Sheep Guarding Llama

It is the middle of the week.  Up early as has become our custom here.  I wrote and posted for a while this morning and later in the morning I walked over to the Cafe Isabella and got take out breakfast for the family.  Dominica and I each got full Nico breakfasts which include gallo pint, scrambled eggs, toast, fried plantains and fried local cheese.  For the kids I got pancakes.  They make really thick pancakes there.

This afternoon I was on the phone for two hours in the early afternoon and then did some more writing.  Now that we are on week two in Granada I am getting far more into the groove and am doing well at getting things done.

This evening we decided to go out for dinner.  We tried to go our around seven thirty but both girls ended up needing showers, then Dominica needed one and finally I managed to get one so it was more like eight thirty when we set out to walk downtown.

We got down to the “strip” where all of the city’s restaurants are and settled on a Mexican place, Tequila Vallarta, on our end of the strip.  We sat outside as there was a nice breeze and, of course, one person after another came up trying to sell us stuff.  We are going to have to rethink sitting out on the street as nice as it is; it really pegs you as a tourist and the number of people trying to sell you you things just never lets up.  I wonder how many people avoid eating down there because of that.

We were not outside for long before it began to rain.  So we went inside to keep from getting wet.  We had bought some bracelets for the girls from a deaf guy on the street and he came inside with us to work on the bracelets for the girls for a while.

It was a bit late for having the girls out.  Liesl did great but Luciana was very grumpy and we had a hard time getting her to eat.  She did discover that she likes quesadillas, though.

On the way back home we stopped at the corner store and picked up some supplies to restock the house.

Tuesday.  I refrained from going on any long walks today because I had some blisters after having done so yesterday.  My feet need to heal before I head out for anything like that again.

Today was a rather quiet day around the house.  I wrote and Dominica and the girls did school.  We stayed in all day and just relaxed.  Everyone swam a little, which was nice.  The water is surprisingly cold, probably because it is fully in ground and all full of rain water.

This evening the girls really wanted to go to the corner store.  So Liesl, Luciana and I walked down to the corner store together and left Dominica at home as she did not want to go.  We had a lot of fun on out little walk and the girls demonstrated that they could figure out how to get to the corner store on their own.  They are learning their way around their city now!

While we were at the store they discovered that they now have Kinder Sorpresa there.  This is going to be a problem, I am sure.  So they each got one egg.

After I dropped the girls off at the house I ran around the corner to pick up two cans of Victoria beer, the biggest beer in Nicaragua, for myself.  It is about eighty five cents for a beer here.

We watched The Nanny this evening as a family in our bedroom until it was time to go to bed.

I was up at six this morning and put in about an hour getting up to date on the world and doing some posting.  Dominica was up around seven and shortly after she was up I went out for a long morning constitutional around the city.  This time I set out to the west to see what there was out in that direction.

While I was out Dominica dealt with the water boy delivering our next five gallons of water and the maid coming to clean the house and the pool guy coming to check on the pool.  I cannot believe that it takes two visits a week to keep a pool inside of the house healthy.

It was pretty hot for me, nearly ninety degrees in bright sun, while on my walk.  I ended up doing almost exactly six miles around the city.  It was a good walk and I feel like each of these walks results in a far better understanding of the area.  Nicaragua is very interesting.

On the way back to the house I stopped by at the Cafe Isabella and got two take away (para llevar) plates of gallo pinto and scrambled eggs for Dominica and me to have for breakfast.  While I was there I get Carl and Jim, two retirees who have lived here in Granada for eighteen and ten years respectively.  Carl is eighty, now.  I got to talk to Carl for probably fifteen minutes before he had to run away to deal with an errand.  I am slowly getting to know people around town.

Dominica was pretty excited that I brought food home today.  It is so hot here; it is no fun to cook.

Writing and posting most of the day.  A pretty slow day at the Miller household in Granada.  The girls had fun doing school.  Luciana is loving doing school and demands every day that she get to do it.  She does not like when she has to wait for Liesl before having her school time.

This evening Dominica really wanted pizza for dinner and Luciana wanted to go to the store.  So Dominica and Liesl stayed home and just Luciana and I walked up to La Colonia and Pizza Vale.  It was nice having a daddy daughter walk together, something that we almost never get to do.  It is a long walk too and she did great.  No complaining or anything.  She was very happy to walk all of thatwa way with me to the store.  It was a lot of fun.

We ordered our take out pizzas from Pizza Vale and then went over to La Colonia, the grocery store in the same plaza, to do some shopping.  We got two bags of groceries and then picked up our two pizzas, a vegetarian pizza for Dominica and me and just a cheese and garlic pizza for the girls.

The walk back was a little challenging because I had to carry two very hot pizzas, two bags of groceries and hold Luciana’s hand as we navigated dark streets.

Dominica set up the television with The Nanny which Liesl really likes and once back we all set on the floor of our bedroom watching television and eating the pizza.

It was an early night for us.  Dominica and I were in bed by ten.  With my long walk this morning in the heat and another walk this evening I was ready for some sleep.  All of the heat, humidity and sunlight really take the energy right out of you.

Hard to believe that today has been twelve years since Dominica and I got hitched!  And this is our first anniversary where we have had a Liesl for most of the time that we have been married.

It is Sunday and we have no plans for today.  We are spending the weekend relaxing as this is our first full weekend in Granada, Nicaragua and we want to see what it is like around here and get some time to just have down time as it always takes a week after traveling into a new country before you really get settled in and have a chance to just enjoy being where you are.

Today was pretty hot, again.  There continues to be no rain.  We were promised rain.  The weather forecast continues to tease us with promises of rain but nothing ever comes.

This morning we got up, got the kids ready and walked over to Cafe Isabella which is right around the corner from us.  This is a more “local” place to eat than most anywhere that we have been going thus far, except for Pizza Vale.  We got traditional breakfasts today.  I went for a simpler mean and Dominica went for the full traditional Nicaraguan breakfast which consists of scrambled eggs, gallo pinto, fried cheese and fried plantains.  It is a sizable meal.

It was a nice breakfast and it was nice to sit outside on the porch while we ate.  We will be coming back here often, it was a good place at a good price.  Barely more expensive than buying groceries.

After breakfast we went back to the house and went for a swim.  This is my first time in the swimming pool since we have been here!  We had a nice time cooling off in the pool.  It was actually cool enough that it was hard to get in because the water was actually quite cold.

This evening, around four, I went out for a long walk up to the north east side of town up past the university up there.  It was an interesting walk and I went through several barios.  I probably did four to five miles. It was extremely hot, though, and I was drenched in sweat.  As usual, it is the humidity not the raw heat that is the issue.

The walk was great.  So many people are outside, I got a really great view into Nicaraguan life.  I walked through several incredibly poor neighbourhoods and even a little shanty town.  We’ve been warned several times about Granada having dangerous areas but I think that those warnings are overblown.  Everyone, even in the roughest parts of town, are so nice and friendly.  You can stop and talk to anyone.  Nothing feels scary at all.

I came back through a different route and worked by way through the city streets making it all of the way around without needing to use a map at any point.  I am starting to get a good sense of my directions now.

Once back I showered, changed and talked Luciana into going out to dinner tonight.  For our anniversary dinner we decided to go out to Imagine, a restaurant in town that Dominica has been wanting to go to since pretty much our first day here.  That was an easy walk to downtown.

There was only one other table seated with us at dinner.  Out of six people eating in the restaurant, we were four of them.  It is definitely the off season (and a Sunday.)

Liesl and Luciana had nachos with cheese and coconut shrimp for dinner that they shared.  Dominica got an amazing grilled vegetable platter that was excellent.  I went for the fish tacos which were really interesting.  You could not pick them up to eat, they were on hard tostada bases that I could barely cut through and were loaded up with cabbage.  They were quite tasty, but challenging to eat.

Kevin, the owner, stopped by to talk to us for a bit before going on stage to do a set with Scott. They have live music at Imagine nearly every night.  I had one of the house infused rum drinks made with crystalized ginger.  I also tried Kevin’s own special maple Manhattan made with a maple liqueur that he brought back from a recent trip to Vermont.  It was quite good.

We decided, since it was our anniversary, that we would get dessert as well. We went for two helpings, among the four of us, of the restaurants only dessert – which was featured in Travel + Leisure Magazine.  It was vanilla ice cream and chocolate fondue on mango bread, it was quite good.

On the walk home we stopped and picked up lollipops for Luciana (and Liesl got some too) from a guy who sells them out of a basket on the corner.  It cost a whole fifteen cents for them each to get two things.

We came home and had a short night of relaxing in our bedroom with the AC on but by around ten thirty were sending them off to bed.  We were pretty tired.  The heat really causes us to want to go to bed a lot earlier than we are used to.

It is our very first weekend in Granada, Nicaragua.  We get to just relax this weekend, we have no demands on our time.  We like that.

We got up this morning and got the kids ready and went to the ChocoMuseo, which is not far away.  It is a small, free chocolate museum that offers an all you can eat breakfast buffet for about twenty one dollars for four people, quite a good deal.

It was very hot while we ate breakfast, Dominica was feeling like she was going to pass out.  Breakfast was nice.  There was a little cacao garden there so you could see chocolate growing next to us while we ate.  It was a fun time.  The cacao husk tea was quite good.

The girls had fun walking around the facility exploring.  We met someone who took them to see the rabbits that live in one of the gardens.  They had a lot of fun.  It is a beautifully converted mansion that used to be a hotel and spa.

This aspect of Granada reminds us of Morocco where the outside of the buildings tend to be non-descript and the insides are amazing.

After breakfast we walked to the corner store and got a few backs of groceries and then walked back to the house.

This afternoon I set out to find a book store that carries Lonely Planet books in English that we had heard about.  That did not take too much to find as I am getting better and better about learning how to navigate the city.  While I was out today I managed to discover where a number of great looking restaurants are and where the big pedestrian way was that we had seen when we took our horse drawn carriage ride earlier in the week.  I picked up the Lonely Planet guide to Nicaragua just so that we could have it in a paper copy.  I also got the Barefoot guide to Central America as we are thinking about hitting Honduras and El Salvador while we are in the area.  And maybe popping into Costa Rica too.

Since I was out and about I took the time to walk down the big boulevard that leads down to the lake.  It really was not a long walk at all.  Very nice.  I made it down and checked out the park down there just a little bit.  Not a ton of people were down there, but a few.  Many more vendors selling water and hot dogs than there were people to buy them.

The waterfront in Granada is a bit odd.  There is this lively bar scene, a huge family park and a few restaurants way down on the water going south of the city.  Then there is downtown.  In between is a bit of an odd wasteland of nothing but a gorgeous long boulevard connecting the two regions.

On the way back from the lake shore I ended up having some guys ask me to buy pastries off of them to support their families.  So I bought a bag of pastries.  There were five guys together selling them.  I had nothing small than five hundred Cordobas and to make sure that they could make the sale, since they did not have any change, the several of them took to bicycles and rode all over to find me change so that they could sell me the pastries.  Five hundred Cordoba is very roughly twenty dollars.

So I ended up hanging out with the guys for a while.  I got to know them a bit.  They asked for forty Cordoba to get some vodka.  So I gave it to them and one of them ran around on a bicycle getting the cheapest vodka you could imagine.  And we all sat out on the boulevard in the middle of town drinking vodka.  All very surreal.

I left the guys and came back through the shanty town south east of where we are staying.  It was an interesting walk back.  One of the surprising things is just how safe it feels being anywhere in Nicaragua.  No matter how poor an area you are in, everyone is very friendly.

I came home and showered, after Dominica and I had some pineapple pastries, and then in the evening we all walked downtown to Reilly’s Irish Pub because we liked the sound of fish and chips.  All of us ended up ordering fish and chips except for Luciana who got mac and cheese (but ended up wanting Liesl’s fish anyway.)

After our dinner we walked down to the “strip” of all of the restaurants and found a gelateria and got ice cream for the family.  It was not the best ice cream but it was decent.  While we were there a little girl, maybe twelve years old, came up to us and asked us for our take out mac and cheese.  I showed her what it was and she took it happily.

This is the first time ever that we have experienced someone actually asking for leftover food like this, and a little girl no less.  This is definitely a degree of poverty around us that we are not used to.  It is very sad.

We had a great time out tonight and are excited to be having a chance to get to actually explore Granada.  What a cool city and much more nightlife than we would have guessed.