OK well today I went sightseeing, because there is still no one else wanting to go to monkey island and the tour needs 2 people. Although I’m that desperate I might pay double to go.
So I did some old fashioned sightseeing, by walking around the city today. I walked so that no one else would confuse me with “Long” John Daly the womanising, drinking, gambling professional Golfer. Yesterday afternoon as a rain storm hit, I found myself in a small bar having a beer when I was asked for my autograph. This is not the first time it has happened either. My accent however gave it away that i’m not him and I’m not american either.
My first stop was to La Merced inglesia an old church near my hotel. Yes in Antigua, I also stayed near another church by the same name. It has a bell tower that I can climb, if its 11am and the caretaker is around, so maybe tomorrow.
La Merced bell tower
My next stop I walked over to another of the many churches in town. This one also held the towns museum and a nuns convent. Inside was some history of Granada, how the town grew from the 1500’s when it was first settled to today. Also talked about how Caribbean pirates ransacked the city 3 times in the 1600’s by using smaller boats to get into the lake. Also was a rather nice scale model of the town. This would have taken some work to do, but it allowed me to find my way to my third destination.
Granada Convent
This is the one my dad has been waiting for. The old Granada railway station. There isn’t much track left there, in fact none runs through the station, just some at each end to put and old steam train on. So that was my exciting day sightseeing. If i don’t get my monkey island tour tomorrow I’ll be leaving probably Thursday for Ometepe island. I’ll have a relaxing weekend their before heading to Costa Rica on the overnight ferry Monday night. I’ve also found a few great cafes here. One is called Cafe Chocolate. No need to explain that one and the other is Cafe Euro, which does some rather nice toasted sandwiches, great for when you want a light meal.
Granada Railway station
I just got a call from the tour agency, I’m off on the isletas tour tomorrow and to see Monkey island, which just so happens to be full of monkeys.
Also today an interesting thing happened. A boy started chatting to me, when I was sitting down in the park. Naturally I thought he wanted something, but he just kept chatting. eventually he asked me what I thought of his english. I said it was pretty good. He then asked if I could buy him a dictionary to help him learn more. I said ok and we went to a shop and I bought him a spanish-english dictionary for about $3. He was very excited and started reading english words at random, some of which I had no idea about. I wrote him a message inside and he thanked me a lot.
Now the sceptic in me says surely he is off to sell it to buy something else…. But maybe not. I hope he uses it to fulfill his dream of having a good job like a tour operator or work in an expensive hotel.