granada

A charming colonial city, and the site of Agora’s 2012 Entrepreneur Retreat (more on that soon). Granada was once the capital of Nicaragua (but the dispute with Leon was so intense that they compromised by splitting the difference and moving it to Managua. Oops.), and is the real tourist draw in Nicaragua. (For those of you familiar with Guatemala, or with a proclivity for analogies, in my opinion – Managua:Granada as Guatemala City:Antigua).

After a couple of days of working (& playing) hard, a few of us stuck around an extra day & night to see some of the city. This was across from our hotel:

Granada is on a lake (the 7th largest in the world?!), and when the nearby (active) volcano, Volcan Mombacho, blew its lid way back when, the eruption resulted in the formation of ‘las isletas’, a series of tiny islands that have been occupied for generations. Many are also privately owned with large mansions as weekend getaways, and more are for sale. So we took a boat tour:

There is also a shipyard. This is now one of many possible sites of my future bar, called “el puerto secreto”.

Then we made chocolate! We roasted, peeled, ground & mixed the cacao, then poured it into trays to be refrigerated overnight, and made chocolate bars. Delicious.

L to R, me, Karina (an Agora Fellow, working as a Portfolio Manager for 3 of the entrepreneurs in the Accelerator), Carolyn & Maital (2 NYU students from Wagner who are doing a project for Agora as their Masters capstone class, and were therefore down to conduct interviews & research during the Entrepreneur Retreat).

I mixed my 70% dark chocolate with some almond slivers, and just enjoyed it very much. Now if you’ll excuse me, its a recovery Sunday back in Managua, and the second best Jean-Claude Van Damme cinematic classic just came on TV (and there’s nothing like dubbed action movies set in Thailand).