The more salubrious city of Granada sits three hours to the south of Nicaragua’s cultural counterpart, León. While both host beautiful cathedrals and a strong sense of political identity, Granada is the more well kept of the two. We set up shop at the quaint and colonial style ‘Garden Cafe’ for a ‘cafe day’ as we like to call them. On cafe days, we can blog, catch up (would you believe, having spent almost every minute for the last 40 days together) and continue to plan our 6 month trip. After this, we wandered through Granada’s rainy streets and marvelled at its architectural and aesthetic beauty.
Sadly, due to the weather conditions, the volcano trip Hannah had planned was cancelled which meant we improved our newly found skill of playing pool with our friend Dan (Tooting) and a lovely European couple. Here, we started the night with a few beers and some pizza nearby. We then ventured to an amazing salsa class. The vibes were immaculate. We had planned to keep this day relatively chilled in light of the fact we’d booked a boat party the next day around the nearby lake to the Las Isletas. That didn’t stop us (the legends we are) as we went through the lagers and nica libres like there was no tomorrow.
The following day we woke up slightly worse for wear and headed for the city to explore its more cultural side. We began with an attempt to reach the spire of Granada’s main cathedral — a feat we tried to achieve in León but we failed to achieve as it was closed due to the national holiday representing the FSLN’s birthday. The same fate happened once again in Granada as its main church did not open until 3pm and we were there 6 hours earlier. We then headed to the Museo de Chocolate for some historical information about the cocoa industry, which was then topped off by a tour via horse and cart of Granada’s centre and the nearby lake. We would then head to the Cafe de las Sonrisas which is a not for profit cafe run by staff who are hearing-impaired. Here, we learnt basic sign language and tasted some very decently priced sandwiches! This larger lunch was eaten with a view to line the stomach for the boat party. Indeed, this boat party didn’t disappoint. Boasting a hot tub, three free drinks and a slide/ jump from the double decker boat into the lake, it had it all.
We were then welcomed back onto land with a beach party at a hotel’s ostensibly ‘secret party island’ which was actually a plot of land on the hotel’s beach. There was a BBQ, loads of drinks, facepaint, house music and a lot of bangers from the DJ from ABBA to Robbie Williams. Good times. On the boat tour, we also went swimming in the warm waters of the lake. Here, everyone was jumping into the warm waters, playing with balls and generally having a good time. We also went to the party with our friends Nicole and Aman, who we would later see in both Costa Rica and Ecuador on our trip. During the party, Hannah and I were mucking around in the water, splashing each other. During this play fight, I started to quickly swim towards her. In her attempt to ‘swim away’, she then kicked me in the face in her truly idiosyncratic, clumsy way. For context, she was also wearing a life jacket at the time while I was just swimming in my shorts. Our friend Dan then called out and said ‘the risk manager did not foresee THAT risk, did he? Being kicked in the face by his own girlfriend!’. Dan’s words cheered me up immensely and numbed the pain considerably, so thank you Dan.
After some partying in Granada, our next stop included a trip to the highly sought after hostel, Treehouse, which is said to host one of the best parties in the world. Beautifully set in a rainforest canopy on a volcano in Nicaragua with howler monkeys screeching and birdlife chirping, this was not one to be missed. One of the highlights of the trip was the community tour, which was led by the owner of this (in)famous Treehouse. The tour included coffee tasting and tortilla making sessions in a local rural Nicaraguan community.
The Australian owner also gave us a lot of information about the history of her beloved hostel, including its tumultuous ownership in the past. Akin to the mismanagement of Barcelona FC in recent years, Treehouse has had its problems. The original Texan owner had a reputation for drink, drugs and generally being a pest. Icarus eventually flew too close to the sun when he drunk drove through the local town of Granada, hitting a cyclist in the process. In a bid to do a hit and run, he then sadly killed the cyclist in the process. Having been a victim of a similar crime in Tulse Hill, I consider myself lucky not to have suffered from the same eventual fate. This man would then spend 9 months in a Nicaraguan jail, leaving his own mother to run the Treehouse hostel in the meantime. The American owner then won the biggest legal settlement in Nicaraguan history, paying the authorities $250,000 USD, which demonstrates how money talks here. I was happy with 6 points on my perpetrator’s licence for this similar offence, thank you very much Bromley Crown Court.
As the Nicaraguans like to do here, he was then exiled from the country. It’s thought that he now lives back in the States while he closed off his ownership of Treehouse. The story doesn’t end there however. The hostel, for context, is basically somewhere in the jungle to party. As a result, many of the owners have led a hedonistic lifestyle and they have later suffered from the same fate where: if you don’t take a break, your body will take one for you — and it’ll probably be at an inconvenient time.
The current owner also spoke of the battle she had to attract both volunteers and guests throughout the 2018 protests in Nicaragua and throughout the Coronavirus pandemic from 2020–2021. Indeed, this reflects the broader struggles the Nicaraguan economy has faced in recent years as it is so dependent on tourism. However, tourism also acts as a double edged sword where the locals have become exhausted with the frequent parties and the loud techno music from the soundsystem specifically coming from Treehouse. As a result, the owner spoke a lot about how she wants to change the culture at Treehouse and redirect the profits into the local community through education initiatives while also keeping the party scene there which makes it so popular amongst travellers. Through the medium of the hostel, she hopes to turn the business into a quasi NGO, by providing the local community with English classes, information on female breastfeeding and swimming lessons for the local U18s. We enjoyed the Karaoke night and the hostel party offered by Treehouse. Here, we felt a bit less guilty when enjoying these events having been on the community tour, what saints we are!
