I returned to Nicaragua this weekend. This time I travelled to the city of Masaya which is another old Spanish city like Granada. There was some problems with catching the bus in Liberia and I ended up waiting for about 2 hours at the bus station. Luckily the border crossing took no time at all and there was a bus at the border headed to Masaya that was just leaving.

I arrived at Masaya at around 4 pm on Saturday and they were in the last days of a week long festival. There were lots of beer tents set up on the street and this resulted in an unusually large number of drunk people on the street. The funniest was one outdoor table where there were three people sitting and each one of them was out cold in a different sprawl. And this was at 4 in the afternoon. I got a hotel with a TV for about 5 bucks and then went to explore the town at night. I had really good pizza at one restaurant, it seems that I always eat pizza when I go to Nicaragua. There were a couple of local bars I went in and I won 1 Nicaraguan Cordoba(about 5 cents) at a casino. At about 10 pm the lights suddenly went out. The casino had a generator but it took a couple of seconds to get it going, so there were a bunch of security rushing to the card tables in the dark. Apparently the government often turns out the lights at night to save electricity, but I don't think this one was planned or the casino would have been better prepared. The power was out for the entire city so the fan and TV in my room were sort of useless, but it was back on in the morning.

Masaya is well known for its markets and it has two big markets. The first is known as the old market and is surrounds by large stone wall which makes it look like a castle. The market itself was quite different than the crowded market in Granada. It was more like an outdoor mall than anything. It is geared to tourists who come in from Granada, but there were none there in the morning. Each shop was full of beautiful woodcarvings, leatherwork, artwork and different types of pottery. There are a number of small towns nearby and each specializes in one type of artistry. For example, one town specializes in furniture, another in pottery and another in flowers. And all this is sold in Masaya's market.

The other market, known as the new market, is the functional market in town. It was huge and crowded and was full of shops selling every type of thing. I ate some 'boha' in one of the restaurant stalls which was meat, coleslaw and yucca root served on banana leaves. After leaving the market I toured the city. There were three or four beautiful churches and an attractive central plaza. The city is also famous for its hammocks and there were a number of hammock making factories that were selling their wares out front. There was also a lookout over the small lake Masaya as well as the active volcano Masaya. The volcano is quite small but it is one of the most actively venting volcano in Central America.

At the hotel there was a Costa Rican guy who had lived in Virginia for the last 30 years. He owned a house in Costa Rica and also one in Masaya. He said that the real estate market in Costa Rica is getting as expensive as the States especially near the beaches. He bought a car in Nicaragua because he said that the cars were usually a couple of thousand dollars cheaper than in Costa Rica and he drove the car between his houses while he was visiting Central America. I also asked the hotel owner about the upcoming elections and he said he wasn't going to vote. He said the current party is corrupt and should be kicked out, but the alternative is the Sandanista Party, which he believed would cause an economic disaster as all the foreign businesses would pull out. He did have a preferred party but since they had no chance of winning this time he was not going to vote. He hoped that the party would be stronger in the next election.

Masaya was a very pretty city and I was told it is quite safe, especially compared to some of the larger cities in Costa Rica. Surprisingly there are very few tourists. Granada was full of tourists, and since Masaya is so close to Granada I thought there would be more, but I only saw three or four the whole time I was there. The trip back was uneventful, but the bus did pass through some of the different artisan villages which would have been interesting to visit if I had more time.