Soy El Americano Feo

Soy El Americano Feo. If you don´t know what that means, then click on the link. But if you don´t...seriously? In 2008? As some nobody once said "You don´t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." That check is in the mail, so to speak. Start learning Spanish.

Got into Nicaragua yesterday. By all accounts I should avoid Managua as much as possible (the least damning praise I could find for it stated that it eventually grows on you. Hardly 2 thumbs up.)so I took a shuttle straight to Granada. Granada is Nicaraugua´s colonial jewel, akin to Antigua in Guatemala, or Arequipa in Peru. Over the years it (the conservative one) fueded ceaselessly with its liberal rival Leon until the Span ish finally stepped in and declared a previously insignificant fishing village, Managua, to be the once and future capitol.

Situated on the shores of the majestic Lake Nicaragua, Granada has a rich and varied history that includes several burnings, the last by William Walker in 1856. After his failed bid to create an empire for the South in Central America, he burned Granada to the ground upon his retreat, and left the now infamous sign "here was Granada.



Spent the morning (after literally sleeping for 12 hours, the most I´ve slept in as long as I can remember) exploring the lakefront in Granada. Unlike many other Latin American countries I´ve visited, Granada actually has a series of lakefront parks and playgrounds that suggest that its inhabitants have a leisure life beyond Sweeping their stoops and dogfights. Of course the artea is known as the Centro Turistico,so maybe it´s unofficially open only to gringo suckers such as myself as it was eerily deserted today. Of course, I was exploring it at 10 am on a schoolday, so maybe that explains the dearth of children playing. Pretty much the only people I saw where motor launch captains who wanted me to book a tour tyo Las Isletas with them. Las Isletas are a series of tiny islands (some say 365 one to explore for each day of the year) that are a popular day trip excursion from Granada. I´ll visit them tomorrow, especially Isla de los Monos as I´ll partake in anything that has ¨de los monos¨in it´s title. If your unsure about de los monos, then visit the translator from earlier.

It´s miserably hot here, but really no worse than New Orleans in the summer (90s really humid) so I´m not faring too poorly. What´s kind of excellent is the locals actually seem to be affected by the climate as well, not just those of us of the Northern European persuasion. I´ve seen many people carrying around parasols as protection from the heat of the day, including one otherwise all-business, shotgun-toting bank security guard. His was an amazing shade of purple, but despite the amazing juxtaposition, he looked super pissed off, so I was too scared to take his picture.