new york times travel granada, nicaragua

8/10/2019 New York Times Travel Granada, Nicaragua

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Granada, Nicaragua: Its Fall And RiseI'll start with this disclaimer: I love Nicaragua. I love the poetry of its pace, ox cartsslowing trafc, shoeless boys playing baseball in vacant lots, men riding their loversdouble on bicycles and the silhouettes of women reposed in doorways. I love its rum and

cigars, rice and beans and green volcanoes towering over red-tile roofs and blue lakes. Ieven like the smell of horse manure and diesel exhaust, an occasional waft from an opensewer and broken sidewalks that force me to watch my step.But mostly I love Nicaragua because of people like Rger Xavier Arellano Arrliga,whom I met in a cafetn, a block off the Parque Coln in Granada. While a fumigationtruck drove slowly past, lling the narrow street with a toxic cloud and sending dinersand even sidewalk passers-by diving for cover into the tiny kitchen behind us, Rgerremained seated and patiently drew directions to his home on a napkin.A moment ago I was a stranger at the next table. Now Rger was inviting me to his houseand offering to spend the evening helping me nd what I was looking for: an old bodega

where, 16 years earlier, during the bleak depths of the contra war, while playing a soldierin the Alex Cox lm ''Walker,'' I'd been shot and killed in slow motion.William Walker was an american libuster who, with an American and native rebelforce, invaded and captured Granada in 1855. He was briey president of Nicaragua, butsoon lost international support and was driven from the country, burning Granada to theground before he left. The movie, a surreal evocation of Walker's invasion of Nicaragua,and his eventual defeat, was supported by the Sandinista government because it echoedthe current ght against the contras, backed by the United States.I walked to meet Rger in the early evening. On one side of the road, people jogged orstrolled through the park, or stood at the sea wall and gazed at the waves breaking on the

gray beach. A horse-drawn carriage with a family of tourists clip-clopped by, and, at theend of a long wharf, men stood in a line passing crates from a truck down onto afreighter.I lled my pockets with mints I bought from a little girl in a red dress sitting behind a trayof candy and cigarettes. I waved at the wisecracking women leaning over the discobalcony, turned the corner and passed a man sitting on a wooden stool under a tree. Heoffered me a fresh coconut, the top chopped open and a pink straw inserted for the milk. Istepped around various spent green husks littering the street, and walked up the shadyCalle la Calzada.I veered toward the side of the street that smelled less of pigs, paused briey to watch

boys practicing baseball. Farther up, I lighted a cigar and waited for a parade of marchinggirls and drumming boys to make their way past the Iglesia de Guadalupe, where the realWilliam Walker's retreating troops held out before eeing the burning city in 1856.Rger is a handsome, dark-eyed, dark-haired young man, with a degree in industrialengineering, but inclinations to go into business for himself. He was a boy when the lm''Walker'' was shot here in 1987, and, like many kids, he enthusiastically followed thelming of the various battle scenes around town.


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I was bumming through the country at the time, and recruited out of a Managua bar tospend two weeks as an extra in Walker's army. I barely appeared in the nished movie.We set out in Rger's car; he hadn't driven a block when he stopped to talk to an old manon a concrete stoop, who gave us the name of another man who actually worked on thelm. We drove on, passing the towering blue facade of the Iglesia de San Francisco,connected to the Antiguo Convento de San Fransciso.The convent's history mirrors the phoenixlike story of the city. Built in 1529, it wasdestroyed, rebuilt, destroyed and rebuilt over the centuries by the likes of the pirate HenryMorgan, William Walker, the United States Marines in the 1920's and the United StatesArmy engineers studying canal possibilities in the 1930's. It has recently been restoredagain with the help of the Swiss government.Inside was a museum with exhibits on the lives of the indigenous Indians, displays ofstone carvings and a courtyard with stately palms and stunning views of nearby VolcnMombacho. But as long as nobody came along and sacked it again, I knew I'd see it alllater. Rger and I were on a mission.He stopped around the corner at the Plazuela de los Leones, where on Friday nights thecity often puts on free concerts. The sky was quickly darkening to night, and the trees inthe Parque Coln were alive with thousands of birds.We went into the Casa de los Tres Mundos, a foundation and cultural center that housesan art, theater and music school, historical archive and concert hall, where Rger talkedto a man named Dieter, who would direct us to somebody else.We drove a dark street, then another and nally stopped where a woman sat on hersidewalk rocker in a pool of uorescent light. A sleeping child lay on her lap. Rger gotout and talked to her, then we drove on, around the corner. Suddenly there it was, an oldwhite adobe building with a tile roof that sheltered a porch. The sign read ''AntiguedadesEl Palenque.''

We got out and knocked on the big wooden doors that I remembered spending a daykicking open for the cameras. A woman answered and let us in. I recognized the thick,whitewashed walls, the earth-colored ceramic tile oor, the dark wooden rafters. Irecognized the darkened side room where Ed Harris, playing the deranged Walker, hadpaused in the heat of battle to sit down at a piano to play a hymn by candlelight.During the contra war, I saw a phrase stenciled in red on every Granadian sidewalk andcorner building: Aqu no se rinde nadie (''Here nobody surrenders''). I think it sums up thecharacter of the city.Since that dark time, unarmed, crisp-shirted policemen have replaced battle-wearysoldiers patrolling the streets with AK-47's. Schoolboys march with drums instead ofguns, and rather than army fatigues, teenage girls wear crisp white blouses and navyskirts and cluster at the playground to watch sweaty boys play basketball.The war wounded, middle-aged now, still gather their wheelchairs in the park, but somealso pass out colorful brochures offering kayak rentals or jungle canopy tours. Shiny taxisand new S.U.V.'s have replaced tanks and troop trucks.


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The city still has its ragged edges, its broken neighborhoods and hungry street kids whogather in front of restaurants to point at their mouths. But for the traveler it also has hotelsand hostels at every price, some good bars with good music and lots of places to buy icecream. The streetlights work; the water runs; and instead of shutting their doors against anight charged with madness and dread, Granadians now pull their rockers out on thesidewalk and chat with neighbors.Granada was founded in 1524 by the Spanish explorer Francisco Hernndez de Crdobaon the shores of what the Indians called Cocibolca (Lago Nicaragua), a freshwater lakesome 87 miles long, connected by the San Juan River to the Caribbean Sea. On our trip inJuly 2003, my wife, Rosalie, our three young daughters, Anna, Margi and Mary, and Ihad rooms at the Hotel El Maltese, on the lake, where you can hear the waves breakingon the beach and keep your eyes xed on the blue horizon for approaching pirate ships.We also stayed at the dark and stately Hotel Alhambra, where guests sit in rockers on thefront porch and observe the activity in the Parque Coln across the street. On our lastnight we were at the lovely Hospedaje Italiano. As afternoon ends and the shadow ofVolcn Mombacho creeps over the city, you can relax on the front stoop, with a bowl ofthe best ice cream in Nicaragua and watch the streets ood with uniformed schoolkids.We took excursions to the smoking crater of Volcn Masaya; we glided on cablesbetween the crowns of giant ceiba trees over coffee shrubs on the skirt of VolcnMombacho. We swam in the clear Laguna de Apoyo, ate good pizza at Tele Pizza, and,on the balcony of La Gran Francia Hotel, Rosalie and I discovered the joy of Flor deCana Gran Reserva rum. We ate a potato-and-beef burrito in the Hotel Central and abeautiful lete de guapote en salsa de maracuy in El Zagun, behind the Granadacathedral.But the best part of Granada was the unexpected people we met and the places they tookus. One morning, my daughters and I walked in the park along the lakefront. A mannamed Santos rode up on his bicycle and asked if we wanted a boat ride to explore LasIsletas, an archipelago of some 360 islands in Lake Nicaragua, just south of the city. Wedid, so he told us to follow his son, El Guapo (the handsome one), age 14, who led usalong the empty beach past chickens and goats to a lone tree, where he instructed us to sitin the sand and wait while his father's boat made its way across the choppy bay to pick usup.On board, we spent about an hour motoring slowly among the tiny islands. We circledone with monkeys that leaned out from the treetops to watch us. We passed white heronson rocks, and men in water to their knees throwing spread nets. We wound past yachtsmoored by fortress vacation homes, dugout canoes tied in front of stick shacks andtourists paddling yellow kayaks.At lunchtime we docked at a little outdoor restaurant on an island called Corre Viento.While Santos and El Guapo napped in the boat, my daughters and I sat at one of thebrightly painted tables listening to Spanish love songs on a boom box until a running boytripped on the wire and disconnected the speaker. The sky was overcast, and the lakespread gray to the eastern horizon. We ate rice and beans and chicken, and drank cold


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soft drinks and beer.We were the only diners, so the man who served us briey joined us. He was in his 40's, Iguessed, and all Nicaraguans in their 40's have a story that takes a turn because of thelong civil war. I asked him his, and he told me that he was originally from Managua, butafter his time in the army, he came to the islands for peace and serenity and never left. Hemarried the daughter of the people who owned this restaurant, the Doa Justa, and he andhis wife now had two sons. He pointed with his chin to the boy in the shorts who had metour boat.I make jewelry, he said, and from his shirt pocket he pulled a tiny bamboo bracelet that taround my youngest daughter's wrist.She smiled and I offered to pay, but the man waved his hand. I don't make them formoney, he said. It's something I do for love.

Nicaraguas Ciudad of DreamsBy JOSEPH HOOPERThe last time I was in Granada,Nicaragua, was in 1984. My solidarity gringo friendsand I, in the country to support the embattled Sandinista revolution, were taking a breakfrom the capital city of Managua, where it seemed like every other person had anautomatic weapon slung over their shoulder. But in Granada, it was as if wed beenairlifted out of the materially deprived, militarily consumed country and dropped into acharming Mexican colonial town. The houses had red-tiled roofs and brightly paintedfacades; the outdoor markets actually had fresh fruit and vegetables in them.We took a boat trip to a nearby island in Lake Nicaragua, on whose northwestern shoreGranada sits. At the time I regarded the experience as little more than a brief timeout

from the countrys real business, which was defending and preserving the gains of therevolution.Returning to Granada recently, I found that the city looked much the same, despite theincrease of cafes, a expat restaurant or two and some hip backpacker hangouts. TheCatedral de Granada and the Convento deSan Francisco were still painted in hot, jazzyyellow ocher and baby blue, and the place exuded the same humid tropical beauty. Fromthe top of the weathered bell tower of the Iglesia la Merced, I could see the hulkingMombacho volcano looming over those tiled roofs. The setting was book-cover perfect,down to the tree-lined Parque Central at the center of town, festooned with gazebos andpeddler stalls and surrounded on all sides by colonial-style buildings from which

modernity has mostly been expunged or simply failed to take root. The horse-drawncarriages that waited by the Parque were almost overkill. Granada is like a time warp,one well-to-do Managuan lady sniffed to me at a party I went to later. Nothinghappens ... except tourists.Indeed, the tables have turned since my last visit. After a war-exhausted citizenry votedout the Sandinistas in 1990, the conservative governments that followed promoted aconsumer economy and courted foreign investment aggressively enough that in the last
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three years or so, a tipping point has been reached. Tourism, once the dessert option inNicaragua, is now the main course, and one of the countrys chief sources of hard cash.Understandably so. Packed into an area the size ofLouisiana are some of the best aspectsof the entire Central American isthmus: huge tracts of forests teeming with endangeredspecies, like inCosta Rica; the kind of sultry colonial cities youd nd inGuatemala; andunsullied surngbeaches as good as those inEl Salvador. Nowhere are these pleasuresmore centralized than in Nicaraguas Pacic southwest, in and around Granada. Theres alocal expression: Granada is Nicaragua; the rest is just mountains.Founded by the conquistador Francisco Hernandez deCordoba in 1524, Granada is theoldest city in Nicaragua although Leon, to the northwest, vies for the title (it wasfounded the same year). Truth be told, austere Leon is better preserved, but its touristiccomforts are still in an early stage of development. Granada, by contrast, is the showoff.Its felicitous location by immense Lake Nicaragua (the 10th-largest freshwater lake in theworld) made it a wealthy trading center and a magnet for pirates and other rebrands,who once sacked and burned the city.If the towns most historic buildings have been rebuilt many times over, somehow theidea of colonial elegance is the one thing that has been awlessly maintained. In fact,escaping many of the turmoils of Nicaraguas recent past has been Granadas particulargenius; the city was mostly hors de combat during the revolution. The city fathers were and still are more preoccupied with family bloodlines and old historical battles, in away that would be recognizable to anyone familiar with the American Old South.Granada is even famous for older folks passing the late afternoon on their front-porchrocking chairs, catching the breeze off the lake. This is a city of porch philosophers, notrevolutionary martyrs.One morning I paid a call on Granadas leading citizen, Gabriel Pasos Wolff, 86, one ofthe owners of the venerable Hotel Alhambra and an owlish doyen of the rocking-chairset. Pasos and his wife live just cater-corner to the hotel (with its atypical Moorish-Vegasfacade) in a mansion lled with dour oil portraits that could pass for a colonial museum.He served me an iced tea and graciously offered up a pocket history of Granada, with anemphasis on the dening catastrophe of another era, the sacking of the city in 1856 by theAmerican William Walker. He led his own private army in a bizarre effort to conquerNicaragua and install himself as president. (The United States government brieyrecognized Walkers claim before the warring Granada and Le! n factions united todrive him out.) Granada is like the Ave Fnix, Pasos declaimed, the phoenix risingfrom the ashes.A vivid sense of history and tradition is one of the places most enduring charms, evenwhen it erupts at 6:30 a.m. Early one morning I was blown out of bed at the Alhambra bybooming, cannonlike sounds. I rushed out into the street and caught up to the processionof San Antonio, a ragtag army of local schoolkids led by teenage girls in short brownskirts and high leather boots doing the pompom-and-baton shake and shimmy. Behindthem followed younger girls dressed up in white nuns habits and little boys in monkscassocks, holding miniature prayer books. The whole procession, powered by a
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cacophonous brass band in the rear, redounded to the greater glory of San Antonio. Laterthat morning over breakfast, I asked an Alhambra waiter what San Antonio had ever doneto deserve this. Hes a saint, so we adore him, he told me, but I dont remember. Ask apadre.

The rhythm of a Granada stay often goes something like this: the early mornings and theevenings are for city pleasures. When the heat begins to build toward noon, its time tohead into the surrounding naturaleza. Although a bunch of outdoor-excursion companieshave lately sprung up here, I headed out with two friends of friends of friends: PomaresSalmer! n, a young naturalist who runs his familys private nature preserve nearManagua, and Alain Creusot, a French volcanologist in his early 60s whose nalambition is to climb and study every volcano in the New World, from the AleutianIslands to Tierra del Fuego.In Salmerons S.U.V., we chugged up the paved switchbacks that took us to the upperreaches of the Mombacho volcano cloud forest, a curtain of green occasionally broken bythe red ower of the malinche tree. We stashed the vehicle at the ranger hut andhiked atrail to a lookout above the volcanos largest crater. Mombacho hasnt had a propereruption in centuries, which has allowed the crater to evolve into a huge sunken bowl ofvegetation. Its a nature preserve within a nature preserve, inhabited by howler monkeysand so people say some small jungle cats. Salmeron said the crater has become akind of sacred site for the pagan shamans who operate out of the surrounding townsknown as pueblos brujos (warlock towns).As we cut back to the road and the steep climb toward the summit, Creusot expounded onthe countrys state of affairs. One of the few foreigners who chose to stay in 79, whenthe insurrection against theUnited States-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza erupted,Creusot directed journalists and Sandinista ghters to the abandoned cars and gassupplies at the French Embassy and joined them for rides through the urban battleeld.Having faced danger to witness a new country being born, he feels personally let down athow things have turned out. Nicaragua is enduring a severe energy shortage. Ortega, backin power, is now regarded as merely a man of the back-room deal. And the U.S. StateDepartment pegs the country as the poorest in Latin America (which, for anyone who hasspent time inHonduras, is truly remarkable). Nicaragua, which is the richest country inLatin America from all points of view, is last, Creusot said. This I cannot accept.At last the cloud cover broke and we were granted a view down the lake. Zapatera Islandemerged, known for its pre-Columbian archeological sites and, more grandly still,Ometepe, one of the largest freshwater islands in the world, with its smolderingConcepci! n volcano. Another spot gave us a view of Las Isletas, which stretch out justbeyond the Granada shore. Formed by a Mombacho avalanche eons ago, they lookedfrom this distance like pearls from a broken necklace scattered over the waters surface.They are indeed tiny, as I saw later while exploring them bykayak. Most islands are bigenough to accommodate only a single thing: a school, say, or a cemetery for the peasant
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shermen who get around in old wooden rowboats. Some have been snapped up bywealthy Nicaraguans and foreigners for vacation homes. And others look like scienceexperiments gone awry. One island has a resident population of scrawny kittens, anothera fast-breeding colony of spider monkeys (reportedly descendants of an original fewdropped off by a local biologist).Another day we drove to Masaya, just outside Granada. Of modest size and lumpy shape,Masaya nonetheless impresses with its sheer volcanism. Plumes of sulfurous smoke risefrom its crater with industrial constancy. As we peered down, a ock of parakeets zippedover the surrounding green eld, hovered overhead and then dove in formation into thecrater in what looked to be a highly organized suicide mission. Thebirds, Creusotexplained, spent the night down there, breathing currents of fresh air sucked into the pitby the high temperatures. They can have it. At one point in our visit, the wind shifted andwe found ourselves in a sulfuric whiteout.We made it to the top of the craters lip and took the measure of the 33-foot cross plantedthere, rst erected by the Spanish conquistadors in the 1500s to counter the bad vibesfrom the volcano, which they regarded, not insensibly, as the gates of hell. Local lore hasit that the pre-Columbian Chorotega priests sacriced virgins down there. In Nicaragua,Christian theology always seems to be at war with a landscape that feels more pagan.Even on Mombacho, as quiet a volcano as youll nd, I had crossed the old battle lines.On a canopy tour, harnessed to a zip line cable and ying from giant tree to tree, I was joined by about 40 high school evangelicals on a mission fromOmaha. One girl asked meif I was a Christian, and as there are no atheists 40 feet off the ground, I answeredtruthfully, No, but Im a fan of Jesus.Back in Granada, I paid a call on the Costa Rican expat Glenda Castro Navarro at ElTercer Ojo (the Third Eye), a cafe and restaurant decorated with Buddhist and Hinduicons that she opened four years ago with her husband, the French painter Jean MarcCalvet. The Third Eye means Open your eyes and see, Castro said. I try to followmany of the teachings of Buddhism, and here it is very Catholic, so people say this is avery diabolic thing. Castro can grow impatient with the towns sedulous pace (thingspass so slowly here, its unreal), lacking perhaps the native affection of her friend who joined us, the lmmaker Mariano Maran. Mi Musica, Marans lm about Nicaraguanmusic, had been playing around town. To die a Granadino is tremendously powerful,he said. My mother is 93, she still lives here, she still sings, she still drinks.For someone like Marn, Granadas pull is internal, the force of family and sharedhistory. (Im like an elephant; I always come back home.) But as the very existence ofEl Tercer Ojo makes plain, all sorts of people are drawn into the citys colonial vortex forall sorts of reasons. The paradox of Granada is that its aura of antique timelessness is thevery thing that attracts the restless New Agers and the bohemians. And for this reason,there is a whiff of improbability: Granada of the somnolent heat and the aristocratic airsbring reconceived by foreign visitors as a model of town-and-country multisportefciency and as an exotic stage for private obsessions. But the beauty of the place is thatthe different Granadas dont collide. They rub off on one another in lively, unpredictable
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ways.On my next to last night in town, I settled in for dinner atAlabama Rib Shack Bar andGrill, which everyone knows as Jimmy Three-Fingers, a few blocks from the Parque.(The baby-back ribs are rst-rate.) After dinner, the proprietor, a singer-contractor-cheffrom Floridas Gulf Coast by the name of Jimmy Three-Fingers he had an accidentwith a table saw belts out Jimmy Buffet and John Denver songs in a phlegmy,nicotine-stained voice to a barroom half full of nonplussed Nicaraguans and curious straygringos. I suggested Margaritaville. (When in Rome. ...) Back on the Gulf Coast, thetip jar used to have a sign on it, he shot back. Requests: 5 cents. Margaritaville:$25. Repertory notwithstanding, his young Granadina girlfriend was enchanted. Handsbeatically pressed to her chest, she cooed, I surrender every time he sings.The moment reminded me of something the poet and former Sandinista operativeGioconda Belli had told me before my trip. If there is a city that has been changed bytourism, its Granada, she said. But unlike some other picturesque spots I can think of,Granada hasnt become an imitation of itself. There is room for both the ridiculous andthe sublime a festival in February, for instance, when some 200 poets declaim theirverses from church atriums within earshot of Jimmy Three-Fingers microphone. It feelsmuch more cosmopolitan, Belli said approvingly. But still, somehow, like Granada.ESSENTIALS GRANADA, NICARAGUAGetting ThereThere is a small airport outside of Granada, but its easiest to y into Managua. Fromthere, its about an hour by car to the city center.Guides and LogisticsTours Nicaragua (www.toursnicaragua.com) andNicaragua Adventures (www.nica-adventures.com) can arrange private trips to the country, covering culture, nature andadventure. Both can plan either an entire trip or just basics like hotels and transportation.(Unless youre comfortable with chaotic driving conditions, do not rent your own car.)Mombotour (www.mombotour.com) conducts day trips around Granada, including thecanopy tour on Mombacho and kayaking tours of Lake Nicaragua (from about $25 to $51per person)..

Attracted by a Blend of Centuries and CulturesBy JEFF KOYEN

ON a recent Saturday night, an invitation-only dance party was in full swing at AsiaLatina, a Thai-style restaurant in the Nicaraguan city of Granada. The lights were dim,the music electronic and the kitchen that usually serves up pad Thai closed. And thoughthe blistering sun had long set, a lingering heat hung in the room, which was decoratedwith Thai tapestries and Indian batiks.The crowd, a lively mix of the citys young and well dressed, was almost exclusivelymale. Out front, a rainbow ag sagged in the heavy air. People talked about that for
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months, said Rafael Faria, the restaurants youthful 40-year-old owner. I gure if theywant to come in, welcome. If not, eat somewhere else.Such unabashed liberalism was unheard of just a few years ago in this conservativecolonial town. Racked by years of war most recently by the pro-Marxist Sandinistasfrom the Iran-contra days Granada clung to its Catholic roots.But with the Sandinistas voted out in 1990 and a growing free-market economy (thoughNicaragua is still one of the hemispheres poorest countries), the country is fashioningitself as a cheaper alternative toCosta Rica. And, in doing so, Granada is not onlyopening up to Western dollars, but Western cultural inuences as well.At the forefront of the tourism push are former exiles like Mr. Faria who, like thousandsof other Nicaraguans, ed the country in the 1980s. He was barely a teenager. Sensing asea change, Mr. Faria moved back three years ago, trading his tiny Manhattan apartmentin Clinton for a town house a few blocks from Granadas center.I had really fallen in love with the country, Mr. Faria said.And with tourism on pace to outstrip coffee as the countrys largest industry, evenSandinista leaders like Daniel Ortega, who was elected president in 2006, are banking ontourism to lift the country out of poverty.Nicaraguas tourism industry is bullish for good reason. The countrysbeaches areamong the nest in the Americas, and among the least developed. Dozens of volcanicpeaks offer treks through rain forests teeming with a rich biodiversity. And large tracts ofnature reserves offer an eco-tourist wonderland.But when it comes to Nicaraguan culture, new and old, nothing compares to Granada.Founded in 1524 by the conquistador Francisco Hernndez de Crdoba, Granada is oneof the oldest colonial cities in the Americas. It was also one of the most frequentlysacked, thanks to its location on Lake Nicaragua, which reaches theCaribbean by way ofthe San Juan River. But despite frequent sieges by pirates and would-be imperialists, agood portion of the citys colonialarchitecture remains miraculously intact. Add thenarrow, cobblestone streets and courtyard cafes, and its one ofCentral Americasloveliest spots.Like many colonial towns, Granada comes together in a tree-lined Parque Central, orcentral park. This one is lorded over by a massive, mustard-yellow cathedral that shinesbright in the afternoon sun. When I visited this past summer, the squares western edgewas lined with horse-drawn taxis. Across the park, hot dog vendors sought refuge underthe palm trees slowly shifting shadows, their carts painted with slap-dash cartooncharacters like a Mickeyesque mouse and a clumsily drawn Pokmon.Along the parks northern edge, vendors had set up small folding tables, selling bracelets,rings and other jewelry from local artisans, with prices ranging from $1 to $100.As the sun set and the heat let loose its grip, I came across an open-air market a fewblocks south, where everything from household goods to live chickens and freshvegetables were on sale. Then, I got lost among the winding streets lined with tinyclothing shops, scruffy coffee shops and cantinas lled with laborers fresh from theirshifts. The area was anchored by two other colonial-era churches: the stunning Iglesia de
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Guadalupe near the lake and, to the west, the Iglesia de la Merced with its Baroquefacade.After dark, it was time to join the crowds of tourists and locals who ll the half dozenrestaurants along Calle la Calzada, a bustling street lled with live guitar music andoutdoor cafes that runs east from the central park.At El Tranvia, an elegant, colonial-style restaurant downstairs at the Hotel Dario, abutton-down crowd feasted on a Latin-Caribbean menu that included grilled sh straightfrom the lake and Creole-spiced steaks from local farmers. The crowd was split amongyoung Nicaraguan couples enjoying the romantic atmosphere and American babyboomers poring over a list of Central and South Americanwines.Granadas tourism upswing is also spilling over to the countrys western coastline. Whilebackpacking surfers have long passed through Granada, the new wave of well-heeledtourists is spurring new restaurants, hotels and tour companies outside of the city.Among the fastest growing areas is Lake Apoyo, a nearby freshwater lake inside avolcanic crater. Several guesthouses have opened on the lake, including Norome Villas, athatched-roof resort set in a mango grove with aspa and conference center.Still, the lake remains relatively undeveloped, free of unsightly hotels and resorts. Thecraters rim is lightly forested: green in some spots,Utah-brown in others. And thanks torestrictions on motorized watercraft, the water is clean, clear and dark blue.But make no mistake, development is afoot. Back at Calle la Calzada, just a few blocksaway from Asia Latina, theres a popular new sports pub, Zoom Bar. Instead of tapestriesand batik, this transplanted honky-tonk is decorated with college football jerseys andlewd bumper sticks. The house specialty is a bacon cheeseburger with curly fries.On a breezy Thursday afternoon, Wayne Grath, aCalifornia native who opened theestablishment with his wife, Cheryl, was standing behind the bar, loudly ponticating onthe citys real estate market. A pair of heavily tattooed tourists listened closely, eager toget in on the action.It may already be too late, Mr. Grath said.VISITOR INFORMATIONSeveral airlines y from Kennedy Airport to Managua, none nonstop. Fares start at about$300 (and a $10 tourist card must be purchased upon arrival).Granada is an easy one-hour drive from Managua. Several major car rental companies, including Hertz(505-233-1237) and Avis (505-233-3011), have ofces at the A. C. Sandino Airport inManagua.

A Faded City Brightens In NicaraguaBy STEPHEN KINZERWHEN I lived in Nicaragua during the war years of the 1980's, I often lamentedGranada's fate. Once the country's stately capital, it had fallen on hard times. Many of itsaristocratic families had ed, and their grand colonial-style mansions were crumbling.Walking through the shabby streets and along the shore of nearby Lake Nicaragua, I
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thought that with a little money and ambition, this city could be returned to its glory.In the last few years, that has begun to happen. Granada, founded in 1524 and said to beone of the oldest cities in the Americas, has become a wonderfully rewarding place tovisit. Mansions and churches have been restored and painted in soft pastel colors,monuments have been polished, and new restaurants and hotels have opened, Idiscovered on a three-day visit last March. The cloud forest on Mombacho, the greatvolcano that towers over Granada, beckons hikers, bird watchers and orchid lovers.Motor launches are ready to take people on tours of the lake, which is more than threetimes the size of Rhode Island, and its more than 350 small islands, each a miniature jungle wonderland.Visitors to Nicaragua usually land at the Managua airport, but Managua, devastated by anearthquake in 1972 and still among the ugliest capital cities in the hemisphere, has littleto offer. Granada, however, is an hour's drive south. The road passes through two townsknown for their handicrafts, and when I made the trip, I stopped at both. In Masaya, just20 minutes south of Managua, I was tempted by a set of wood-and-wicker rocking chairsbut nally decided that, although they could be taken apart, they would be too unwieldyto take home; I settled for a colorful hammock instead. It cost less than $20, a reectionof how inexpensive Nicaraguan crafts can be. A few miles farther along is San Juan deOriente, one of the country's best-known ceramics centers. At a cooperative just a fewsteps off the main road, I bought a ceramic dish painted with an intricate pattern copiedfrom a pre-Columbian design.A short while later I was in Granada's impressive central plaza, which is surrounded bymagnicent old buildings, some from the 16th century. Among them are a cavernousColonial-era cathedral with three soaring steeples and several imposing two-story 19th-century mansions; I could easily imagine irtatious seoritas looking down from theirbalconies and waving their handkerchiefs to passing gallants. A plaque on a mansion isinscribed with a famous verse that sums up the city's appeal; it asks people to be generousto blind beggars ''because there is nothing sadder in the world than to be blind inGranada.''In the plaza itself, people were taking the sun on benches near the bandstand, munchingon snacks or sipping drinks bought from pushcart vendors. Horse-drawn carriages waitedto take the few tourists in town on tours, or local people on their daily errands. For moreambitious trips, there are taxis, most of them modern but a few big-nned relics from the1950's.Half a block from the plaza is the Colonial Hotel, which opened two years ago. A newbuilding centered around a courtyard with a small swimming pool, it is built in thetraditional style. With 27 rooms the Colonial is a quiet place, but I chose to stay at aneven smaller hostelry on the other side of the plaza, La Casona de los Estrada. Set in ahistoric 18th-century building, it has been carefully renovated and offers all modernconveniences in its six rooms. The owner, Nelson Estrada, had intended to make it hisprivate home, but as the renovation proceeded he changed his mind.Granada, a city of 58,000, is laid out in a grid, and most of its attractions are within easy


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walking distance of the plaza. One of the most popular is the San Francisco church andcloister, founded in 1529 and reconstructed in the 19th century. It was a residence formonks, and Bartolom de Las Casas, the rst Spanish defender of Indian rights, oncepreached here. I made my way straight to a small museum that has been created inside,with its awe-inspiring collections of ancient statues. These brooding stone gures,ranging from 5 to 10 feet in height, were chiseled by Indians about 1,000 years ago on anisland in Lake Nicaragua. They depict strange man-animal combinations, such as a manwho either has the features of a crocodile or is carrying one on his head. No one is surewhat they mean or how they were used.''They are plain, simple and severe, and although not elaborately nished, are cut withconsiderable freedom and skill,'' wrote E. G. Squier, an American explorer and diplomatwho uncovered them in the 19th century on the island where they were carved. Hespeculated that they were objects of worship, perhaps part of a fertility cult. Some ofthem, he said, ''conveyed so forcibly the idea of power and strength that they might havebeen used as a study for Samson under the gates of Gaza, or an Atlas supporting theworld.''These eerie statues hint at the drama of Granada's history. For most of the 19th century,two political factions jockeyed for power in Nicaragua: the Liberals, based in the westerncity of Len, and the Conservatives, based in Granada. The capital moved according towhich faction had won the latest war or election, and so the country was often governedfrom Granada. A manse facing the plaza, now open to the public, was once the GranadaSocial Club, and it is easy to picture Conservative patriarchs sitting in its high-ceilingedparlors over rum and cigars, planning the nation's future.It used to be possible to reach Granada by boat from the Caribbean; vessels would sail upthe San Juan River, which is now barely navigable, cross Lake Nicaragua and dock at theGranada pier. This geography was the city's blessing and curse. It brought prosperity anda cosmopolitan air, but also attracted invaders. Several times pirates sacked Granada,most notably Henry Morgan in 1665. In the 1850's the city suffered its most bizarreattack, led by a mad American adventurer named William Walker who not only seized itbut also proclaimed himself president of Nicaragua.Walker planned to use Granada as a base from which to build a Central American empire,and troops from Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala joined toattack him before he could carry out his plan. He held out for while, but was nallyforced to ee in 1856. Before doing so his men set re to the city, and one of them leftbehind a sign reading ''Here Was Granada.'' The city has long since been fully rebuilt, butthere are still a few reminders of Walker's occupation. One is a statue of a priest namedRafael Villavincencio who is said to have rushed into the burning cathedral to rescue asacred chalice.The area around Granada was one of the few parts of Nicaragua that was not directlyaffected by the civil war that tore the country apart during the 1980's. Like the rest of thecountry, it suffered from decay and neglect, but there was no ghting in the region.Although Granada has not escaped the poverty that has overwhelmed Nicaragua, it is in


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write poetry. Several have become recognized as outstanding gures in Hispanic letters,making poetry the only art form in which Nicaraguans have traditionally excelled.''I can't say exactly why this happened,'' said Michelle Najlis, a prominent youngNicaraguan poet, ''but I know it has something to do with Ruben.''Laying Claim to His LegacyAlmost from the day of Dario's death, ideologues have sought to lay claim to his legacy,and every Nicaraguan government since then has sought to lionize him. AnastasioSomoza Debayle quoted him regularly, and named his wife to oversee construction of theRuben Dario National Theater, still the country's only modern cultural center. A statue ofthe poet clad in a Roman toga and wearing a garland of olive branches stands before thetheater.Today both the Sandinistas and their rivals consider Dario a hero. Many nights have beenpassed in futile argument over what political positions he would take if he were alivetoday.Leaders of the Sandinista Front, which seized power after Somoza was ousted in 1979,have fervently embraced Dario as they have sought to stimulate patriotism throughveneration of national heroes.Many of his works, both prose and poems, have been reprinted by the Government-owned publishing house, and a series of seminars on his work was held earlier this year.No one was surprised when President Daniel Ortega Saavedra included a reference to''the divine Ruben'' in his inaugural address.Legendary Lust for LifeJournalist, essayist, diplomat, poet, novelist and short story writer, a man who dazzledEurope before World War I, Dario was a bohemian with a legendary lust for life. Hisdefenders are often quick to assert that stories of his escapades from Paris to BuenosAires are much exaggerated, but the persistence of such stories no doubt accounts forsome of his continuing popularity.Nowhere is Dario's memory so jealously guarded as in Leon. Though he was born in thetown of Metapa, 50 miles east of here, which was renamed Dario after his death, Leon isthe city he always considered his own.Dario's childhood home is now a museum, full of manuscripts, personal possessions andother curios. Edgardo Buitrago, the curator, has devoted his life to the poet's memory.''Leon is a traditional center of culture and learning,'' Mr. Buitrago said at the beginningof an extended monologue that left several recent visitors with the impression that theyhad spent an afternoon conversing with an intimate friend of the great man.''Dario's family took in university students as boarders,'' Mr. Buitrago continued. ''Thediscussion groups that met here were famous in all Nicaragua. Literature and philosophywere the subjects that mattered.''Some Compare Him to PoundDario was a precocious youth, but was nonetheless expelled from school here because ofwhat Mr. Buitrago described as ''total indiscipline.'' He published early poems whilebarely into his teens, and soon was granted a post at the National Library in Managua,


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January 11, 1981

Notes; A NEW ART VILLAGE RISES IN THEDOMINICAN REPUBLICBy ROBERT J. DUNPHYA new international arts center that is almost a work of art in itself has been carved out ofthe wilderness high above the Caribbean in the southeastern corner of the DominicanRepublic. It will be opened to the public on Thursday.Known as Altos de Chavon for its lofty location over the Chavon River, the arts centerlooks more like an Italian Renaissance hill town in Tuscany than the Caribbeancommunity that it is. Indeed, the whole idea behind the project is to stimulate a culturalrenaissance in the Dominican Republic.Under construction for four years, Altos de Chavon has been designed to serve as acolony where local and international artists will be invited to reside on a rotating basis

and teach music, poetry, painting, dance, sculpture and weaving, pottery, fabric printingand silk screening.The center is six miles from the sugar-mill town of La Romana and three miles east ofCasa de Campo, the Caribbean resort owned by Gulf & Western Industries, which hasextensive sugar holdings on the island. It was originally the brainchild of CharlesBluhdorn, chairman of the conglomerate, but most of the planning has been taken over byhis daughter Dominique.Culture is not new to the Altos site, since the Taino Indians established a creativecommunity on the cliffs above the Chavon thousands of years before Columbus touchedthe shores of Hispaniola, the island that the Dominican Republic shares with Haiti. One

of the chief attractions of Altos, in fact, will be the Taino Museum, which will house oneof the world's richest collections of Taino Indian artifacts.In addition to the museum, the center includes the red-tiled church of St. Stanislaus and adozen other structures, among them two restaurants on the main plaza, an inn with 10rooms and clusters of small apartments for visiting artists and shops designed toencourage commerce in Dominican art.These are all part of Phase I of the Altos building program. Not yet started is Phase II,which will include an open-air amphitheater, a central marketplace and a 20-roomdormitory for artisans in residence. All this is a far cry from the original concept, whichcalled for a handful of simple white-washed buildings to house a small colony of artists.

This has since evolved into a self-contained village set against the lush green mountainsto the north and the Caribbean to the south.Cultural activity even now has begun to hum in Altos, with a few artists already involvedwith young Dominicans and busloads of tourists jumping the gun on the ofcial openingby arriving by bus from nearby Caso de Campo.Art aside, most come out of curiosity, simply to see this Mediterranean village that washacked out of the Caribbean wilderness in four years by workers using indigenous


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materials and handcrafting the stonework, the stout wooden doors and iron grillworkpiece by piece under the guidance of Roberto Copa, the center's designer.

WINTER IN THE SUN; A Bit of U.S. In DominicanRepublicBy GEORGE STOLZ; GEORGE STOLZ is on the metropolitan staff of The New York Times.IN the northeastern corner of the Dominican Republic lies Samana, a lush, ruggedpeninsula that bears testament to a forgotten moment in the history of the New World. Inthe 1820's, thousands of escaping American slaves relocated in Samana, maintaining theirNorth American customs in the isolation of their new Caribbean home. TheseAmericanos (as their descendants still call themselves) lived beyond the reach of mostmodernizing and homogenizing inuences until a highway was built 25 years ago, so thatSamana remained a cultural anomaly: an English-speaking, Protestant outpost of aSpanish-speaking, Catholic country.Modern Samana is more than an anthropological relic: it is coming of age as a 20th-century resort, popular especially among European visitors. The town, peninsula and bay,which all share the same name, possess the ingredients of a Caribbean resort. The town issmall and peaceful, nestled between the steeply rising mountains and the gentle waters ofthe bay, with a variety of accommdations ranging from sparse pensions to a luxury resortcomplex. The 30-mile-long peninsula's 90 miles of coast abound with beaches. Themountains that form the peninsula's spine rise to heights of 2,000 feet.That Samana has remained underdeveloped while tourism has become the DominicanRepublic's fastest growing industry is in large part due to Samana's isolation. While mostof the country's highways are excellent, the highway connecting the town and peninsulato the mainland is badly deteriorated, and the 170-mile drive from Samana to SantoDomingo, the capital, takes at least ve very bumpy hours.Samana, however, is not a backward village. It is a modern town of about 4,000 wherebreezy and brightly painted homes line wide and winding tree-lined streets and smallshops and restaurants overlook the bayfront boulevard (known as the Malecon). Althoughmost of the peninsula is beyond the range of telephone and power lines, the town has afew small hotels, bars and discos and some small restaurants serving French cuisine andregional specialties like sh with coconut and stewed conch. There is a small airport,which offers two half-hour ights daily to the capital in ve-passenger planes.This combination of development and isolation is rooted in Dominican politics. TheGovernment recognized Samana's potential in the early 70's and initiated a plan todevelop the region as a tourist center. The old wooden town was razed (with theexception of the Americanos' Methodist church, which had been moved plank by plankfrom England) and a new concrete town was constructed. Two Government-owned hotelswere built, one on a bluff overlooking the town and the bay, the other on an island in thebay. The plan for the new town included parks, an airport, a new pier and a series oftrafc circles.


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But just as the fuse for the tourist boom was about to be lighted, President JoaquinBalaguer fell from power, and the project, associated with the outgoing party (and notuntainted by controversy) was ignored by the incoming party. Without continuedgovernmental promotion, Samana was left a city marred by desuetude, the hotels virtuallyabandoned and the empty trafc circles serving as symbols for political satirists.Circles, of course, are versatile symbols, as Mr. Balaguer, who was re-elected in 1986and 1990, understands. The 84-year-old bachelor, who refers to Samana in speeches ashis girlfriend, has said that he plans to resume Samana's Government-sponsoreddevelopment. According to Origine Varva Orton, the governor of Samana Province, theseplans include expanding the airport to international standards and selling the hotels toprivate owners. However, as even Mr. Varva admits, these plans are still only plans. Inthe meantime, there has been a urry of privately nanced projects, ranging fromretirement communities to the 120-room Hotel Gran Bahia outside town.Until changes occur, the best time to witness the hybrid products of Samana's past isduring two annual religious festivals: the week before Easter (Holy Week) and thecelebration of the region's patron saint, Santa Barbara (the Patronales), which concludedlate last month.During these periods thousands of countryfolk stream into town, transforming theMalecon into a miniature Rio de Janeiro at Carnival. What little business the townusually conducts is replaced by processions, dances, games and contests, some conductedin English, others in Spanish and some in the patois of Haiti.Loudspeakers blast merengue (the Dominican national music) well into the night. Theloudspeakers are provided by Dominican rum companies, who do a good business at thistime. Many revelers sleep on the benches and grassy areas lining the Malecon.During the rest of the year Samana remains sedate, a poor but not poverty-stricken town,home to a small group of American and European sailors and expatriates.Other than the beauty and tranquillity, what draws most visitors is outdoor recreation.Around the docks of the Malecon one can arrange a day-trip, rent a motorcycle or shinggear, have lunch or dinner or hire motorcycle-drawn carriages (called motoconchos) andsmall motorboats (called yolas).Most beaches can be reached by motoconcho, which carry as many as eight passengersand are usually driven by teen-age guides. These loud and backring buggies alsofunction as taxis. Yolas can be hired to reach beaches and caves accessible only by wateror to travel among the small islands, called cayos, in the bay. Cayo Levantado, the largest(about a mile long and a half-mile across), is about 30 minutes by yola from the docksand makes for an interesting day trip.Cayo Levantado's ve beaches range from hidden to expansive, some lashed by currentstwisting around the island and others gently lapped by the tide. Rocky trails cross theisland.EARLY each morning a group of cooks and vendors arrives. Some catch and grill sh,serving them with toasted plantains, while others mix the milk of coconuts with rum,serving a powerful drink called a coco loco to be sipped under the palm trees. In the


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Boyer's motives are disputed. Boyer said he was concerned with liberating the slaves,while Dominican observers said Boyer wanted to repopulate the country he hadsubjugated with residents partial to himself. Nevertheless, nearly 6,000 former slavesmade the voyage to the Dominican Republic. The results were mixed: many died orreturned, unable to adjust to changes in climate and culture. However, the 2,000 or sowho relocated prospered.THESE immigrants preserved their North American traditions. They ran their ownschools, paying for the importation of English teachers, and maintained Protestantchurches (primarily Methodist), despite occasional encounters with governmentalintolerance. Today even the young people, bearing surnames like King, Green andBarrett, say that their ancestors came from Philadelphia.Only the dictator Rafael Trujillo, threatened by the area's cultural independence, was ableto introduce the Spanish language into Samana, and his means were drastic; armed menpublicly beat anyone heard speaking English. Most residents today are bilingual. TheEnglish of Samana is unlike the singsong tonalities of neighboring former Britishcolonies and sounds more like the English in the United States.Samana also retains a rich folklore, full of superstitious sightings of the Caribbeanequivalents of vampires and werewolves. The superstitions, however, seem to be fading;when asked, residents say that they believe in the creatures but that the creatures appearless frequently and in fewer homes than they once did.The remaining Americanos live off the land in small mountain villages dotting thepeninsula. They grow coconuts, coffee, mangos and citrus fruits for sale. Their churchesare easily identied along the narrow dirt roads: small, often windowless, wood-framebuildings perched on stilts or cinderblocks, immaculately clean, with pitched roofs,wooden pews and doors at both ends. On Friday and Saturday nights and Sundaymornings the churches are generally lled to capacity with worshipers of all ages singinghymns -- in English. WHAT TO CONSIDER FOR A VISIT TO SAMANA GettingThereYou should y to Samana from the airport in Puerto Plata, avoiding Santo Domingo ifpossible. Continental, American and Pan American offer one to ve ights daily, forabout $350 round trip. (Dominicana Airlines, which also ies to the Dominican Republic,has erratic service.) The ight to Samana is by small plane, arranged through a travelagent, for about $115 round trip. Rental cars are available at the airports, but Dominicandrivers are often terrifying, and the last leg of the road to Samana is in poor condition.Where to StayThere are many small, inexpensive though rather plain hotels in Samana. Representativeis the Hotel Nilka (4 Calle Santa Barbara; 809-538-2245) in the center of town. Roomsare small and spare, with nothing more than a chest of drawers, bed and small window.Some rooms are air-conditioned; hot water is erratic. About $15 a night for two.The best in-town rooms are at the Hotel Tropical Lodge (8 Avenida de la Marina;809-538-2480). Run by a French couple, this hotel overlooking the bay has clean, airyrooms, a grassy courtyard, a small lounge with bar and a hospitable atmosphere; $32 for


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