The next morning we went to the Regency - a 5-Star hotel located a few blocks away. As were we were preparing to leave the restaurant after a very good breakfast and only so/so coffee (Nicaraguans think it's great but weve been spoiled by the coffee here on the island - it's got lots more flavor!) we were pleasantly surprised to see a group of beautiful young ladies wearing beauty queen'-type name ribbons arriving in the patio/pool area. 

These lovelies were finalists in the Miss Nicaragua Beauty Pageant and they and their chaperones were very friendly and nice enough to pose for some photos with us. My partner Roy - a bachelor - was especially happy to be able to tell all his friends;Eat Your Heart Out - this is the life. 

With such an auspicious beginning to our day, we decided to rent a taxi to begin our sightseeing/information gathering in the city of Managua. The tour was interesting but unexciting.

Now I have to admit that Grenada is pretty. It's a restored Colonial city and many of the huge old Colonial buildings have been turned into hotels, B&Bs, shops, restaurants and other businesses. We found a small, clean hotel, Hotel Cociboloca. This hotel is actually 2 Colonial houses converted into a hotel and it is within walking to everything worth seeing in Grenada. Cost was $65 per room per night, including breakfast.

The focal point of downtown Grenada is of course the plaza or the Parque Colon. It is the pride of the city and very clean. There are kiosks scattered around the plaza selling soft drinks and all manner of tourist items. Everyone we encountered was very pleasant and not pushy. You can rent a horse-drawn carriage here that will take you on a tour of the city. A variety of hotels and restaurants line the square. We found these to be adequate for a tourist city, and several were very good. Most seem to be run or owned by expats from all over the world. As luck would have it, we stumbled on a great source of local information for Gringos. Wayne's Zoom Bar (Locally called Wayne World). Wayne is an American expat who is a veritable fund of information, and a nice guy, too.

He knows everything from real estate prices to what the taxi fees should be(see the $15 dollar overcharge above.)My pal Roy and I spent many pleasant hours drinking cold Tona beer and learning about Nicaragua from Wayne and his customers. It seems the days of any bargains in real estate are over. Anything in Grenada is priced pretty high for Central America. A two story 3 bedroom house on the edge of town in a ‘borderline neighborhood that needs lots of work was $140,000. A very large Colonial house in the center of the tourist area needing complete restoration was $600,000.00. Of course, those are asking prices, and cash talks. 

While these prices might not be too high for some, our mission was to investigate affordable options for middle income people. One major problem we found was the cost of electricity. To air condition a house the size of mine -3 bedroom, 2 bath- on Isla Margarita (cost for central air, water heater, electric stove, fans, 2 refrigerators and small washer dryer is about $65 a month). In Nicaragua it would be $300 or more. That is why most hotels, restaurants, and businesses there have no air conditioning and use florescent or low watt light bulbs. Add that to the price of gasoline $3.50 a gallon and living starts to get expensive. 

We checked out a couple of local supermarkets. They had a good selection of everything our families buy on a regular basis but vegetables, meat, fruit, etc. At first we thought wow! That's cheap! But then we found theses items were priced by the pound, not the kilo as it is on the island. Prices on some specialty products were comparable to those in the U.S., but most prices were considerably lower. 

We rented a car for $50 a day for our trip to Leon and the beaches to the north. As to Leon, there is nothing interesting I can say about it. an ugly old Colonial city. We could not find a decent restaurant for lunch. So on to the beach. Driving out of Leon we ran into terrible roads with HUGE potholes and washboard roads that felt like the car was being torn apart with each jolt. After about 40 miles of this we finally arrived at the village of Las Vernitas on the Pacific Ocean. 

This place has seen better days and they have long since passed. The Ocean was beautiful as the Pacific always is, but the beaches were grey as a result of the volcanic soil. By this time we would have headed on back to civilization but it was late and the prospect of driving literally 40 miles of bad road again convinced us to seek lodgings for the night. The choices were slim- -IMF & some government agency had the best rooms in the best hotel. 

After checking several we settled on one that did not look too bad - at $45 U.S. per night. Bad news - I was maybe only the third person to sleep on the sheets since they had been washed. Good News. The other 2 people must have been pretty clean. No hot water and the a/c smelled of long-dead fish. 

We were up the next morning before most of the hotel staff. One of our rooms had no water so they graciously filled a bucket for Roy to wash in. We got the impression they thought this was giving good service. Did we high-tail it back to Grenada? You bet!

Go To Next Page