In which Layla and Roz regain their appetite and ditch their nomadic lifestyle

By Layla

We had saved a lovely romantic-sounding vegetarian restaurant, Cocinarte, for our final night in Leon. After a bit of a walk we arrived, and had the best food of this holiday so far– falafel and pitta for me, and fahitas for Roz – to the sound of live music in the form of an earnest man playing a guitar – Roz decided to lead some applause, which made his night. We wandered home through the main square and felt very fond of Leon.

However, this was nothing to how fond we immediately felt of our next destination, Granada. We caught a microbus from Leon to the capital, Managua, and then – having been told vehemently by guidebooks that the city is a den of crime with nothing particularly good to see – hopped straight on another bus to what is widely known as the jewel in Nicaragua’s crown, the beautiful colonial city of Granada.

As soon as Roz and I stepped exhaustedly off the bus into the bright, clean, pretty town square, flanked by pristine yellow cathedral, we both felt we’d come home. We’d planned to stay in Granada for 3 nights, then go to the Isla de Ometepe, but both of us harboured a secret desire that we were too shy to voice. We walked to the hotel, a little too early to check in, so left our bags and went to Europa Café on the main square, a lovely cool café with tasty food, ice cream, a book shop, a ping pong table, and a branch of the Seeing Hands massage company (blind people as masseuses). We settled down to a bagel (me) and hummous type items (Roz), some tasty gelato, and a game of ping pong in which I was shamefully thrashed. Then we booked a massage for later that day, returned to the hotel and checked in.

Hotel con Corazon is a lovely idea – a rather nice hotel, employing only Nicaraguan people, with all profits going to education projects and microloans for local people, and other such worthy causes. There were hammocks. A swimming pool. Giant chess. People sipping cocktails. There was no option but to voice our secret desire – to stay here for the rest of the holiday. With room key in our hand, we did the unimaginable – we unpacked properly. And with that, felt a huge relief and serenity. Travelling around has been fantastic, but it’s tiring, we’ve already stayed in six hotels, and we’d subconsciously been craving a break from the buses. We plunged into the little swimming pool, three steps out the door of our room, and grinned.

After our swim, and a very nice massage each by the Seeing Hands people, we felt ourselves slide into a new type of holiday mode. Including one in which our appetites returned. We shared a large chocolate muffin, then strolled back to our hotel, popping in to see if anything was going on at the lovely Casa de los Tres Mundos, the local arts centre in a beautiful colonial building. One of the things they do there is to run circus and theatre classes for underprivileged children, and that night they were having a fundraiser, billed as an art auction. We went back to our hotel, glammed up, and returned to find ourselves at a very cool Nicaragua event, populated largely by arty ex-pats, and Nicaraguan people who participated in the circus class company.

We examined the art; we’d hoped to bid on something but didn’t fancy any of the pieces (apart from one that Roz quite liked), but there was also a silent auction with the opportunity to bid on a variety of meals, experiences and hotels that had been donated. We (well, I) couldn’t resist. I put bids on lots of different options and sat in excitement… And then it was announced: I had won an hour long massage at a fancy spa type place, a horseriding trip for two (apparently experience not required…), a voucher for food at the Europa Café (where we’d earlier had lunch, and like), and dinner at the Monna Lisa Restaurant (which we’d quickly looked up on Tripadvisor and found to be acclaimed as the best pizza in Granada). Hooray! I hadn’t expected to win so much and had to root in my purse for every last penny I’d brought out. But still, all great bargains! (The horse riding was valued at $70 and I paid $11 – pleasing).

Next a talk from the theatre company director and the arts centre director… followed unexpectedly and pleasingly by a fantastic display of mime, clowning and acrobatics by the kids who attend the classes. Great fun! Then some music from a Nicaraguan girl band, and then the art auction. People really had come prepared to bid, and pieces went for up to $150. Until the piece Roz had admired came up… and went for $1900. She was very smug indeed at her skills in identifying fine art. Then we paid for all our winnings, realised we’d spent all our dinner money, and decided we’d better go for dinner at the Monna Lisa, where we’d just won our meal.

Monna Lisa is located halfway down a lovely pedestrianised street called Calle La Calzada, bustling on both sides with restaurants, bars and cafes, with people sitting outside enjoying food, drinks and street theatre, interspersed with ordinary houses where people enjoyed the common Nicaragua habit of pulling rocking chairs our of their front doors onto the pavements, to chat and watch the world go by. Lovely atmosphere.

At Monna Lisa, we eyed the large pizzas with trepidation. Our stomachs were still sceptical. We ordered one between us. Which we then wolfed down at such a pace that we had reason to believe we were finally recovering. Alas I feared we had insufficient funds with us for dessert, so we decided to walk back to the hotel, where we acquired some rather good mohitos from the very nice bar and drank them while playing giant chess. I won and was suitably smug.

This morning we awoke most cheerfully, knowing there was no need to dash anywhere. We enjoyed a tasty breakfast of fruit, yoghurt, granola and bread, with fresh juice, and then settled down to potter on their wifi. Roz took the opportunity to check our bank details and found that I was the victim of credit card fraud! Even more upsettingly, it hadn’t even happened in central America – it had started at the beginning of December. Roz sweetly didn’t admonish me for failing to check my account for a month, but I did get straight onto the phone to my bank to report the fraud: apparently I’ve been buying a large amount of sordid material on the internet. Or not! They sorted it out and I am now sans credit card (though fortunately still have a debit card so will not starve).

And now to the day ahead. The days stretch deliciously in front of us, with all the possibilities of exploring Granada, eating, drinking, and indulging in some trips. Including the pony trip, which I’m not sure whether I should be regretting…