Our horse drawn carriage ride around the city stopped at the Iglesia de La Merced. Our carriage driver said we should not miss the view from the top of the bell tower. Here we are approaching the church.

We paid our $1.00 admission fee and then saw the steps up to the top. Good thing we are not claustrophobic!

The view over the city of Granada in all directions was indeed worth the short climb.

In the last two photos you can see Volcán Mombacho in the distance which will feature in another blog post.

Our driver waving to us from below! Our carriage awaits!

Rick makes his way down the narrow, winding stairs.

I hope you enjoyed the view!

The beautiful Catedral anchors the busy and boisterous Parque Central, or town square. It was a pleasure to look out at its sunny yellow façade from our hotel balcony. Here it is as seen from different angles.

Horse-drawn carriages lined the street in front of the park and right underneath our balcony. We tried to pick the best cared for horses when we took our carriage ride around the city as some were not as healthy looking.

They shared the streets with buses and cars pretty seamlessly.

The square was filled with vendors selling food, souvenirs and handicrafts. Every morning they were set up from scratch and taken down at day’s end.

My favorite, of course, was the elderly woman with her food stand. We are still not quite sure what it was she was selling and we were really tempted to try it, but it contained a lot of salad or some kind of raw slaw and that’s a classic no-no when visiting a third-world country. No street food! Plus we did watch her pick things up from the ground a few times and then serve food. Whatever it was, she served it in a neat banana leaf packet. Lots of white rice, some salad on top and lord knows what else. Many people ate it for breakfast. Here she is dressing the salad/slaw.

Every bowl had to be ‘just so’  in a certain position, her banana leaves stacked by the big bowl of rice (she also used a banana leaf to stir the rice), along with all of her other ingredients. We mostly watched her setting up her food stall, but one day we managed to be on our balcony when she was leaving for the day. Unlike the morning where she presided over the setting up, in the afternoon she strolled off clasping the hand of what appeared to be her small granddaughter, leaving the taking down of the stall to the same crew that brought all her things to her in the morning. Here is the cart being loaded up at the end of the day.

It was such a wonderful peek into the daily lives of real people. It’s one of my favorite things about the entire trip.

Here is our hotel as viewed from the square. Our balcony is the one partially obscured by the tree.

The only drawback to our room on the square were the noisy birds the guidebook calls “jackdaws.”  These birds nested in the trees in the square and woke up very early in the morning, squawking and generally making a great deal of noise. It was impossible to sleep through! Every night as the sun was setting it was the same thing all over again as they settled in for the night. Kind of endearing though in an strange way.

Everything in Granada is colorful (the subject of yet another blog post.) If you look closely you will see that the car in the background is the same color as the table and chairs.

I loved the bicycle in the fountain in this shot. This color of green is very popular as the photo of the table above was taken on the opposite of the park from this one.

Next entry: Granada, Nicaragua: From the Bell Tower

Our vacation to Nicaragua and Panama took us a world away. It awakened the sleeping traveler in me. They say the mark of a truly good vacation is one that takes you out of your element and completely transports you. Not only physically, but mentally as well. This vacation did all that and more.

When we lived in Europe we traveled a lot. We were always on the go exploring and flying to new places. In the past years since we’ve been living back in the States, I have not done much out of country travel. I don’t like to fly very much anymore and avoid it whenever I can. I even thought I really didn’t want or need to travel anymore, having had so much of it in the past. This trip proved me wrong. It literally screamed at me Wake up, Lynne! There are so many places yet to explore ... don’t be afraid of it ... embrace it.

I know I promised I would blog from our vacation. I really thought I would have time, but the reality was I did not have time nor did I have the inclination to write a blog entry. In the next week or so I will be taking you on my vacation with me albeit a little late.

Right now we are having difficulty getting the photos that were downloaded on Rick’s laptop to transfer to my computer. Once we have that problem solved I will have lots to share with you. An active volcano, rain forests, howler monkeys, a sloth, colorful birds, the Panama Canal, gorgeous scenery and more!

I hope you will come along for the adventure!

Painting on the side of a building in old town, Casco Viejo, in Panama City

It’s obvious to me that I am definitely NOT in New Jersey anymore, or as Dorothy said to Toto, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”  We just got out of dipping in the hotel pool and I am sitting in the covered outdoor patio area of our hotel to take advantage of the Wi-Fi connection that doesn’t quite work in our room. A tropical breeze blows past me and I am sipping a cool glass of white wine. The temperature is around 87 degrees F but with the humidity, the “real feel” is 96 degrees F. Steamy. Tropical. Hot. Definitely not New Jersey.

The above photo was taken from our room balcony overlooking the town square and the beautiful church. Each morning since we arrived I have watched one particular older woman set up her food stand from start to finish. The process fills me with joy. I did take video of the whole thing this morning, from her waiting for the horse cart to arrive with all her things on it, to setting up for business. It’s part of daily life here. I will have more photos later, but for now you will have to be satisfied with my words and only a few photos.

Until you visit another culture other than your own comfortable one, you really can’t begin to understand. You sit smug in your own little bubble thinking that everyone does and reacts the same way. Until you are removed from that into a totally different culture which makes you look at the world in a completely different way.

Since we’ve arrived we’ve taken a horse drawn cart through the city, stood on the edge of an active volcano, taking in the steam and gases rising out of it, and later after it was dark, peering into its depths to see the glowing lava and hearing the magma exploding which sounded a lot like thunder, walked through a cave made from lava with lots of little fruit bats, and hiked around a “dormant” volcano’s rim in a cloud forest, seeing howler monkeys on the way back down.

I promise more photos to come but it might not happen until we return. It just depends on the weather and if we are confined to our room while we are in Panama since the weather outlook for weather without rain is not looking good at this point.

I must say that although Nicaragua is poor, the people here have a wonderful sense of national pride. It is evident in everyone we speak to. They are quick to tell you how great their roads are and how hard they are working on being self-sufficient in energy. They even harness the gas from an active volcano to provide power. They are proud people, as they should be for what they have accomplished.

So tomorrow we head to Panama and leave Nicaragua. More to come!

We’ll be on business and vacation in Central America over the next 12 days. I will hopefully blog a few times from there, otherwise I’ll catch you on the flip side!