Sunday, January 24, 2010 -- A DAY WITHOUT ELECTRICITY OR WATER

Sometime in the night the city experienced a citywide power failure, which meant no fan and no water. We woke at 6:30 but lazed in bed until 8 before going out unwashed and unrested to find coffee and breakfast. Most of the small restaurants on Calle La Calzada where we’d eaten the previous night were closed or did not have coffee—no generators going—so we walked across Park Colón to the Hotel Alhambra and had mediocre, high-priced, touristy Nica breakfasts (rice, beans, eggs) in its Café Deliet while deciding on our plan of attack.

Granada ‘s touristy Calle La Calzada deserted the Sunday morning after our arrival. Besides being Sunday, the whole city was without electricity and water. Too many turista taking hot showers methinks. 

Alhambra courtyard and pool

Jess skipped back to Tierra Tours on Calle La Calzada and they helped her arrange for our flights to San Carlos and for island and volcano tours. She really wanted to skip the Isleta Tour and ride the hostel bikes to and around the islands. They were only 5 miles away or so. Any other time this would have been my choice too and a snap, but at the time, all the ailments of age and the sedentary life I’d been living had caught up to me. I was a wreck—my right hip was paining me and making it difficult to walk, my feet were still swollen from all the bus sitting, my Achilles tendonitis was unrelenting, and my thermostat was constantly on boil. I privately vowed to get in shape when I got home.

Right across from the hotel restaurant were several rickety carriages pulled by bony horses. We took a half-hour horse and buggy ride around the city, looking with interest at the pastel painted facades.

When we got back to the park, I bought a little ruffled street-vendor-type apron for Sonja, and we bought a cold juice, and then we returned to our hotel. There was still no electricity or water. The proprietress told us that the water would be turned on at 2 pm. Jess moved us upstairs to a larger, breezier room but checked only with Eva, the chambermaid who was cleaning it, and not with the proprietress. The proprietress later had words with her chambermaid, which we surmised was a dressing down. Twice they’d had to re-clean a room because of our moves. At 2:45 there was still no water or electricity.

At 3 pm we walked to Tierra Tours and took a panga (little wooden boat with bus-like seats and a roof) tour of Las Isletas, a miniature archipelago of 365 tiny tropical islands. There were big, rich houses on many of these islands that were created when Volcán Mombacho threw off huge chunks of lava 10,000 years ago. On Isla de Los Monos (Monkey Island) our guide called down two white-faced and three spider monkeys for the amusement of those in the boat. He fed them cookies. The panga also stopped at an old fort/museum and we dutifully toured it and took pix of each other, despite hoards of mosquitoes. Then we motored to “Restaurant Island” were we were free for half an hour to get a drink etc.  We found a cool spot by the dock and watched kids jump off a nearby diving board set in the concrete wall. Had I been able, a bicycle tour would have been much more fun. 

Our Las Isletas Tierra tour

Mombacho towering still above the 350 or so islands it created 10,000 years ago

Jess and me at The Fortress

A typical island home

Two kids rowing past the spot where we were relaxing in the shade on Restaurant Island 

Kid jumping off the diving board in same spot at Restaurant Island 

Egret with fish; it wanted its privacy and turned its back on the camera just as I took the photo

Lakeside tree serves as an egret rookery

Cacique or Oropendola nests, can't remember which

 We got back to our hostel from the boat tour at 5:30. There was still no water, but we had electricity so we got the fan going. We both took turns on the Internet in the lobby and then went back to the room to change for dinner. Eva came up and told us that the two guys whom Jess had met in the bar the night before were downstairs asking for her. Jess told Eva to tell them she was sleeping, but they heard and she had to go down. They didn’t believe that Jess was really traveling with her mother and demanded to see said mother whom Jess was using as an excuse not to join them. I got dressed, went down, said a brief hello, tapped Jess on the shoulder, and the two of us sailed off to dinner at Tercer Ojo (The Third Eye), the Lonely Planet restaurant pick specializing in Asian cuisine. The guys were believers. Yes, Virginia, there is a mama.

At Tercer Ojo we  shared an appetizer of smoked salmon on toast and then had curried shrimp, green salad with blue cheese dressing, green & black olives, coffee, and a banana crêpe for dessert. This time my crêpe didn’t have a funny little face on it.

Tercer Ojo

Back in the room about 8 pm, we found that there was still no water to flush the toilet or to take a shower. Jess went down and asked for buckets of water to flush the toilet and take bucket baths. The proprietress’s boyfriend got into a harangue with Jess saying: “After all you are in Nicaragua you know,” meaning that we Americans were too needy and should be able to do without electricity and water. But the proprietress grudgingly brought up several buckets of water and flushed the toilet. At the second bucket, she looked at me lying red-faced on the bed and clicked on the air-conditioning, throwing the remote for it on the bed beside me. She also left us a bucket of water in the shower stall for bathing. We are definitely going to move to another hostel. Jess explored and found that only a block or two away there was both water and electricity. She walked back to Estancia Mar Dulce on Calle La Calzada. It had electricity and water but it was still booked full.

At 9 pm the water was restored! I took a long, hot shower. My chest is itchy and peeling.

Eva, our Granada chambermaid, always folded our towels into swans and flowers when cleaning our room and leaving linens;  of course the towels have been useless because we had no water