Fishing

Last night we all went to Greg’s house, since his home stay father owns a bunch of properties, including a hostel which he rents out to people. Two people got a massive piñata, two people baked a magnificent chocolate cake, and the rest brought refreshments for a group bonding session and the celebration of my birthday and Brian’s. We slept over in the empty beds in the hostel, having rented the place out for the night, but got woken up around 8 AM by an extremely loud marching band, comprised of seemingly an entire school of kids banging on drums and accompanied by honking cars. I woke up extremely disoriented and confused.

After returning home for a quick shower, I had an excellent brunch at Hotel Coco. Their french toast and pancakes are excellent. I took a full two hours to digest the food, after which it was time to meet the group on the Calsada for the “deep sea fishing tour” we had signed up for. Well, it wasn’t exactly deep sea fishing, as we took a small boat very similar to the one last time (though without music, sadly) around the isletas in Lake Nicaragua. We stopped by the same family we did on the last tour, who gave us yet again fresh coconuts to drink from. Afterwards, they constructed rudimentary fishing rods for us and carted us off to some random, small island where we stood for about two hours trying to catch fish. Some were either really good at fishing or had excellent luck, netting two within the span of minutes. I, sadly, did not catch any fish at all, but instead sweated off all my sunscreen and managed to lose all my crabs. We used little baby crabs as bait. A native of the village would break off all its legs and its top shell, then impale the remains of the poor crab on the hook. Most of the time, voracious minnows would take quick bites of the crab, ripping off the flesh without being impaled on the hook. All together, the team netted eight fish (very small, of course) which the family then cooked for us. Clearly, they had many extra fish in the back of the kitchen, because all 12 of us were served. 

We also had the chance to go swimming in the lake this time. I was informed rather proudly that the water is very clean in the lake, so no worries about weird creatures of bacteria entering my body. However, since I was the first one in the water, I didn’t know exactly how deep the water was. I plopped rather gently, I thought, into the water, but not gently enough to escape the unforgiving rocks two feet under the surface. Only about twenty five feet out did the rocks stop, with the ground plunging so deep that I couldn’t touch it. The water was amazing: perfectly cool but still rather warm. 

To end the day, I sampled some amazing mango bread (I’m determined now to find the recipe) at a ridiculously overpriced restaurant. The bread was delicious, and it inspired me to make a bucket list for all the things I want to do the last week I’m in Granada. I’ll keep adding to it if I think of anything new.

Granada Bucket List: 

• Have brunch at the waffle house off of the Parque Central
• Go swimming at Hotel Granada again
• Buy a guayava juice at Nectar
• Have a mango smoothie at Cafe Sonrisa
• Go to Cafe Sonrisa in general
• Go to Garden Cafe
• Play volleyball and soccer with Edgar and Horacio
• Splurge on a really nice dinner
• Buy another papaya
• Explore the mercado some more
• Say hi to Nicaragua Mia, my former Spanish school
• Rent an island in Lake Nicaragua (seriously - it will be done)
• Go to the spa again
• But a chocobanano and ice cream at Lotti’s every day