Granada

Trip date January 2026 1GBP = 49.76 Nicaraguan Cordoba (c) April 2026      

On the journey from Leon to Granada we fell victim to our first real (and widely propagated) tourist scam: The fake luggage up charge.

The journey started off fine with our hosts flagging down a taxi for us, negotiating the fare to100C for the fifteen minute cab ride to the bus station. Our next transport, a minivan travelling the two hours from Leon bus station to Granada was also reasonably priced at 100C per person. The next bus, a rickety slow uncomfortable bus, with a journey time of one hour, was not worth 150C per person.

We hopped off the minivan and scanned the buses present looking for the one saying "Granada". Seeing our confusion, a nice helpful man turned up and guided us where we needed to go. Thinking the system would be similar to Guatemala, we thought this man was a bus ayudante (bus attendant) - he wasn't. One mistake made. Our second mistake was forking over our fare to him before the bus was even moving - something the locals never do. When the actual ayudante showed up, the helpful guy pointed us out to him before handing over some of the money we'd paid, minus the cut he'd given himself.

So, we'd paid him a cut and maybe that was okay as he did help us to the bus... but he didn't say that. He said that we'd have to pay more due to the luggage we'd brought with us. I can understand the extra charge if it covers an extra seat or a specific luggage spot, but this wasn't the case. We managed to snag a extra seat to place our backpacks however some other tourists ended up with their large backpacks on their laps for the journey!

Talking with those tourists when we finally arrived in Granada, we found out we'd been extra gullible. They had only paid 300c total for the three of them. I know at the maximum we'd only lost £4 but it was still frustrating. Nothing says welcome like feeling ripped off. Unlike in many countries where you can find a pricing list for various journeys, in Nicaragua it seemed to be at the discretion of the ayudante making it hard to argue that they'd scammed us at all.. until we heard the fare charged to the local sat next to us.

Determined not to let it mar our enjoyment of the city, we dropped off our luggage to our hotel and got stuck into exploring. Granada, despite having the same grand colonial architecture as Leon, had a completely different vibe. Gone was the lived in and grungy aesthetic replaced with facades painted in what seemed to be a carefully curated colour palate. The streets of the town centre were clean and while the paint work was slightly chipped around the edges, it was clear that a lot of work had gone into restoring and preserving the area. This faded the further out we got but we've found that this is often the case.

Geared towards tourists, the streets surrounding the central plaza were filled with trendy restaurants. The food we tried from both PitaPita and Garden Cafe was lovely, but not very authentic, serving pizza, falafel and cake. We actually found it hard to find a restaurant selling local cuisine that wasn't far out of our traveller's budget. We eventually got to try some local food, but we had to walk fifteen minutes from the centre to do so.

El Corralito was a casual restaurant situated near the old bus station, well known for its traditional breakfasts and street-food. I tried Quesillo, a dish consisting of corn tortillas topped with melted cheese, pickled onions and sour cream. Although the description sounds like something that's entirely my cup of tea, it was a miss. Maybe the vinegary-ness of it all was a step too far for me but I found the whole thing a bit too rich and sickly. Ben went for a traditional breakfast (gallo pinto - rice and beans with tortilla) with the addition of leche agria, which is a fermented milk drink that can either be dunked into or poured on top. Ben's dish sounded more adventurous, he likened the leche agria to slightly watery sour cream and ate the whole lot.

Although we couldn't explore any of the church roofs in Leon, we were able to climb the bell tower of La Merced Church; one of Central America's oldest religious buildings. It cost us 35C to enter, paying the church's caretaker who hurried over as we were reading the entry sign. From the roof we got stunning views over the city, I always enjoy the pops of greenery that appear from the central courtyards of the colonial buildings seen from above. Past the red clay roofs we could see the main cathedral, its pale yellow frontage contrasting with its orange topped domes and towers. Although we didn't have a large space to explore, the price to enjoyment ratio was well worth the effort of climbing all the steps to get up there.

Still in a church-y mood, we headed to Plaza Mayor and "Catedral Inmaculada Concepción de María". This church was a little unusual, not only for its yellow colour and two side by side columned balconies at its front, but in that we didn't enter through the main door rather into a smaller chapel at its side. The next surprise came in the form of the unfinished ceiling. They were obviously in the process of re-doing some of the frescos and while seeing partly completed panels was slightly jarring, it wasn't as strange as some of the artistic liberties taken in the completed ones.

While the rest of the Plaza Mayor was nice, we didn't hang around too long as it was the sort of place we were likely to get bothered. "Come into my restaurant?", "Carriage ride for two?", "Would you buy some socks?". People were touting and selling things all over the city, but the intensity ramped up the closer to the middle we got.

The lake, in comparison, was fairly quiet.

Granada sits on the shores of Lake Cocibolca (which is also named Lake Nicaragua), which is the largest lake in Central America. Not only is the lake huge, it's also home to a population of terrifying and aggressive bull sharks. Although the sharks alone would have kept me out of the water, when we approached the dark grey surf was crashing against the shore... not very inviting. One boat operator half heartedly asked if we were interested in a boat tour, waving his sign at us briefly before quickly moving on. I don't think even he wanted to go out there. As it wasn't exactly chill by the waterside weather, we stared out over the lake for a few minutes before declaring that activity done.

While looking for things to do in Granda we came across the rather unique experience of a cigar making class. There were two cigar shops in the town to chose from, Don Reyes Cigars and Don Elba Cigars. As we couldn't decide which one to chose from the reviews alone, we visited each in person to get the vibe. While Don Reyes was a more modern and slick operation, the warm welcome we received by the cigar puffing front man at Don Elba won us over.

Don Elba Cigars is a family run business thats been hand making cigars since 1991. We were taken behind the scenes to watch the expert cigar makers at work. The first station was about leaf selection, placement and rolling technique. We then saw the roughly made cigars get put into moulds and head to be pressed before they headed to the last station. Here the cigars received their final tobacco leaf wrapping, being perfectly smoothed over and sealed before finally getting the chop - revealing a perfectly made cigar ready to smoke... or in this case ready to be put in packages ready to be sold.

As we watched the process we were reminded to pay close attention as once the talk was over it would be our turn. Although our tour guide spoke perfect English the experts that would be overseeing our efforts didn't. Despite this, we muddled along well enough and didn't frustrate our teachers too much (I hope). Although they made it look simple, getting the right tightness and shape was a lot harder than I thought it would be. At the end we were the proud owners of two (hand made by us) cigars, they weren't exactly identical but not bad for a first attempt. Ben, when he smoked his, said it was (and I quote) "fucking delicious". Although he kept eyeing mine up, I decided to keep it as a souvenir to remember our time in Nicaragua by. Not too shabby for $10 US each.

Granada was a nice city to visit. We enjoyed wandering round the historic centre with its grand colonial buildings, there was plenty of nice restaurants and cafes to chose from and there was enough to do to to keep us entertained for a couple of days. Its charming streets were fairly quiet, the most traffic we encountered (in the centre at least) was caused by the horse drawn carriages circling the area taking people on tours.

So it was nice, if a little boring. Maybe it's on us and the things we chose to do, or perhaps we were finding the colonial style cities slightly repetitive at this point. We really enjoyed the cigar making class, it was fun to try something completely new but in general nothing distinctly Nicaraguan had leaped out to us so far on our visit. More than likely, we were just suffering from a bit of backpacker's fatigue - we were on our sixth country since we'd last been home, and with a lot of them being colonised by the Spanish some details were starting to blur together. Still suffering from the effects of a bad stomach infection wasn't helping matters either. Ready for a change of pace, we decided to leave the cities behind and head to the beach instead.