After missed and delayed flights, and a cramped old hotel in Managua, arriving in Granada was a delightful surprise.
It was a pretty town with a gorgeous town square featuring a huge pink and white gazebo, food vendors selling all kinds of snacks and sweets, vendors selling jewelry and hats and balloons, children playing, adults chatting, and everyone just enjoying the splendid sunshine. We spent almost every evening sitting in the town square waiting for the birds to start chirping and sweeping across the square as they nestled into the trees for the night.
The Hotel Alhambra, a beautiful old colonial hotel, once a palace, was quite grand, with high ceilings, stonework, archways, antique furniture, lovely balconies, and it was right across from the town square as well. At $50 a night, it was an elegant place to stay, and in the centre of town.
View of the town square from Hotel Alhambra balcony dining room….
Meals at the hotel were expensive, but half a block down the street a coffee shop had reasonable prices and good food.
One of the first things we did was to treat ourselves to a horse and carriage ride about town, negotiated from $25 down to $15, as we admired the old architecture from the 17th and 18th centuries.
The next morning we took a private boat cruise ($20) around the dozens of isletas (little islands) in Lake Granada, a freshwater lake and the largest lake in Central America.
A few islands had houses built on them, one island had a hotel, and there were some islands still for sale ranging from $8000 to $150,000. Imagine owning your own island – you could here. 
We arranged to be left on an uninhabited island for the day.
Suddenly the boat left.
And we were alone on the island.
Alone.
It was the strangest feeling to wonder what would happen if the boat never..
came…
back…
to pick us up…
Stranded. On an uninhabited island. Alone.
All we brought to eat was a big bottle of water and a picnic lunch.
Nicaraguans, like many Central American peoples, don’t place a lot of value on time.
What if they simply forgot to come and get us???
But once we spotted the mango trees and banana trees, we knew we could survive here for a long time. 
The island experience was fantastic!
With it came a wild sense of freedom and exhilaration!
There were the remnants of an old fort to explore, and old stone stairs to climb up to the top for a view across the lake. There was a little cove on one side of the island with a sandy beach strewn with rocks, and there was a small beach on the other side of the island. There were rock ledges to climb up and lay on too.
The old fort… 
Then we found the stairs going up to the top… narrow stone stairs curving up and up….
Looking down the steep stairs from the top….
At the top…
A lovely view in 4 directions across the vast Lake Nicaragua…
Playing Hide and Seek…
An old wooden cannon…
Back down the steep stairs…
We ran around like little kids exploring every nook and cranny. What fun!
Another cannon – this one broken… 
Exploring all sides of the island…
At noon, we ate our picnic lunch on the beach sitting on a big rock with our feet dangling in the clear water… 
After lunch, we found a rock ledge on the rocky side of the island, and had a little afternoon nap…
In some parts, pink flowers grew out between cracks in the rocks…
We never even thought about dangerous animals or insects in Nicaragua – poisonous snakes, scorpions, mosquitoes, or chagus bugs (that bite near your lip, inject poison, then poop in the hole leaving you ill for days) – nor did we see any…
but we found the most astonishing and menacing trees….
T managed to back into these trees several times, jumping forward in sudden alarm! (I steered well clear of those armored trees – they were like snarling dogs!)
We had so much fun just running from one side of the island to another and another. Total freedom. No judging eyes. Do what you want, when you want. Such a delightful open-hearted experience. 
Like children running free on a hot summer day, we just played and explored!
T was the happiest I’d seen him in a long time. Me too.
The sun was half-way down as we started to wonder when, and if,our boat would return…
We took silly pictures…
And our boat did return…
Because a part of us wanted to stay forever…
[mapsmarker marker=”7″]
What a great team the two of you are! you the writer, and lovely subject for some photos and T with his magic touch with the camera. I loved this post. Thanks.
Awww… thanks Joanne. You are very welcome. A highly recommended experience to stay on a deserted island for at least a day. We did a week on an island in Tonga and loved that too.
What a fabulous day. It just went on our list!
Excellent! Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.