Granada to Now: Writing, Traveling and Back Home

Granada, Nicaragua is so cute, you could put it in your pocket. If the cobblestone streets, Spanish colonial style-housing and creeping blossoms peaking from behind courtyard walls weren’t enough, take their cab drivers. There was the kindly older man who followed us in his cab to make sure we followed his directions to the hostel correctly, even looping around the block to avoid the one-way street and catch up with us again. As we approached, he honked his horn and pointed emphatically at the building. Or consider the young man with the big belt buckle that drove us to our ferry to Isla Ometepe, who insisted on parking his car and helping us carry our bags all the way to the ferry, a good city block away. Or even the guy that chatted with us during dinner and then complimented my Spanish as being, “very good”. To a Spanish student, there are no sweeter words.

So adorable, accessible and friendly was Granada, that my husband and I quickly began hatching some long term plans. Over scrambled eggs in the town square, while live music played and families walked in the shade, we sipped our coffees and calculated how much a modest home would cost.

But our ruminations only lasted as long as breakfast. We were heading north, planning on landing in Guatemala eventually to return to the language school I visited last December.

At the time, I was working on several projects. The National Travel Writing Month, both facilitating the group and also participating in the challenge. I put together an application packet for a guidebook. I wrote a 20 page short story for a six week writing workshop. I applied for an editor position at a large website. I workshopped my writing and wrote critiques for dozens of other writers. I scoured the hostel lending library and read a new book every other day.

So when I tell you the next city in our travels, Leon, Nicaragua was beautiful and worth seeing, understand that my observations were merely intellectual. I don’t have any stories about meeting kind strangers or tasting fantastic new foods. I became extremely focused in those two weeks, absorbed in finishing my projects. We went out to dinners, but afterward, I’d hole up with my laptop, the glow of the monitor illuminating my face, as my husband slept beside me.

That week we found cheap airline tickets (about the same price as busing it) from Managua to Guatemala. We rented an apartment and enrolled in language school. This was my old stomping grounds, Quetzaltenango. One of my favorite things about travel is getting to share a place with someone else, who’s never seen it before. I was pleased that my husband seemed to love it in Xela as much as I did. The air here was crisp, more like a rainy autumn that the dry heat of Nicaragua. Each day we’d walk to the open air market and pick out ingredients for our dinner. I had submitted all of my projects, so with some relief, I took comfort in the daily routine. Language classes in the morning. Cooking a lunch of tortillas, black beans, queso fresco and home made salsa picante in the afternoon. In the evening we’d marvel at the apartment’s 180 views of the city, as the hushed cityscape was dotted with the lights of thousands of homes, flickering on the mountain side.

We had planned on heading to El Salvador, then Honduras next, but at the last moment, decided to head back home instead. My husband would take the comedy sketch writing class in NYC that he had been considering (as an animator, he has many projects of his own). I would start again and commit to finishing the book proposal that had been sitting on my hard drive. I had a new project. It felt good.

We flew into the US about two weeks ago and rented an apartment in Northampton, MA with our dogs. $600/mo studio was more than we wanted to spend, but the short term lease and location were too good to pass up. If you need to spend the summer somewhere, Western MA is a fantastic place to go. The weather is perfect, there’s hiking and ponds to swim in, the college students are gone, but the fabulous restaurants are still open.

And today, I’m sitting in my studio, writing at my desk, without internet. I just updated this site’s design over the weekend and I hope it holds. It’s too nice in here, in my little space, even if I am offline. There are floor to ceiling windows beside me and I can see the hills of the pioneer valley. My dogs are sleeping on the bed, exhausted from this morning’s run. Last week, I bought a cheap world map and tacked it to the wall above my desk, and I’ve learned that Antarctica has it’s own flag. And Kazakhstan is really big. I think this will be a very good summer.