Granada

Nicaragua is reputed to be the worst border crossing of central America and so far it has not disappointed. Some travellers take as long as six hours. We took around four. Checking out of Honduras was relatively easy. The aduana verified the vin of the RV and just took the import permit. The migracion required the kids and Christine to be present to take photos and finger print the adults so I had to wait in line again but a bus has arrived so it took another 40 minutes. Where as on the El Salvador-Honduras border there was a separate bridge and road for semi trucks, there was only one bridge and road for all traffic and the semi trucks were bumper to bumper over the bridge to Nicaragua and it's migracion and aduana building. iOverlander says to drive on the sidewalk, so I walked the bridge and marked the entry and exit points to get on the sidewalk, and asked the Nicaraguan official at the end of the bridge if this was okay and she said it was. 

I am not sure we could have made this curb hop without the 3 inch lift we had installed. I felt like I was rock crawling in the RV. The pedal rickshaws moved out of the way. The old ladies walking moved out of the way. My van squeezed through and made it to the other side.

Going through the Nicaraguan process took longer but for no apparent reason. The building has ac which was the first since eagles pass. They just take a long time entering things in the computer, taking the passports to a back office, and bringing them back. There were a couple of Canadians on motorcycles that started after we were done with Honduras but got ahead of us because they hired a fixer and they got over the bridge easier. They ended up leaving 45 minutes before we did.  It was just before noon by the time we were done with the border. 

Nicaragua looks about the same as the other countries we had passed. There landscape was lush but flooded by recent rains and the road acted as a levee between one side which was flooded and the otherside. Water gushed through drains that ran beneath the road like small tunnels and locals fished with nets and even swam in these areas. Local homes and driveways were underwater. It looked like a mess. All the same the people did not look unhappy. Kids in uniform returned from school. Families road three or four on a scooter carrying groceries. We were headed to Granada which would take us around Lake Xolotlan. Google maps wanted to take us through Managua, the capital, so I decided to take the North route avoiding Managua, even though google predicted 6 minutes longer. The road had more potholes at first but then asphalt was replaced with pavers and remained so for the next hour until we made it to the main road again. The pavers were mostly great without potholes until at the town of San Francisco libre there was a couple blocks of road construction. The road had buckled from flooding and was being redone. We ended up backtracking in the village and taking side streets to get back on path. 

The Canadians caught up to us as we entered Granada and we waved as they turned off our road. We had planned on going to a campground in town on ioverlander but wanted to see if hotels had parking for the RV. We drove to a couple hotels but there was no obvious parking and nothing that had an entrance tall enough for the RV.

Granada is a colonial city with pretty colors much like Antigua before it was cleaned up. Nicaragua looks rougher and poorer than Guatemala in this regard. 

We went to the camping spot on ioverlander and it was the backyard of someone's property. It was clean and quiet. Royal was the caretaker and opened the gate and let us in. We filled out water tank from the spigot and filtered it. It was not permitted to plug in the RV so we would not be able to run the AC for more than one night without running the engine.  The kids loved the place, the swing, garden, caged birds. We dumped the cassette in the toilet and went out to find food. The street we were on led to the Central market area which we had slowly driven through. The kids were not interested in walking back to the town center so we took a taxi for less than $3.

I quickly looked up restaurants and saw a pita place with Israeli food and we went there. It was in the town center near the tourist places. It was perfect.

We had a mixed plate of appetizers and a plate of falafel and lamb kebab $63. The kids loved it. 

We walked around the tourist area and there were cute places but mostly empty of tourists. The pedestrian zone was packed with bars with thumping music blaring and locals sat at tables in the streets.

The town square was dimmly lit but kids played baseball there and vendors sold food and artwork. Overall it was unkempt and dark, and not very inviting compared to Antigua. We walked by a loud bar and ran into the Canadians, Scott and John, and spoke with them some more. They had left Arizona 16 days ago and were making their way to Panama in a few days. One of them has to go back to work in Argentina and they would continue the trip in February.

Their dinner arrived so we let them eat and took a taxi back to our campground. We booked a hotel near lake Apoyo for tomorrow in order to see. masaya volcano but it turns out the viewing area for the volcano is closed due to landslide. But the place looked nice and we could do laundry and swim and homeschool.