Our plan called for a morning of sightseeing and an afternoon drive around Lake Nicaragua to the distant border post with Costa Rica called San Pancho (Saint Frank). To start the day we left San Jorge near Rivas and drove north a couple of hours toward Masaya Volcano. It’s alive and active and you drive up to near the rim and walk over and look down I was there 25 years ago but it seemed time to revisit it. Except..
It was air foggy we could see nothing and it was raining up the mountain so we turned around and contemplated lunch in Granada.
That rain I mentioned in Masaya turned out to be sheets of water in the outskirts of Granada and we were in a line of traffic that wasn’t stopping.
They just pretended it was normal and kept on going requiring me to keep driving too lest I lose my never and stop and cause an unholy mess in this apocalyptic flood. I just hoped GANNET2 could handle it.
Of course she could. I tried to drive here the car in front went hoping not to fall into a vast bottomless pothole. We did fine pushing a brown bow wave as we went.
Eventually I spotted a raised supermarket parking lot and as we needed paper towels we took refuge there and made tea and sandwiches for breakfast as the rain sluiced our tin home mercilessly.
A Google Maps recommended street below, that we graciously declined and forced the blue line on my iPhone to re-route:
Granada was the center of conservative politics in Nicaragua in the 19th century aisles with Leon, the liberal hub, for supremacy. Nicaraguans got fed up eventually and made Managua the compromise choice, a dreary city of no merit that was further wrecked almost completely by an earthquake in 1972.
Granada could be beautiful but it is rather rundown. It is a tourist hub and consequently attracts all manner of touts and salesmen and beggars who hound you in the public places. It has a description at night and is not much given to street parking.
There is a campground in town created out of a secure parking lot but we didn’t stay long enough to consider spending a night.
Granada needs a lick of paint and some care though considering the day we were there it didn’t get the benefit of some sparkling sunshine.
He wanted to wash our van in the rain. He seemed hopeless so we wished him well with a few dollars.
Granada sits on the shores of the lake and has a rather formless waterfront.
I am thinking of adopting the Central American fashion of rolling up my shirt on particularly hot sultry days.
Lake Nicaragua, the waterfront piece city looked rather dirty and muddy.
We were not tempted to stop and swim.
And then we were out in the country ready to explore the mysterious eastern side of the lake. I figured most of the country would look like this but I was entirely wrong.
We didn’t see the lake again but we got to see much more of this road than we ever intended.
