Granada, Nicaragua

The main cathedral and square of Granada.
Another beautiful city full of giant old churches, we like Granada a lot. The lovely painted houses and the bustling streets.
And no better way for a family to see it than in a horse drawn cart with Miss Romany up front as usual


The Nicaraguans are a very friendly lot but they do have a cruel side. They sit you down at a nice restaurant and then once you have ordered and cant go anywhere they turn on music torture. Tonight it included The coward of the county by Kenny Rodgers, Rhinestone Cowboy by Glen Campbell and Wasted days and wasted nights by Freddy Fender. Now they cant be all that nice if they would do that to you. Or worse still maybe they think that is what we listen to and are secretly pitying us.

Granada, Nicaragua

The weather remains very hot here but is being helped by the gradual onset of the rainy season with showers now most nights and occasionally briefly in the day. Granada is a lovely town, like Leon colonial architecture and churches but much better organised for travellers with lots of hotels, restaurants and tours. All the central buildings are painted in different pastel colours making for a lovely appearance.

And as in all good central American towns they have a local party shop full of piñatas. And they all seem to have something against Spongebob (Bob Esponga in local terms).


We spent one day up at this volanic crater lake (Laguna de Apoyo) with crystal clear waters to swim in and perfect water temperatures.

Volcano Mombacho,Nicaragua

The food remains well received on the Jim Lawless guided tour.

The highlight of the two days with Jim and friends from the kids point of view was a trip up the volcano near Granada where they do zip line tours. These involve being harnessed to a cable and swinging along 13 lines strung through the tops of the trees to platforms.

Both kids started off cautiously and Romany at first was attached to a guide but they both got more and more fearless. They finally both ended up solo, upside down and sometimes arms out in front in a superman pose. Needless to say the adults were much more circumspect and cautious in their approach. After all one is a long way up at up to 70m.


Thanks Jim, great outings · sorry you had to go back to work. And now the rest of us have to return to a backpackers lifestyle. But it beats working.

Lago de Nicaragua, Nicaragua

Romany in the Granada hotel lobby.
Jim, Romany and Ciaran on the lake


Having made the run from the east of Honduras to Leon in Nicaragua we met up with Susie s brother Jim who had arranged for us to have a bit of a look at the other side of travel in Central America with a business associate Tom and his wife. This distinctly upmarket leap involved an air conditioned vehicle and more travel in 2 days than we normally do in a week. And all kindly backed with upmarket meals and hotels.
So we were picked up from Leon and driven to Granada where we unloaded our gear in a very posh colonial hotel right in the centre. Then the afternoon was spent in a boat going between islands on the lake, looking at the rich peoples houses built on the island, not feeding the monkeys who came down to the waters edge in hope of some food and ending up at an island swimminng pool.
Travelling in this way is almost as hard as being in the caribbean. It is getting pretty hot before the rainy season, now up to 37deg in the afternoon but air=con makes it all OK.