Life, times, shmem: Granada is here

Namesake of my favorite city in southern Spain.

Granada = Beautiful

Though Nicaragua´s own can´t quite rival the Andalucian splendor, this place is quite nice too. Much smaller than Managua (110,000 vs. a million), it felt much more tranquil and personal. Like the aforementioned city it rests right on a lakeside; the northwest coast of Lake Nicararagua (the largest in Central America, with fresh-water sharks!). It´s a very touristy city so that was interesting...the central area is much cleaner than Managua looks, but one day Mel and I walked to the outskirts to where people actually live, and it reminded us more of real Nicaragua than the central park and its surrounding hostel-filled streets.

Photo I wish I could have taken:

As Mel and I walk down a dirt street strewn with trash, despite a nearby sign pleading ¨No Botar La Basura¨a dark, barefooted old Nicaraguense trudges in front of us. His balding head is adorned with a dirty blue hat, and on his back a T-shirt proclaims ¨I Love My Country¨ under a big fat flag of red ´n white stripes cornered by fifty stars.

Things

- Oldest city in the Americas that is still in its original location (though Francisco Cordoba´s original Granada of 1524, center of slave trade and Spanish conquest, is no longer what stands, since it was burned down thanks to the archetypal American go-getter William Walker in 1857).

- When ¨General¨ Charles Henningsen burned the city on Walker´s orders, he left a sign that read: GRANADA WAS HERE.

- Leon was founded by Cordoba at the same time as Granada, and for the next three centuries a rivalry between the two cities raged over which was the capital. Rich creole merchants arguing with eachother over power; a well-known story. Since Granada lies right on Lake Nicaragua, which connects to the Carribean coast via Rio del San Juan, a wealthy merchant class cropped up rather quickly. So historically Granada has been the ¨Conservative¨ city and Leon the ¨Liberal¨ city.

Views of the City from La Catedral Merced

(completed in 1784)