Granada, Nicaragua

The first weekend of December I went on a 3-day excursion to Nicaragua with my friend, Christina! I had to leave the country for at least 72 hours to renew my visa, so we left early Friday morning and took the 8 hour bus ride to Granada, Nicaragua. The entire trip went very smoothly, and I am so thankful for that.

Granada is such a historical and interesting city! I definitely didn't want to leave. The city was founded in the 1500s by the conquistador Francisco Córdoba, who named it after his home city of Granada, Spain.

It was awesome to see another culture and see the differences and similarities in the food and culture. There is this intense competition between Costa Ricans and Nicaraguans, so it was interesting to hear the other side.

Granada seems to be a much safer city than San José. It was nice to have a lot of people walking around at night because we were able to go out and see the city lit with Christmas lights. The food in Nicaragua was extremely cheap, and delicious!

Churrasco, Rice, and Tostones

Christina in our hostel room

The first morning, we woke up and went over the the Chocolate Museum, where we had an awesome breakfast of cacao and banana pancakes! It was so good.

They had a pet toucan:

Yay for organic chemistry!

I loved traveling with Christina because she was up for doing everything. We walked around the entire city, seeing all of the historic sites and architecture.

All the buildings had the same Spanish style, with tiled roofs and an inner courtyard.

Convent 

Emilia recommended a lot of traditional Nicaraguan dishes for me to try.

Indio Viejo 

We decided to go on 2 tours. The first was to a volcano, called Masaya.

It's an active volcano, so you could see the smoke coming out of the crater!

We were able to see the sunset over the volcano as our tour guide told us about the sacrificial rituals the native tribes used to practice.

Next, we took a night walk into the jungle, where we stood in front of a cave and had bats fly at us. Haha. It was really fun, though! And then we went into a nearby lava tube, which was completely dark except for our flashlights.

The next morning we went with the same tour guide to a small pottery-making town, where a guy showed us the entire process of ceramic making. It was so cool to see the process and I was impressed with how much work goes into a single pot.

Next we went to a lake which used to be a volcanic crater and we went kayaking and swimming! It was so nice! Christina captured it: "Right now, we're spending our semester laying on a dock in the middle of a lake that used to be a volcanic crater, in Nicaragua." :) It was nice to have a friend like her there to enjoy such a surreal moment. I never would have imagined doing some of the things I've done in these past 3 months. It has been an amazing time in my life, and I'm so thankful for that.