19/09/2019 - Masaya / Nicaragua

With Andy, the owner of our small hotel in Granada, we drove to Masaya today. The city is only 15 kilometers away from Granada but as a cultural and craft center of the country it is quite different from Granada, bustling and with many more people in the streets. We wanted to visit the two major markets in the city. We started with the Mercado Municipal, where you can get everything. Just finished leather shoes and bags, hammocks, wooden toys, baskets, wooden carvings and bowls, pictures, freshly cooked things and more. We spent quite a lot of time at the market and bought some small things as well. We then continued to the second market, the Mercado de Artesanias. It is much neater, more manageable and more expensive and is therefore also called a tourist market. We really liked the wooden bowls on both markets. Andy knows one of the manufacturers and he promptly took us to his workshop. The wood workshop is right behind the residential building. Three men worked among logs, roots, heavy equipment and a huge amount of sawdust. The wood dust was in the air, but we were still impressed by the work. We watched the woodworkers for a while and then had to buy one of the beautiful pieces here as well. It was now 5 pm and in 45 minutes the sun would set over Masaya and we wanted to experience that at a special place, the Masaya Volcano. The indigenous people gave the mountain the name Popogatepe which translates to burning mountain. And that's what it really was. We drove into the national park, up the mountain and were able to look into the crater of Masaya. Far below us the hot lava was bubbling. No clouds, no rain, we had an unobstructed view of the lava lake and the sun slowly set. Truly fascinating. Now we headed back to Granada. Andy had a restaurant recommendation for us for dinner. Unfortunately, we found the doors closed. Next attempt. It didn't stop at two. At 8 pm on a Thursday evening in the off-season in the city of Granada it's not quite as bustling. Just right for us. In the fourth restaurant we finally got lucky and had a typical meal with quesadillas and burritos for us.