We arrived outside San Juan Del Sur's harbor early on Sunday morning, but the water is too shallow for the Island Princess to enter, so we had to go ashore via tender boats, each holding 100 people. It took about 10 minutes to get from the ship to shore where we boarded a but for the 90 minute ride to Granada, a small city founded in 1524.
We stopped along the way and walked to the shore of Lake Nicaragua, the 7th largest lake in the world. On an island in the lake stands Mombacho Volcano. It's the largest volcano in the world located on a fresh water lake . The city of Granada is located on the opposite side of the volcano from where the picture was taken. As we walked back to the bus, we passed a tree that had gourds growing on it. Obviously different than any gourd plants we have at home.
We passed many sugar cane and sorghum fields. Sorghum is grown to feed cattle for the beef business which is the number two export product next to coffee.
The streets in Granada are very narrow and there are very few stop signs or lights at intersections. It makes for an interesting traffic flow, but everyone seems to take it in stride.
We arrived at the convent of San Francisco just as Sunday services were ending. There must have been a thousand people in there! By the time our bus stopped in the middle of the street to let us out, they were all gone.
On the way to the plaza, we watched some street dancers and were encouraged by our guide to leave them a tip. We continued to the plaza and city park where the street vendors and craft booths were thick. We bought a $1.00 foot-long hot dog and washed it down with a couple of $1.00 "Tona" (pronounced like Tonia) beers (on top of the sign in the pic) and it was very good beer. We bought some cashews from a cute little kid. After walking around the park/square, we made our way back to the slightly air conditioned bus for the trip back to port.
One the way back to port, our driver saw some monkeys along the road, so he stopped the bus in the middle of the Pan-American Highway so we could get out and take pictures. Is there a problem?
When we got back on the ship, we had time to take a shower and do laundry before dinner. We ate dinner with a couple from Australia and a couple from Washington State. We enjoyed the conversation. After dinner, we went to the late show which featured Musical Comedian, Gary DeLena.
Monday was our first of three days at sea before we arrive in Cabo San Lucas, so there aren't many pics, but I took a few, mostly of our dinner at the Crab Shack.
Tuesday was the second day at sea after leaving Nicaragua. After getting up at about 6:00am because we snoozed all day yesterday, we didn't do much the rest of the day. I took a few early morning shots off our balcony. We went to breakfast about 10:00, laid around on deck for a while, laid around in the room for a while, went to dinner, went to the show in the theater, had a drink and watched Karaoke in the Explorers Lounge, then went back to the room. Maybe tomorrow will be more exciting, but it's another day at sea.
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