Going to Granada

Today we caught a public bus in San Juan to Rivas. It waited till it was mostly full then took off picking up and dropping off passengers as it went along. The brakes were so bad they ground, metal on metal at each stop and I know if I’d looked out the window, there would have been sparks flying. We arrived at the central bus terminal for all regional buses and found the one for Granada for 24 cordobas ( $1)

While we waited for other passengers, street vendors came on the bus calling out their wares from watches, to food, jewelry to music. We had to laugh because it was like having a market on the bus. You didn’t even have to get off to have ice cream or water delivered. Everything was advertised as "Incredible" and "Fresh". Bus square was packed with people, stray dogs that were so emaciated they fought over plastic bags with a little liquid inside and ran around with ribs showing tail between their legs. We don’t see that in the States because we simply remove the dogs and put them down. So much activity was fun to watch from the window, studying people, watching the Saturday going-ons.

Once we pulled out and were on our way, again we stopped to pick up and drop off people. There was even a pig brought on board squealing in distress and making us smile. Really a pig. We had to laugh, ours wasn’t a chicken bus as everyone calls the public bus, but a pig one. Then a man stood up and started selling medication for headaches, indigestion and acid reflux. He walked down the isle raving about his wonder drugs, us not understanding a word, and passed out samples. When he had finished and worked his way to the back of the bus, he retraced his steps and collected the samples back.

Granada’s public bus stop drops you off in the middle of the massive local market. We wove our way through the crowds looking for hostels and the park central which is the reference point for all tourism. The first hostel we found we could get a shared room, two beds for 6 dollars each. It was located a little too out of town for us, so we kept moving and finally found the park center. Like walking into a peaceful silence, all the noise from the market died down and the peacefulness of the trees and shade helped cool our minds and body. Now with a definite point of reference we located another hostel called the Bearded Monkey where all that was left was a dorm bed for $8. No thanks, after looking at the room, mattresses on the floor, clothes strewn around, we kept moving. Two doors down from that same hostel was another quiet purple one, with a shared room for seven dollars apiece and very clean. I even got to use a towel for free (most hostals charge a rental fee). We took the room, dumped our stuff and then headed out to see the sites.

Down the main strip with all the restaurants, we walked, to the pier and then back, photographing some old churches and sites we found of interest. We ate at an Irish pub. Fabienne says they’re all over the world and wondered if there were any Irish still left in Ireland. It claimed to have the best fish and chips in Central America. I was sadly disappointed, and not impressed. Afterwards we explored some more waiting for the movie in the only theater in town to start. There is only one movie showing a day, at 6:45. Ours was Shutter Island, and even though the poster was in Spanish, the movie itself was in English with Spanish subtitles. The cost was around $1.25, and there even bats in the theater that would occasionally flutter across the projector and cast dark shadows across the faces of the actors. It was great. It turned out to be a good movie, not a horror or gory like we both thought and to top it all off, we even got to watch the trailer for Clash of the Titan’s dubbed in Spanish. Classic!