Bland City - Blogabond

Granada, Nicaragua is the oldest city in Central America, dating back to the 1400s. Im guessing the its not the city's original paint job though. Every building is a wild pastel or a vibrant purple, pink, yellow, green, blue or otherwise a mix of these. Florida colors abound. There is one constant color--the sky is always deep blue. I had lots of fun simply taking pictures of walls. It sounds boring, but the contrast between three homes is striking and we learned on our horse and carriage tour that the colors represent different families. Some of the homes for sale, by Remax of all companies, are going for upwards of a cool million US.

Even our hostel is like a painter's color palette. I swear the central courtyard walls are the exact same flourescent yellow-green of my loft bedroom, senior year of college. Feels like home, and to be honest, I'm seriously considering owning a hostel one day. I've been touched by the last few I've visited. Evidently some photographers have been touched too, as this hostel, Hospedaje Libertad, is featured in a Nicaraguan magazine, Hecho. It's proudly sported at the reception desk. They've got a gorgeous central courtyard with small yard, garden, fountain, tables, chairs, and the essential row of hammocks. In the back courtyard there's ample space to hang your clothes on the two lines after handwashing them in the giant sinks equipped with graded concrete washboards. Feels nice to put some elbow grease into your clothes and do some free laundry. My yellow travel shirt wrang out some putrid, viscous fluid resembling chocolate milk. Hours of sweaty backpacking, busing, volcano trekking, and concrete bench sleeps soaked deep in the threads, coming clean. Beautiful sight. Next to the washing sinks lies the kitchen, where we've been cooking some epic breakfasts. 10 oranges for 10 cordobas, or 50 cents and a hand squeezer lent us fresh juice this morning with a feast of fruit. Oh, the pinapple here is heavenly--small, round, white, and soft. Then fried eggs, real cage free brown ones, homemade, savoury donuts, and coffee with Baileys. Don't think I can eat til dinner.

We're heading out to Leon today. Going to climb some more fire mountains and maybe get the chance to do some volcano boarding. Keep you posted, and load some pix soon. Sorry this PC isnt accepting my USB, but manyana. Always manyana.

written by

miltshakenbake on March 20, 2010 from Granada, Nicaragua

from the travel blog: Central America

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