Nicaragua
50th, 46th, 40th & 40th
Population: as of 2018
All of the Republic of Nicaragua - 6,263,529
Managua (the capital) - 973, 087
Granada - 89, 409
Leon - 144, 538
Las Penitas - teeny...likely less than 5000
Main language spoken: Spanish
Nicaragua gained independence from Spain in 1821. It has undergone periods of political unrest and dictatorship, which lead to the Nicaraguan Revolution of the 1960's - 70's and the Contra War of the 80's.
Nicaragua is known as the land of lakes and volcanoes (I believe our guide says they have 46 volcanoes - 19 of which are active) and has the 2nd largest rain forest of the Americas.
Currency: Cordoba (1 Nicaraguan Cordoba = 0.032 American or 0.041 Canadian)
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| We wandered through this market to get to a grocery store where we purchased some food and also the awesome pool noodles. |
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| Enjoying the Airbnb pool with our newly purchased pool noodles! Kiki, you should stand between Steph and I all the time... look how tanned you are! |
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| Noodle girls! |
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| I think they're asleep!? |
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| Goofballs! |
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| Kiki enjoying this rare moment of relaxation... sadly we didn't give her much time for it on this trip! Sorry Kiki! 💖 |
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| The beautiful Catedral de Granada (a.k.a. Our Lady of Assumption). Darn! We forgot to go up in the towers of this cathedral. I think we missed some nice views of the city. 😟 |
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| Good shot Maggie! |
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| We were happy to be wandering around Granada on our first full day in Nicaragua. It's such a quaint and colourful city! |
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| This city has some serious charm to it... Maggie adds to the shot too! |
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| I was happy to find this in the Garden Café to take a picture of the peace crane for Tristan's school project. |
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| Lunch
@ The Garden Cafe ... lovely. It's a great place to have a nice,
relaxing lunch in the tranquil garden atmosphere. The food is locally
fresh and tasty also. |
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| The Iglesia de la Merced church where we climbed up in the bell tower. |
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| Going up into the bell tower - Steph LOVES it (not) when I get her to stop for pictures in tight/high spaces. Doesn't that staircase look super safe? |
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| Beautiful views of the city of Granada from the bell tower of Iglesia de la Merced. The yellow cathedral in the background is the Cathedral of our Lady of Assumption or Catedral de Granada. It costs $1 USD to go up in the bell tower and it's definitely worth it for the nice views. |
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| Thanks Maggie for this great shot... and many others (I don't remember who took which photos anymore). |
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| If only I could make this bigger... the town, cathedral and a volcano with cloud cover. |
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| Thought I'd pose for this picture in the tour company's office where we were booking a few tours. It was calling to me! 👋 |
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| The architecture and colours in this city are truly wonderful! I would have enjoyed a "colonial homes" tour here, but we just didn't have time. |
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| One of the many charming courtyards of Granada |
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| It really is a lovely town to walk around in. There are areas that definitely get a little sketchy... especially at night, but the main areas are clean and beautiful. |
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| So cute! |
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| Love it! A hammock shop... it's popular here and who doesn't love lazing around in a hammock? |
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| Random animal shots... horse with bird on his butt and a funky tree. |
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| This was a unique sight and I loved it until I saw the stupid kid being cruel to the cattle - he actually threw a rock at one cow and I yelled at him for it. Not effectively, but I felt a little better... like maybe I made him think about what he'd done?? |
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| Baby having a drink |
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| When we returned from our walk Rosa had put up birthday decorations for us as we were all there to celebrate birthdays (albeit a little early). |
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| The courtyard area heading up to where the red roof is to a restaurant called "Wok & Roll"... I'd highly recommend it! Below the restaurant there is a man making pottery. All 4 of us bought something from him and it was not expensive at all! $20 Cdn. for a large piece. Gorgeous and unique pieces compared to other pottery I've seen on our travels. |
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| This is actually not a vase... it's to put a candle or light under as there are holes on top and bottom. Oh, and a leather purse I purchased at "Soy Nica" (which means I am Nicaraguan according to the owner, but Google translate says it means "I'm single"! lol). Maggie bought the same one in bright pink. They make these products by hand right there in the shop (no pictures allowed) with respect for old traditions, but with modern Scandinavian designs. (www.soynica.dk) |
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| The pottery shop below Wok & Roll restaurant |
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| I really loved this pottery and wished I could have brought home more! |
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| The artist behind the pottery giving us a demonstration. |
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| Our volcano view! Love it! |
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Happy Hour at "Wok & Roll"... a great little courtyard restaurant with views of a volcano that Maggie found for us. This is where I fell in love with the national drink -the Macuá - made with white rum and fruit juices (usually lemon and guava juices). YUM! It's named after a tropical bird native to Nicaragua. We came for happy hour and stayed for dinner...it was delicious!
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| Heading out for the chocolate "beans to bar" tour followed by a massage and later the volcano at night tour! |
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| Sounds innocent enough right? |
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| The cacao tree |
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| The tour started off well when, I think it was Kiki, said something like "we need a tequila shot"... Alejandro happily complied and the shots kept coming (rapidly) after that for the next 2 + hours! I have NEVER, in my life, drank so many shots. Goodness! |
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You'd think this was a cream liqueur drinking workshop, but no, it is how to make chocolate, really! Alejandro was hilarious, energetic and fun. He also meshed well with our personalities and dirty minds! 🙉
I think Alejandro consumes chocolate, coffee and liquer all day and that's how he stays so perky! lol |
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| Some of the types of liqueur we sampled, and sampled and sampled. |
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| Some of the decor in the complex |
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| Let me see if I can remember the chocolate making process... |
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1. Nicaragua is the largest producer of cacao in Central America
2. I had to read up on this, but apparently the beans are fermented for 2-7 days (beans laid flat in a dry spot and covered with banana leaves).
3. Beans are dried in sun for 5-10 days
4. Then, the beans are roasted, which is what Stephanie's doing below and Maggie above ... both with style! Once properly roasted, the colour deepens to a dark brown, the smell will become richer and the beans start to make a crackling sound like popcorn. The Mayan people used to dance around the fire as they stirred the beans chanting something like "batae batae choco-latte"... we wanted to do it right, so we all danced and chanted!
5. Winnowing process: taking the husk/skins off the beans. I demolished a few beans doing this, but Steph was a pro.
6. Using mortar and pestle we had a contest of who was the best "grinder". The beans went from a nutty consistency to a shiny paste. Steph won this contest to become the best grinder! 😄
7. From this paste you can add various things. Originally the Maya added pimento, cinnamon, honey and hot water. The Aztecs also added red pepper. When Europeans got their hands on it they instead added sugar and milk.
8. Then we added whatever we wanted to our chocolate and poured them into molds (I have no idea what happened to mine... I added salt and chilli peppers to mine for Craig). I see others actually received a certificate, but Alejandro must have also been too drunk to remember to give us ours! lol It was WAY too much alcohol, but it was a lot of fun and a really enjoyable experience.
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| Great roasting style Steph! |
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| This guy had so charismatic and enthusiastic! |
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| A little chocolate face painting... |
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| Yaaaah, try as you may, you cannot look tough with chocolate on your face! |
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| A very large pestle... we were pretty happy by this point! Can ya tell? |
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| Yes, it was that interesting of a tour... Stephanie giving Alejandro a tip. |
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| I think she enjoyed herself? What do you think? |
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| Not sure why Kiki liked this guy so much when all he did was take our money for the tour, but it looks like you're really having fun, which is fantastic! |
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| After the "chocolate making", three of us had a massage. I've never had a massage after drinking before! These two came in my room to surprise me for this photo! |
It was time to leave Granada for Léon / Las Penitas. First stop after a nearly 3-hour drive was Leon where we enjoyed the unique rooftop of Our Lady of Grace Cathedral. You pay about $2 USD to go up on the roof, you take your shoes off and there are strict rules about where you can and cannot go. I was so enjoying the scenery that I fell in a gap, but no major damage done.
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| My booboo from falling in the gap |
Take a deep sigh... we have arrived at El Cardhu del Mar in Las Penitas... such a tranquil place.
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| Our place for 2.5 nights. |
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| The pool girls didn't waste any time getting in our new pool. |
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| Gorgeous sunset our first night here. |
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| Proud Canadians getting a picture of the Canadian flag at our hotel bar |
The volcano boarding adventure begins at Cerro Negro (black hill)...
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| Our 2nd day in Leon area we joined Bigfoot Hostel for volcano boarding! We were going to go with Quetzaltrekkers, but we couldn't book ahead of time with them and we wanted to be sure we got on this tour. Bigfoot was awesome and they took good care of us. The only part they were lacking on is the food after boarding. I got only one teeny slice of a sandwich. |
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| Drinking beer before going down the volcano... even me!? Yuck! |
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| The group right before we started the assent! That steep slope in the background was where we'd be going down. |
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| Climbing up... I really should have thought more about my outfit knowing these pictures would be taken! Yes, my t-shirt is way too big... I was more thinking that if I wiped out I wouldn't wreck any clothes that I loved. |
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| It was a beautiful day, sunny and about 32 degrees, but with the extreme wind up there it didn't feel too hot. Here we are all excited for our trip down the volcano! |
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| We're are wearing the goggles because it's very windy and blowing volcanic dust in our eyes! |
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| Maggie with orange cap and Steph ahead of her... you can see how steep the climb is! |
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| Hard-core adventure chicks! |
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| It was SO windy, this was not an easy task to climb on that little pointy rock to jump off it! Fun though! 😁 |
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| A bit of a lame jump... should have done the splits or something. Great scenery all around us... |
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| Maggie, the selfie queen |
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| All geared up for our boarding! This photo is a bit blurry, but still cool! |
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| Kiki coming down the volcano ... you can see it's quite a far way down! Her speed - 27 km/hr. |
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| Great shot, but are you stopped? You SO could have got a faster speed had you not stopped! lol |
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| I do believe this is Maggie coming down... her speed - 18 km/hour |
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| Steph having a blast at 24 km/hr. |
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| Me whizzing by and giving the cameraman a cheeky nod @ 40 km/hr. |
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| Great selfie showing the steepness of the slope. The adventure was amazing, I think we all enjoyed ourselves and nobody got hurt! Thank goodness! |
Meanwhile, back at the beach in Las Penitas...
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| Sand dollar beach shot |
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| I'm jumping for joy because Kiki & I got caught in the tide and had to do a mad dash through a rocky area as the waves crashed to shore! |
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| Our matching birthday PJ's compliments of Maggie! Steph with the shorts because she likes her "short-shorts"! 👍 |
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| Steph & I boogie boarding |
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| Our last day in Las Penitas... Kiki & I decided to do a photo shoot to try and get a big wave crashing behind me. Of course the ocean won and I got totally soaked, but it was fun trying! |
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| This shot was taken after her feet got stuck in the sand and her flip flops broke. May they rest in peace in Las Penitas. |
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| See the water line? I came pretty close to losing my sandals. |
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| Gorgeous black-sand beach. On the other side of that cross is a really flat section. |
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| Bye bye Las Penitas, we'll miss you! |
