Panama Canal Cruise 2/15/08
Day 10 San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua / Granada, Nicaragua
Until recent times Nicaragua was unfortunately known for the civil war (Sandinistas and Contras) that raged from the loate 70’s through much of the 80’s. Today, the soldiers and guerrillas have been replaced with tour guides eater to show their beautiful country. Most of Granada's streets are quite narrow due to the city's layout before the advent of motorized vehicles. Due to this, many streets are one-way which can add a challenge to visitors traveling by car. Though Granada remains Nicaragua's third largest city, it is widely known for preserving some the finest colonial-era architecture in the country. A real estate boom had been underway for several years, with many European and Americans purchasing and renovating the area's homes for retirement or holiday homes and several foreign realtors establishing offices. Granada, though now highly dependent on tourism, also has fertile agricultural land within the municipality. Major production of organic coffee and cacao, cattle, plantain and bananas occurs within its boundaries. Our on shore excursion took us first to Granada, Nicaragua’s oldest colonial city which was founded in 1524. We viewed many beautiful colonial buildings and briefly visited the Granada Colonial Museum, the Handicrafts Market and then had an authentic Nicaraguan lunch in a thatch room restaurant.

We continued our tour through the agricultural land and up into the mountains to view Masaya Volcano. It is active and spewing acrid volcanic ash and odor. Its smoke clouds the skies for long distances. We walked up a distance so that we could get a view from a high peak. The ground here is covered with volcanic rock and quite desolate looking. It was quite an experience looking down into the volcano.