I always read here before trips and am so grateful. This may have limited appeal but here it is: I'm a retired 50 something, trying to see the world. I rented a house for a month in Granada, something I've never done before. The house was lovely and very affordable. It turned out to be a great experience and I met a lot of interesting people who are definitely giving back to the community.
Being a solo traveler is a bit tough for tours because virtually every company I contacted wanted a minimum of 2 people and sometimes 4. Fortunately I had friends come visit at various times so I did my tours then. Tierra tours is totally reliable and I did many of their tours including Ometepe which is not an easy place to get around. For a very reasonable price they drove us in their van, put us on the ferry and had a great tour guide from the island meet our ferry. His English was excellent and he seemed to genuinely enjoy showing off his island. We started by having an excellent breakfast at a local restaurant. Next we went to a church to see pre-columbian statues and some interesting antique religious icons. We also stopped at an artist's studio, went to Finca Magdelena for coffee and the amazing petroglyphs, had seafood at a beach restaurant, went swimming in a spring fed swimming area which reminded me of the ceynotes in the Yucatan and ended up in Charco Verde for dinner and folkloric dancing. After spending the night there we hiked around the preserve encountering many families of howler monkeys. We could have done more and the guide was amenable to anything but we had a dinner invitation back in Granada. Oh, for those of you who get seasick like me. The crossings happened to be very rough due to the strong winds so I was glad I took my sea sickness meds even though people told me I would not need them.
I also took trips to Leon which is very interesting with amazing murals and a whole lot of heat, San Juan Del Sur which is still a small fishing village that's been slammed with tourism, Masaya volcano at night, including the bat caves and a very lucky sighting of the returning parrots who lived in the vaporous crater, Mombachu crater hike which is lovely with bromeliads and orchids and included a stop at a coffee finca,a boat tour of the Isletas in Lake Nicaragua and finally, a walking/horse tour of Granada that was supposed to be 3 hours but our guide was so enthusiastic that it ended up being 4 hours.
I took a chicken bus with a friend for 50 cents to Masaya for their Thursday night folkloric dancing at the market which I highly recommend. The cab ride back to my house was 7 dollars, split by the two of us. I also highly recommend the best ceviche you will ever have in the main park in Masaya from the stand near the church. I would never ordinarily do this but several of my new Granada friends said it was the best.
I won't go into the restaurants in Granada because they've all been written about here but I'll plug my two favorites: El Garage owned by a Canadian couple has a very limited but always good menu which is fairly priced and Los Colinas for the guapote which is the local fish that they serve whole. Take a taxi there. By the way, taxis in the city are always 10 cordobas (50 cents) and don't be surprised when they pick up other passengers, it just the way it's done.
Another favorite outing was going to Laguana de Poyo. Oasis hostel runs a daily shuttle there to their other place called Crater's Edge. You can use their facilities and they will serve you lunch.
I never got bored being in Granada and it was fun getting to know the local vendors who came to my door every day selling their wares. I often bought from the "fruitas" lady and I was never disappointed.
I think this is getting too long so if you have specific questions please email me. Happy travels.
