Brett and I rented scooters so we could cruise around and see the
sights of Granada all day. We found our way down to the lake and paid
$1 to enter the park tourist center. Cruising around on our
scooters was so freeing! We are now so used to walking and taking buses
everywhere, so being able to get wherever you want fast and whenever
you want was a great feeling! Some of the roads were on were dirt
and occasionally you would see a bush of flaming orange flowers
surrounded by sun yellow butterflies. We picked a perfect day for the
ride, because the sky was clear and the sun was warm. We didn´t even
get any of the evening rain that´s so common here.
Eventually our road led to a restaurant situated on Lake Nicaragua
(largest lake in Central America and has it`s own species of freshwater sharks). We pulled up and parked our scooters
and the first thing we saw was their pet monkey that they keep out
front. We talked to the staff and they said they´ve had her for 13 years! She looked
like he was getting pretty old because her beard was white. As soon as
we walked up to her monkey bars, she immediately made her way down to
greet us and wrap her tail around my arm. We took some pictures and
then I started calling to her and without hesitation she climbed up on
my shoulders and began grooming my hair. I´ve never had a monkey clean
my hair, but it tickles a lot! The scary thing was that Brett said she
found something to eat while she was looking through my hair! I guess I haven`t been showering as often as I used to... ;) Brett
took a video of the whole process that I will link to the blog so you can see the whole
thing. To get the monkey away from my hair, a guy from the restaurant
brought out carrots for her to eat. He gave us some so we could feed
her too. It´s funny how similar to a person she was with her human like
movements.
Coming up from the lake, we passed through the outskirts of the
city where the roads are full of people, bicycles, scooters, cars and
huge buses. It´s amazing to me that the people here are able to fit an
entire family on their bicycles. The dad pumps while the mom sits on
the bar in front of the seat and the kid on the handle bars. It´s no
wonder why there aren´t too many gyms around here! We even ran into one
of the street markets where we missed the one way sign and got going in
the wrong direction on a road full of cabs coming at us. Needless to
say, we got turned back around pretty quickly!
Just because I`m on the subject of monkeys and they are my new
favorite animal and I want to have one as a pet, I`m going to tell
another monkey story. There are a lot of
islands right off the shore of Lake Nicaragua (something like 350).
There are also a lot of lanchas (boats, but it sounds better in Spanish) that
you can rent and they will take you on a tour of the islands and stop
at one of the restaurants along the way. We ended up doing this trip,
but we did it with our Spanish school as an extra perk for signing up
with them.
The islands were gorgeous. They are all really small, very close to
one another and a lot of them have really nice houses and hotels. As we
motored through, we came to one known as Monkey Island.
Click here to see some of the monkeys on the island. As we got
closer we could see monkeys hopping around in all the trees. Apparently
it`s normal for the monkeys to get on the lanchas so that the tourists
can feed them. Our case was a little bit different because we had two
dogs on board with us. The guide warned us that the monkeys do not like
dogs and said it could possibly be dangerous if we had them come on
board. We said we would take our chances and unwrapped our granola bar
for them to eat, just in time for one of the monkeys to swing down from
the tree and growl at the dogs. Just after this, he jumped on the boat
and attempted to attack the dogs and get his food. It was so scary! He
was swinging around with a granola bar in one hand and trying to strike the
dogs with the other. To protect the dogs, the guy from our school threw
the dogs overboard into the water while we drove away trying to get the
monkey off our boat. Click here to see some of the action:
Monkey
Action. The video is really short, because we were afraid of being
attacked or having our camera stolen by the monkey. They are known for stealing bags and shiny things. In the end we got the monkey off the boat and made the dogs swim while we drove to restaurant on the next island.
