At dinner last night Norm suggested we stay at the hotel another day and spend today touring the nearby city of Granada - about a 50 minute drive from the hotel.
We were off towards Granada by 8:00. Initially Norm drove us around some of the inner city streets of Granada near the market - at one point he drove down a street that had been so narrowed by all the stalls of vendors that in order for us to pass, the vendors had to remove their merchandise from the road way. It was amazing that they did this with no complaint.
Being in the market gave Nina the opportunity to search for a souvenir she has been talking about for some days - namely an apron. We have seen these aprons every where in Central America. Worn only by women they are lacy affairs with a number of pockets for all kinds of things and come in a variety of colors from white through patterned pastels. We even saw one women carrying a live chicken in the pocket of one of these aprons. Once Norm had traversed the narrow street Nina and I jumped out of his car and headed back into that street. Asking the first lady we saw wearing an apron where we might get one - in sign language of course - we headed off in the direction her waving arms indicated. The mission was successful and Nina is now the proud owner of a light purple Central American Apron
A nice drive through the lake front park brought us to a water front establishment that offered boat rides through Granada's famous islands. These islands are simply piles of rocks ejected from a local volcano, there are hundreds of them varying in size from 3 feet across to 3-4 acres. The larger ones have dwellings, some quite elaborate, and power lines run out from the shore. Norm suggested we take a 2 hour boat tour - which we did. It was pleasant, with a breeze off the water, and interesting. A number of the islands were for sale. One at US$100,000 about 50 yards square with no buildings, and another about 1 acre with some old walls for US$285,000 - guess we won't be moving here anytime soon.
One of the high points of these boat rides was a visit to La isla de la monkeys - you got it the island of the monkeys. About 20 yards across and covered with trees the island seemed to have 6-12 monkeys. After a number of aborted efforts our boat approached the island and to our surprise a monkey boarded our boat. Once on board it headed straight for Nina's pack which I was fortunate enough to rescue. However the boat mans pack was not so lucky. The monkey got into it and into the man's lunch of chicken and rice salad. The monkey - named Lola, even though it was obviously a male - did not at first seem to like the chicken but was quite partial to the rice. We spent the next 20 minutes with Lola as our companion while he ate all of the rice salad. Once the salad was finished he thoroughly searched the bag for more delicacies. Finding no new treats, he sampled the chicken and then reluctantly departed, with some encouragement from a bucket of water thrown by the boat man.
Back at the dock Norm had arranged a horse carriage tour of the streets of Granada for us, so out of the boat and into the carriage. About 100 yards down the road we passed a group of 6 un-tethered horses beside the road. One of these immediately headed our way and came nose to nose with the horse pulling our carriage. This seemed to upset our horse whose reaction was to rear up on its hind legs and back up. All this while still in harness to the carriage. The situation was restored when some passers by in a truck stopped and with the aid of a 6 foot piece of plastic water pipe encouraged the interloping horse to depart. Thereafter the tour went smoothly.
Granada seems to be a charming and old city - founded in 1536 by Cordova - and is under going some clean up and beautification to attract tourists. We saw more gringo tourists in this town than we have seen since Antigua. In fact it is called the Antigua of Nicaragua.
A short stop at a souvenir market, a longer stop at a fast food place for lunch and our days tour was over. Really a nice and interesting day.
