Our Lady of Assumption Cathedral is also called the Granada Cathedral.
The church dominates the main plaza of Granada, Nicaragua and was begun in the 1500’s when the city was being colonized by Spanish conquerors. The church still serves the community and at a recent evening Mass was filled with locals as well as tourists who make the place one of their must do stops.
This Cathedral dwarfs other churches in the city and is not as ornate or beaten down as its competition. It is still a simple box covered with smooth plaster, tall bell towers, and is painted a striking color you can see from a distance. In its shadows is the main city Plaza, a collection of horse drawn carriages lined up in front of the Alhambra hotel, vendors selling sunglasses and food, tourists, and locals who have nothing better to do than people watch and take photos and videos for their Facebook page.
Walking into a Catholic church brings the usual statues, pews, robed white plaster men commemorated for dedication, nooks with burning candles, dizzying rotundas, a sense of space.
The unusual in this church is a Genie lift that supports an artist painting on the ceiling.
The cast of characters is to be expected. There is God, Adam and Eve, all of Noah’s animals, angels and scenes of Creation.
This morning, when there is no Mass, I find the lift extended and observe a little man on the platform high above me patiently expanding his assigned themes. He is no Michaelangelo and this is no Sistine Chapel, but the effect is still jaw dropping. The ceiling is huge, and, with so many sections to be filled, it is hard to believe the task will ever be finished.
But, completed or not,it is certain that this project will outlast many men and make the point continually that we are alive for a purpose, just not our purpose.
Azucena,tending bar, is the only person in the Bar Imagine when I walk in.
She is polishing glasses, checking inventory, brings me a menu, works on the books while I decide on fish tacos and a Tona beer, a local favorite.
” Que tiempo, la musica, ” I ask?
The board outside the building says the Latin All Stars will be playing Beatles music at eight. The chalkboard in the entry says the Latin All Stars will be playing Latin Salsa at nine. Handbills on telephone polls around town say free music starts at eight and nine and Happy Hour is 5 – 6?
” Nueve, ” she confirms.
A photo of John Lennon is on one wall, prominently displayed. There are two chairs and a mic on an empty stage. Two cooks are slicing tomatoes and onions and one brings me out chips and picante sauce while they thaw fish and turn on the gas to their stoves.
” Que donde todo gente? ”
She shrugs and says, ” Ocho, ocho y media? ”
It is a quiet evening on Cervantes street and, in this town, I would expect to see Miquel sitting at this bar with his caballo tied up outside, his lance close to his hand for encounters with windmills. That famous novel, ” Don Quixote “, has chapter after chapter of the adventures of a man on a mission, standing for justice in an unjust world.
” My English is not so good, ” she says, but she manages to get me to buy more drinks than I planned.
Don Quixote is to fiction what John Lennon is to rock and roll.
After dinner and two Tona’s, I catch a cab home and vow to return tomorrow to catch whatever music happens to be on stage.
The only Abbey Lane in this town is on the front steps of this Bar.
Taking a different way to the Plaza, there appears another Catholic church, one of fifteen in Granada.
This place of worship is unique for its grizzled exterior that looks older than history, and people are standing way up in a church bell tower taking photos of the city at dusk. It is evening and Mass is in progress.
I have been told by a tour guide that the black stained exterior is not mold but comes from a fire built by an American, William Walker, who invaded and tried to take control of Nicaragua in the 1800’s to extend Southern slavery. He was trying to burn out defenders of the city who were holed up inside the massive walls of this church.
Walker was eventually captured and executed in Honduras but American interventionism has never stopped anywhere.
Church’s try to do God’s work, but men keep putting their foot in the door.
American’s have been visiting Nicaragua a long time, and good has not always been on their mind, no matter what their mouths said.
Dogs hold a special place in human history.
In old days they slept outside the cave and warned of intruders, were tossed Mastodon bones, chased sticks thrown by cave kids. Then, they came inside and became companions and trusted friends.
On the streets of Granada, dogs are on call twenty four seven. Some have collars while others have nothing but fleas and wounds from territorial fights.
I have dog biscuits in my shirt pocket for any dogs that approach me.
Like people, some canines are wary, some are bashful, some are brash, some are demanding. Others like to lay on their back and do a roll for me.
The best thing about dogs is they don’t talk and say stupid things.
Charlie loves dogs and this gallery is for him.
If he wasn’t careful he would take them all home.
A trip to the grocery in a foreign country can be setting yourself up for shock treatment.
There are items in the grocery here that are less than what I pay at home, but many items are far more expensive.
In a country where the minimum wage for a working guy or girl is less than a U.S. dollar per hour, why would any sane person want to drink a six pack of beer at almost $10.00 U.S., or shave with Gillette shaving cream at eight dollars a can? On my most recent trip through the grocery gauntlet, my costs for a handful of items were $12.00 U.S.
For my money today, I buy two bars of soap, a link of sausage and a package of chicken cold cuts. I bring home an avocado,two boxes of saltine crackers, a small bag of apples, a bunch of bananas and a loaf of wheat bread.
Coming from Europe, or the U.S., or wealthy South American countries, Nicaragua is a bargain.
On the other hand, walking in a Nicaraguan’s shoes pinches your toes..
If I only make seventy or eighty cents an hour I would have to work two days to pay for what I just bought.
If you really need to know what a country and it’s people are about, peek into their shopping bags and watch what they ride to get home.
Early in the morning no one is about except tourists with cameras, construction workers getting a jump on the sun, security guards walking to work talking on their cell phones, vendors loading little carts with bananas, potatoes and pineapples for a day of selling.
On the boulevard in Lake Nicaragua Park, at the end of the Calle Libertidad, a few men operate leaf blowers and primp the grounds for the real barrage of tourists in October, November, and December.
I watch a trash truck overflowing with bags coming closer, remember my morning rides on Saba, on winding dangerous roads, on the way for a day of cistern building a number of years ago.
As these men and boys pass, they hang off their truck, wave, laugh, happy to be riding on a cool morning instead of walking. It is not safe to take deductions too far but these guys don’t seem unhappy.
” Here we are, ” they say, ” take our picture. ”
And so, I do.
They wave at me, as they go by.
Picking up refuse seems to be bad only if you see it that way.
Granada is built on the shores of Lake Nicaragua.
In olden days, the rich or famous of Managua came to the lake to relax with their families and built huge homes that go unused by heirs who have moved to the United States or other foreign lands for more opportunity, better weather, or because they can. There is a huge park at the end of Calle Libertidad with open air discos, park benches and swings, nooks to enjoy a swim and cooler breezes.
This morning, horsemen push cattle past as I stand in shade, out of the way. When one of the herd moves closer to the park’s grass, it is driven back towards the shoreline by one of the cowboys. A slight breeze moves leaves in the trees, water gently kisses the shoreline, and people have not yet begun to wake.
Granada is a place where animals are important and a part of daily routine.
This moment speaks of a more pastoral time when men spent the day with their animals, weren’t in a hurry, and lived well with nature.
In the evening these cowboys will come back this way, cattle driven home by the caballeros, the lake turning pinks and yellows and reds as the sun goes down.
Dogs will keep the cattle in a straight line and everyone will be hungry after a hard day of work.
This is a small poignant piece of the nineteenth century still alive in the twenty first century.
These days, we too are being driven, but it isn’t cowboys that herd us.
The three hundred foot rock walls of the crater go straight down as if a giant using a post hole digger, dug a hole for a fence post and then walked away without filling it. Light on the sides of the walls is the color of the fire in the bottom, and, at that bottom, are moving waves of reddish yellow molten rock.
” It looks like Hell, ” someone says, and a woman clutches her cross, and says a prayer.
For the scientist,this is just a fissure in the Earth and the magma belies intense heat and pressures at the core of this planet. it is all explained by the Big Bang Theory..
Sightseers move along the length of a stone wall along the crater’s edge, fixated on the fire in the hole. It is a dark, starless night, and some sightseers have brought flashlights to help them see the path around the volcano as they scramble for better places to see it. This whole place smells like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
Walter, our guide, motions me to the exact spot where I can see the cauldron.
Ancient men would have sacrificed to the Gods here, but that custom has been abandoned.
Now, we worship ourselves.
Nicaragua is home to 27 volcanoes.
Some shoot ash and gas into the air while others are a seething cauldron of molten lava.
Masaya is a thirty minute drive from Granada and much closer to Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua. It erupted most recently in 2008 and was one of the first authorized National Parks in Nicaragua. The park closes depending on what emotions the volcano shows and in 2008 visitors were surprised by the eruption that killed two people.
Tour companies are plentiful in Granada and their sales force stands on the steps outside the tours front doors and work the crowds in English and Spanish. Like all sales persons, they tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to know.
Our evening $20.00 U.S. tour ( which includes a $10 park fee ) takes three hours to complete and includes a ride to the Masaya National Park, a thirty minute photo op of the volcano at night, a ride back to Granada on highways where motorcyclists and bicyclists wear no helmets and have no lights on themselves or their vehicles.
This evening our bus is filled with eleven people from Germany, Australia, Canada, Austria and the U.S..
At our thirty minute turn at the top of the volcano, we exit our van and scramble to a waist high rock wall that separates us from a three hundred foot drop to the bottom of the crater, where, at strategic points, you see molten lava moving like waves. Gas funnels up into our faces and way up in the sky are night stars, even hotter than this volcano.
Caught between molten rock on the inside of this planet and gases in the atmosphere, walking on a land that shakes from quakes and drowns in floods, how can we be convinced we are masters of this world?
It isn’t our power that holds atoms together.
A small bookcase in the Cafe de Arte, in Granada, has books for visitors who like to read.
It is unknown whether these books come from the owner’s library, were donated by friends and patrons, or are part of a take one, bring one system. Readers these days are becoming scarce with humans preferring to surf the web – an almost unlimited bookcase of ideas, images, sales pitches, entertainments, propaganda, lies, and sordid truth. You can see and read more on the internet in a night than you can see or read in a lifetime of going to bookstores and libraries.
In this little bookcase is a tome on weight loss, an obsession in industrialized countries where people work less, sit more, and want to look pretty from every angle.
There is a book by Rachel Cohn , ” Cupcakes, ” that follows girls having good fun and good sex.
There is a choice for Believers on Landmines that keep them backsliding.
There is a crime novel by Walter Mosely with a $1.00 sticker from a Dollar Days sale which tells me crime doesn’t pay.
I find poems by Ruben Darios, a Nicaraguan poet whose bust is on the Calle De Calzada by Lake Nicaragua.
You would think there might be a Louie L’Amour western, something by Hemingway, a book on surviving the pending economic collapse?
While the reading here is girly, coffee and words go together, and reading doesn’t cost you anything but your time.
As an English major, browsing books is a habit worse than cigarettes.
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