Good evening from Granada! We are settled into our beautiful hotel, El Hotel Real Merced, in the colonial city of Granada. Granada is located on Lake Nicaragua which is the largest freshwater lake in Central America. Fun fact: the world’s only freshwater sharks have been identified in this lake.

Our hotel is located directly across from the Nuestra Señora de la Merced Parish church. It’s one of many absolutely beautiful churches in this town that dates back to the early 1500s. Tomorrow, we plan to climb to the top of the bell tower to watch the sunset over the city. Today was a bit overcast.

Our hotel includes a balcony that overlooks the church and the Mombacho Volcano. We have A/C, a mini fridge, a huge bathroom and two queen beds. The pool is in the gorgeous courtyard and we are served breakfast every morning. All of this for under $400 for 3 nights. We can walk everywhere we want to go.

Today, we walked all over town. We strolled the main street and the lakefront malecón (public gathering space/trail). Granada is the hub for a lot of eco-tourism so there are many visitors here. From the shores of Lake Nicaragua, visitors can go on volcano hikes, volcano sledding adventures, cloud forest hikes, ziplining and more. Since Kevin and I have done a lot of those things in neighboring Costa Rica, we are planning to use these next couple of days to wind down and hang with the locals. We do plan to take a boat ride with a local man on Tuesday to see the many small islands in Lake Nicaragua. Other than that, we are staying here in town.

We had a nice lunch at Pita Pita which is a Middle Eastern restaurant that serves great wood fired pizzas. We ordered a ham and mushroom pizza with a couple of Flor de caña (Nicaraguan rum) seltzers. Our lunch total was under $30 with tax, tip and drinks. Granada is definitely more pricey than El Tránsito, but still very affordable. We walked through and took many photos of all the amazingly colored homes, businesses and sidewalks. We visited one of the many chocolate museums in Granada where we got to try and grind cacao by hand. We tasted chocolate tea, liquor and cacao nibs. I purchased some cacao nibs to take home for my breakfast yogurt.

Having been to Cuba, I can honestly say that Granada feels a lot like Havana. There are very few Americans, but it’s busy with travelers from other places. Side note: the Nicaraguan/US relationship is not great, hence the level 3 travel advisory telling US Citizens to reconsider travel here. Nicaraguan has created quite an alliance with China and that is visible through the number of Chinese restaurants, car dealerships, supermarkets and the huge modern airport that is currently under construction here thanks to a partnership with the Chinese government. I would not be surprised if the US eventually issues a travel ban on Nicaragua like it has on Cuba making it very difficult for US citizens to visit. However, unlike the situation with Cuba, Nicaragua already has an alliance built with China making it less dependent on the US for ongoing support. It will be very interesting to see where the diplomatic relationship between our two countries goes during this Administration. I’m not in favor of the tactics taken by the current Sandinista regime in Nicaragua which has been known to severely limit human rights and economic prosperity. However, I believe that we often only are given one perspective on things (i.e. the US perspective) and I’m glad to have spent time with Nicaraguans to see another viewpoint. Ok. Moving on.

We listened to mass from our balcony and then observed a cute quinceañera photo session in front of the church. We stopped to enjoy a cocktail called macuá before having a light dinner of goat cheese, pesto and tomato jam bruschetta.

As we walked back to our hotel, we walked through the main plaza where hundreds of locals were gathered with their families enjoying music, food and dancing. The spirit was upbeat and friendly. I can’t wait to explore more tomorrow.