Granada, Nicaragua

June 24-26

Granada is the oldest colonial city in Nicaragua, and similar to Leon in many ways. Again, there are colourful buildings and beautiful churches but also some dreary looking streets.

The afternoon that I arrived in Granada, with Jake and Nick, we were a wee bit hungover and therefore spent the day mostly by the pool.

In the morning I had a quick roam around and admired the brightly coloured cathedral. It sits right by Central Park which is also quite nice.

The three of us, along with two American girls that we met, headed to Lago de Apoyo for the day. This is yet another volcano crater lake! It is one of the cleanest ones because they don't allow motored boats on it. 

We swam out to a little platform and spent most of the morning jumping, flipping and diving into the water. When we were tired out, we had lunch and a little relax. 

Nick, Jake and I hopped on some kayaks and paddled around for about 15 minutes...until the weather turned bad and we quickly headed back in, retreating undercover for the short shower.

Then a bit more splashing around off the platform! Beautiful lake.

When we got back (and refuelled with a pupusa!) we went to explore the city. We wandered down towards Lake Nicaragua... But it turns out it's pretty dirty and disgusting! And we may have walked through the dodgiest part of town to get there...

However we also found a very old-looking church, the outside of which has obviously not been maintained. You'd never guess it from the outside, but the inside was bright and colourful. Interesting contrast!

All the restaurants in Granada seem to be quite fancy, it's difficult to just find some basic Nicaraguan food. So we had Italian for dinner and downed a few rums at an Irish pub.