Granada

Theodore arrived, we don´t have any pictures of us together yet, but it´s been nice having someone else around. Someone who tells me it´s ok to eat at ¨expensive¨(like, 8 dollars vs. 5) restaurants, and someone to talk to and play cards with. I´ve been doing a good enough job keeping him healthy, it seems. We were in Granada for Sunday and Monday. It is another city full of churches and colonial architechture, but it´s different than Leon in the sense that things were pricier (seemed to be a slightly older, wealthier type of tourist and ex-pat residents) and there were more beggars everywhere. Theodore picked up some important safety tips (ducking into stores when being followed) and ¨no, gracias¨(no thanks) very quickly. Granada is also cool because it is on the big Lake Nicaragua-aka-Cocibolca. 10th largest in the world, 2nd largest in Latin America (is Titicaca the first? I can´t remember). It has something called Las Isletas, a group of 365 generally very small islands, which have cool wildlife, some are inhabited by communities Nicaraguans, some are privately owned by wealthy foreigners. I took a nice 2.5 hour tour around some of them. Very fun.



A Nicaraguan who lives in the islands. Mostly these people are fishermen or women as a trade, but they are quite poor. An interesting contrast between their small houses and the mansions on neighboring islands. This man was kind enough to show us his catch (the bottom of the canoe was full of live-but-soon-to-be-dead fish). Now, these people are not an indigenous tribe, they speak Spanish, and supposedly have been on the islands for about 200 years (so like, way after the Spanish came). But my tour guide kept saying they were ¨natives.¨ It´s like calling me a native in the United States...Seemed a bit diminuitive or racist to me.

This is a picture of me watching out for pirate ships from the fort on the lookout island (which I hear is not so preposterous to do these days).
Monkey on monkey island. They´re not native, but someone put 4 monkeys there just ´cause. And they were awesome.
When our boat got stuck in the grassy plants. The plants re-aggregate fast, since boats travel through here at least 2 times a day, and yet we had to wait for a more powerful boat to push a path through. Nature wins!
Cool church. Looks a lot like the León cathedral, no?