Amalia's Adventures in Nicaragua ...Part 1

 

Since October, granddaughter Amalía and her Mommy and Papi have been living in the quaint, quiet, colonial city of Granada, Nicaragua, with occasional trips back to swinging South Beach, Miami.

 Granada, with its horse-drawn carriages, almost weekly religious festivals and handicraft markets is very different from the wacky modern vibe of South Beach, but Amalía’s day is still just as busy in Nicaragua as in Florida.

                                Photo taken during the Poetry Festival by Eleni Gage de Baltodano

 Amalía wakes up demanding to eat huevos and gallo pinto—the national dish of Nicaragua, 

made of beans and rice.  ( “Gallo Pinto” literally means “spotted rooster”.)

 Then everyone goes out to have fruit and yogurt and coffee by the swimming pool. 

 

 But Amalía can’t tarry; she has to go find the tortugas, 

which are always hiding somewhere in the garden.  

 

 She likes to feed them leaves but sometimes they run away (very slowly). 

 Then she has to check on Tonia, the parrot, who comes out of her cage in the morning 

to eat sunflower seeds and wake everyone up with her shrieks. 

 After breakfast, Amalía and her Mommy may walk to the center of town 

to have juice and sweets with friends.

 And do a little shopping.

 Everyone knows Amalía and says “Buenos dias.” 

 Or Mommy and Amalía might take a taxi to the market at Masaya, to buy handicrafts.

                                 A mural at Masaya Craft Market, 14 kilometers from Granada

like hammocks, handmade masks and textiles.

Then it's time for a nap.

  After lunch Amalía likes to play in the pool with Papou, when he’s visiting,

Or with her two grandmas:   Yiayia Joanie and Abuela Carmen.

Or she might go out with her babysitter Maria José—
maybe to the lakeside where she can see parrots and monkeys,

                                                            
large water birds

                                           

 and one of Nicaragua’s famous volcanoes.

Coming Monday—Part 2--everyone goes to the seashore....

Amalia's South Beach Valentine's Day

 

 Granddaughter Amalia and her parents were back home in swinging South Beach, Miami for the week leading up to Valentine's Day, before returning to quaint, quiet, colonial Granada, Nicaragua until April.  So Nick and I, better known as Papou and Yiayia, flew down to hang out with them.

Here are some of the ways Amalía celebrated the South Beach way.  She greeted us at dawn on  Thursday with a valentine cookie each and the words: "I love you Yiaya.  I love you Papou." (And I think she did it unprompted by parents!)

 

Horseback time with Papi .

Opening a musical Valentine.

Rockin' out to her musical "Dora the Explorer" guitar.

Her favorite game is opening an entire box of kiddie band-aids and using them to decorate Papou's legs and Yiayia's arms.

 

Lunch with Mommy, while sharing sun screen, on Lincoln Road.

.

 

Watching the balloon sellers and playing with friends on the grassy knoll.

Sliding at the park with Papi.

 

Happy  hour at the Ritz with friends.

 

While making the biggest possible mess with the seashell gravel.

And finally, Valentine's Day dinner on Lincoln Road with Papou and Yiayia.

Mas pollo, please!

Nicaragua: Silent Smiles, Hammocks & William Walker

Knowing that I am in Granada, Nicaragua with my husband, visiting daughter Eleni, her husband Emilio and their 16 month-old  daughter Amalia , my friend Evi Adams, who lives in Israel, sent me the following from the magazine Journeywoman:

CAFE OF SMILES IN GRANADA, NICARAGUA - Writes Regina in Cuenca, Ecuador - I recommend Café de las Sonrisas or Cafe of Smiles, a small restaurant behind the Hammock shop near the square in Granada, Nicaragua. It is run by a deaf and physically challenged staff. Adding to the serenity of the quiet courtyard restaurant lined with hammocks, is the fact that not a single word is spoken. In fact, not a single word will be spoken by your waiter for the entire time you're at the cafe because they can't speak. The Cafe de las Sonrisas is the first coffee shop in the Americas, and the 4th in the world to be run entirely by deaf people. You might think it would be difficult to communicate with a deaf mute waiter, but it's actually quite easy and educational. You're shown to your seat and your menu has an explanation of how things work, along with some helpful photo illustrations of a few commonly used phrases in sign language like "thank you," and "please," and "I would like. .. " If you're not up for the signing, you can just point to the photos in the menu; it's really that simple. And the coffee? It's great and the food is incredible.

So today Eleni, Amalia and I headed off this morning to Café de las Sonrisas, a short walk from their home.

 The sign outside the door promised “great coffee and an unforgettable experience” 

 

 One wall was lined with the hand signals for sign language. 

 

 Amalia was fascinated with the inner courtyard and all the hammocks 

  Each table had stickers to point to with useful phrases (like “bill” and “toilet”)
 

 The trees in the inner courtyard were hung with photos of smiles.

  Amalia and our waitress had no trouble communicating. 

She loved the banana pancakes and we loved the tropical juice drinks.

 She quickly made a friend – a girl of three who spoke both English and Spanish.

 There were child-sized hammocks too—but Amalia was wary. 

We looked in at the adjoining hammock wokshop.  Some of the workers had heir children with them because it’s school vacation time.

A tree was hung with doll-sized hammock.

 Besides the restaurant and hammock workshop, the building serves as a social center for people who have any difficulties such as deafness—helping them in four areas: education, health, infant and mother care and social interaction.   It’s called Tio Antonio.

On one wall leading to the restaurant is a mural illustrating the history of Granada.  A central figure is William Walker with the hangman’s noose around his neck.  He was an evil, colorful American adventurer who tried to take over Nicaragua (and several other countries)  as his private kingdom, importing his own mercenary soldiers.  His saga is worth looking up.  Here’s the first paragraph about him from Wikipedia:

William Walker (May 8, 1824 – September 12, 1860) was an American lawyer, journalist and adventurer, who organized several private military expeditions into Latin America, with the intention of establishing English-speaking colonies under his personal control, an enterprise then known as "filibustering." Walker became president of the Republic of Nicaragua in 1856 and ruled until 1857, when he was defeated by a coalition of Central American armies, principally Costa Rica's army. He was executed by the government of Honduras in 1860.

Walker wanted to re-introduce slavery to Nicaragua, for one thing.  Here’s more of his story from Wikipedia:

Walker took up residence in Granada and set himself up as President of Nicaragua, after conducting a fraudulent election. He was inaugurated on July 12, 1856, and soon launched an Americanization program, reinstating slavery, declaring English an official language and reorganizing currency and fiscal policy to encourage immigration from the United States. Realizing that his position was becoming precarious, he sought support from the Southerners in the U.S. by recasting his campaign as a fight to spread the institution of black slavery, which many American Southern businessmen saw as the basis of their agrarian economy. With this in mind, Walker revoked Nicaragua's emancipation edict of 1824. This move did increase Walker's popularity in the South and attracted the attention of Pierre Soulé, an influential New Orleans politician, who campaigned to raise support for Walker's war. Nevertheless, Walker's army, weakened by an epidemic of cholera and massive defections, was no match for the Central American coalition. On December 14, 1856 as Granada was surrounded by 4,000 Honduran, Salvadoran and Guatemalan troops, Charles Frederick Henningsen, one of Walker's generals, ordered his men to set the city ablaze before escaping and fighting their way to Lake Nicaragua. An inscription on a lance reading Aquí fue Granada ("Here was Granada") was left behind at the smoking ruin of the ancient capital city.^[12]

Granada’s Merced Church, which we pass every day, is an active church but still shows the scars of  Walker’s attempt to burn the city in 1856. 

Stalking Sunsets

                                              The Acropolis, Athens, from the roof of the Grande Bretagne Hotel

Whenever I travel, especially in the company of my two daughters, by late afternoon we usually find ourselves sitting by the water somewhere with a glass of wine, waiting for the sunset.  That’s when I really know I’m on vacation.

Many years ago I learned that Key West has a sunset party on the beach every night, with fire-

eaters and dancers and all sorts of celebration of the beauty of the evening sky. On Santorini, in Greece, every sunset is a party as well.  The white-sugar-cube buildings turn gold and orange and the roofs and balconies become crowded with onlookers who applaud as the sun disappears into the Aegean.

                                                                            Cats at Hydroneta on Hydra

Some sophisticated bars, like Franco’s on Santorini, and Hydroneta on Hydra, cue their music so that it reaches its climax at the moment the sun drops out of sight. (At Franco’s in the town of Thera on Santorini, you’d better reserve a lounge chair in advance—although every spot on Santorini has a drop-dead view.)

                                                                                   Windmills on Mykonos

On Mykonos, the bar called Veranda, overlooking little Venice, is our favorite spot to drink and savor the show.  That’s where my profile photo with windmills in the background was taken by Eleni some years ago.  (She keeps telling me it’s time to replace it with something more up-to-date.) And that’s where this photo  of a sailing ship was taken.

Corfu also has sunset views that could make you weep.  Here’s a spot I always stop to photograph—showing the fortress overlooking the harbor.

As soon as we arrive in Corfu every year, we head for a drink on the roof garden of the Cavalieri Hotel, perhaps the most romantic spot ever for sunset watching as the swallows wheel, shrieking, overhead in a frenzy of bug-chasing, and the retro sounds of Frank Sinatra provide background music.

The most dramatic sunsets I’ve ever seen, night after night, were in Nicaragua, on Playa del Coco, the beach where sea turtles flock to lay their eggs in August to December and the babies emerge to head for the sea in January and February.  Every night on Playa del Coco we’d go down to the beach, sit on the rustic chairs and watch the light show in the sky.  And say, as we lifted our glasses toward the horizon, “Now we’re really on vacation.”