Adios

Granada - Laguna de Apoyo - Masaya

I´m now averaging about 10 hours of sleep a night. I fall asleep within 5 minutes of going to bed. It doesn´t matter if it´s hot, or if there´s a little bit of noise. I sleep like a baby, and it´s great. I´m sure it´s all a direct result of no stress whatsoever. Life is good when the hardest choice you´ve got to make is what to have for breakfast and which new place to discover next.

Granada is beautiful. It´s an old colonial town, and some parts of the city have been fully restored, lots of colourful buildings. But the buildings bearing the full signs of the past few centuries - all the earthquakes and the civil war - are the the best.

Inside the buildings, there are shops that sell everything you don´t need, and some very dodgy looking hot dog places. People go on about their daily life, children sleep under the display tables while their moms gossip with the ladies from the other stalls. At some parts of the city the pavement is so crowded with sellers that you have to walk on the main road, and try tyo avoid the cars, the motorbikes and the horses. It seems like horse-drawn carriages are still the main mode of transport for many Nicaraguans. If only it wasn´t that damn hot, you could walk around for hours and hours just letting it slowly sink in. But it IS damn hot, probably in the high 30s C...

I escaped the heat in the afternoon by packing a light overnight bag and taking the shuttle to a lagoon nearby. It´s a lake formed inside an old crater, and what a stunning place it was. I stayed in a gorgeous house called the Crater´s Edge, run by a lovely Canadian woman called Ann.

Straight away I took a dip in the lake. They have a cool little floating dock, and a bar right by the water. The dinner was served at 6.30pm under the stars, and I noticed that the only other people staying there were three couples. Ann lit the candles on the tables, it was so romantic - I´d gate-crashed a honeymoon heaven. Fucking fantastic. Two of the couples swiftly sat on their own tables. I was just about to reach to my Lonely Planet for some company, when Christi and Greg appeared and sat down on my table. Aah bless them! They were a really cool couple from New York and not even on a honeymoon. We drank the night away and I got lots of good tips for my New York trip. Things always seem to work out ok.

In the morning I woke up with the sun. One of the walls in the room I was sleeping in was open and it had a view to the lake, so I saw there was something special happening and got up and walked down the stairs to the lake. It´s not often that I get up at sunrise, but it´s more than worth it. The lake was even more beautiful than in the daylight, and I could hear the wildlife in the jungle going wild. (Wildlife going wild? Must think of a better metaphore...)

The moment passed quickly, and I went back to bed, and slept for another couple of hours, got up for a lovely three-course breakfast (fresh fruit for a starter, bread, eggs, cheese and salad for a main, and two types of home-made cake for a pudding, flushed down with three cups of coffee).

I could so get used to this, I thought, when I dived into the warm but refreshing volcanic lake afterwards.

But it as all good things, it had to come to an end. At midday, me and the New Yorkers caught a chicken bus to Masaya, a town famous for its artisan market about 45 mins away.

I shopped until I dropped, then had a faboulous veggie burrito in the best Mexican restaurant in Nicaragua (according to the bible). It was yummy, and I finished the whole grande burrito. Can´t say the same about the strange drink that I ordered, having slightly gotten lost in translation.

Exhausted from the shopping, eating and the heat, we caught a taxi back to Granada and Oasis again. I took another quick walk around the town, and thought about my approaching departure. I didn´t really want to leave yet. There´s still so much to see. But one thing is for (almost) sure - those places will wait for me. I say almost, as Nicaragua gets distroyed every now and then by earthquakes, so there´s always that little chance that a place won´t be there anymore when I come back.

My time here is up, for now. New York is waiting - if I make it to my early flight in the morning that is - have to get up at 3.45am. I´m just going to have one more beer and lie down in a hammock, while I still can. Actually, that should be possible back home as well, in theory. I bought a gorgeous hammock today, now just need to think where the hell to hang it in London.

Adios, Central America. You´ve been very kind to me. No robbings, no killings, lots of lovely people and bizarre experiences, one very uneven tan, a thousand memories.

Hasta luego.