JANUARY, 2005
January 27, 2005
While we didn't love Granada, one plus was its close proximity to Masaya, which has a very cool artisan market, and local music and dance festivals every Thursday night, which we were able to check out.
The town itslef, is small, and doesn't have too much in the way of attractions, But, it does have a fairly famous, though small, artisan market as well as a larger local market. The bus dropped us off at the local market and we spent about an hour wandering around and taking pictures of locals, almost always at their request. Digital cameras are rare in most of the places we have been in Latin America, and the children are especially fascinated by being able to look at themselves a second after you take the picture. We have actually met a lot of cool people by just taking their picture. The local market in Masaya was great for photos because it was the quintessential local market; very swap meet style, but with every necessity being sold in no discernable order or pattern, For instance, it was not odd to see someone selling fish, jeans, toothpaste, and soccer balls, while his neighbor had machetes, hammocks, underwear, and soda. Maybe the funniest group were the 5 children who wanted their pictures taken, the youngest of which (4 years old maybe) kept trying to put his hands in Ruthie's pocket. At any rate, once he got tired of fishing for change he wouldn't stop following us to take pictures of him rolling an old bike tire with a stick. He was very cute, but not a very good thief.
The artisan market was definitely more upscale and tourist oriented. However, that didn't take away from the beauty of many of the products. There were gorgeous wood products and hammocks, as well as some very cool traditional clothing (Ruthie got a great skirt). Also, they had some great collections of local baseball, basketball and soccer jerseys. We all picked up a few since they were 8$ a peice. It was pretty weird to see authentic jersely for that price when they cost $150 for our teams at home. We couldn't stop thinking that any of the boutiques on Abbott Kinney could easily get $75-100 for these jerseys. Might be a good money maker until you saturated the market with Nicaraguan sporting apparel. Anyway, if anyone steals this idea you owe us 25% of the profits or we'll sue you.
That night, the music and dancing were excellent. It can best be described a Flamenco style, but a but different. All of the costumes were very colorful, and the dancers were very talented. The crowd was almost all locals, which was cool, and the Rum and Cokes were 50 cents each. Not to bad. We also ran into this nice family from Canada who Stacy and Pat had met a few weeks earlier at Arenal in Costa Rica. They are teachers traveling with their two daughters during their summer break. It soulded like a pretty cool thing to do with our own kids someday.
January 29, 2005
Volcan Masaya is pretty cool in that it is actually part of a national park in Nicaragua. Obviously, Costa Rica has done such great things for its economy and ecological health by reserving great areas of land, and it was nice to see similar programs start in Nicaragua. Additionally, it is very well organized, fees are collected, and there is a visitor cienter with ample rangers. In retrospect, we noticed that it was actually better organized that any other national parks we had been to anywhere else in Latin America, including Costa Rica. The park also had a sliding scale for entrance fees so that it was more afforbale for locals, and greater revenue could be made off of tourist visitors. Even with the tourist price it was still roughly 3.50$ per person, which seemed like a good deal.
As for the actual volcano, it is still active, and was releasing heavy amounts of gases while we were there. You can go right up to the rim, and it essentially looked like a boiling cauldron inside the caldera. Unfortunately, a lot of visibility was gone because of the gasses, but it was a cool tradeoff to see so much activity. Overlooking the caldera is a peak on which the local missionary erected a cross 500 years ago in the belief that the caldera was the enterance to Hell. The original cross is still there, but unfortunately you can't climb up to it anymore. You can also do lots of hikes and even overnight backpacking trips throughout the park, so we definitely hope to get back some day to spend a few days exploring more thoroughly
