Our tour bus and guide let us of at the market at Masaya in Nicaragua, which is housed in a very old Colonial building. It's a large market with lots and lots of market stalls for tourist shopping.
You can find just about anything here at this market and some of the prices are really great.
There are so many different things you can buy such as clothes – t shirts, blouses and dresses. I bought a lovely light yellow cotton blouse with some white embroidery on it for a a friend– sort of like a Chinese blouse. I also bought few t-shirts with Nicaraguan designs on it for the friends because I know back home nobody has a t shirt from Nicaragua.I also bought some Nicaraguan cigars. They actually make cigars in Nicaragua. I bought plenty back – some for the boss at work and some of my colleagues.
I even bought a little piece of pottery made by Nicaraguans, covered with native designs.I met up with a guy who took our group around the market at Masaya. He gave us a great speech which I recorded on video. He helped us bargain for lower prices, something my wife wasn't very willing to do because she is acutely aware of how poor people are. We gave him a tip at the end of his tour around the market.
When we had to leave the Masaya market and get back on the tour bus, there was a young guy about 13 or 14 years old. He was selling something that nobody needs, grasshoppers made of a dried grass. I bought one. I don't need one, but this guy needs money and is doing the best he can to survive in Nicaragua.
Our tour guide was in a hurry to get us back on the bus. It's just a job to him so he wanted to hurry us around back on the bus to move on to our next destination. But there was so much to see and everything in Nicaragua was so new for us!
