In 1665 the Brit pirate Henry Morgan entered Nicaragua from the Caribbean via the San Juan river, crossed Lake Nicaragua, looted Granada (Spanish rule at the time) of 500,000 pounds of silver, sank all the Spanish boats and burned Granada to the ground. We forgive him because of his boldness and daring and because he exclusively preyed on the Spanish, who had it coming. A quick skim of his Wiki and it looks like he had say a 40/0 win/loss record against the Spanish despite being nearly always greatly out-numbered, which is awesome and I hope the indigenous Central Americans were going yay! yay! in the background. He died of liver failure from hard drinking aged 53.
But unglamorously, about 200 years later, in 1855, the American opportunist William Walker sailed from San Francisco and for power alone killed everyone in sight and made himself King of Nicaragua. This enraged neighbour countries and six weeks after making himself King, the Salvadorans and Guatemalans arrived and he fled, but on his way out he burned Granada to the ground. The Hondurans caught him and hung him.
This church is still soot stained from that fire
I toured Granada on foot today and made this video of the impressive street market
Lucinda stayed here
