (2,000- to 3,000 square feet). You simply have to pound the street. Houses needing less renovation are often listed, but sellers sometimes mark up the prices outrageously. Don’t worry, these prices drop once the serious negotiations start.
* In Granada, three blocks from Parque Central, this 12-000-square-foot colonial house in need of renovation has potential for a spacious second home. Price: $180,000.
* The Norome Resort at Laguna de Apoyo is 15 minutes from Granada. Laguna de Apoyo is among the cleanest lakes in Central America, filled with mineral water fed by underground springs. The lake is so clear you can see 100 feet down. A 2,000-square-foot, one-story, two-bedroom villa here is listing for $134,000; a two-story, one-bed, 1,300-square-foot villa with lake views is $149,000.
Steenie Harvey
Roving Europe Editor (on loan to Nicaragua), International Living
