GRANADA, Nicaragua -- It was amusing to read a New Jersey couple's Web review of their hotel stay here as "very noisy" on the street at night.

At the quiet end of the same street, Calle Calzada, every morning of my recent stay at a friend's house, cathedral bells clanged, dogs barked, horses clopped, scooters ripped, and women carrying baskets on their heads yelled the names of fruit at the top of their lungs and the sun wasn't even up yet.

Whether at night or in the morning, this city is up. I relished hearing the soundtrack of the streets again. It was my third visit to Nicaragua, a country of heartbreaking and beautiful counterbalance.

Granada is its jewel. One of the oldest cities in the Americas, claimed for Spain by Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba in 1524, it is an architectural time warp. Although none of the buildings now standing remains from the early 16th century, they are all of colonial style, from grand balconied three-story stand-alones to squat concrete rows with heavy tile roofs, their facades ranging from wildly colorful to drab.

Like few cities today, Granada (population about 115,000), has maintained its old footprint, growing neither out nor up. There's no evidence this is due to policy or imposition of historic standards; it has just happened that way. Many structures are crude -- corrugated tin houses with dirt floors, for instance -- but everything looks like part of the same family.

The absence of corporate America seals the charm factor for me. Fast food is what Nica vendors pile into a banana leaf for you from their carts; "ma and pa" is the only retail.

The tallest buildings in Granada are its grand churches. A must-see panorama stretches out from the bell tower of La Merced: rippled tile roofs, cupolas, iron work, palm trees and, in the distance, Mombacho volcano and Lake Nicaragua.

Granada is most authentic on the streets near the marketplace -- a jam and weave of scooters, bicycles, pedestrians, cars and sidewalk vendors. Money changers wave shocks of bills amid shouts and honking.

On less traveled streets, you see the grubby, barefoot children poking around on sidewalks covered with dust and rubble in front of facades that are pocked and faded. The skeletal, hairless dogs get less food in these parts, but the number of desperate dogs is down from my last visit.

More people are bringing animals to an animal clinic that my host, Donna Tabor, directs with support from the Pittsburgh-based foundation Building New Hope.

"Animals are low on the totem pole in developing countries," she said, "but it is heartening to see people who love their animals standing in line for our clinic."

When I first visited Ms. Tabor, the street she lives on, Calle Calzada -- where the New Jersey tourists' sleep was disturbed -- was the tourist-oriented street. Today, gringo businesses have proliferated, and the street has been squeezed into a one-way, partially closed off during certain hours. Sidewalk tables and trees in planters extend into the street.

Nine years ago, Granada was attracting new residents from the first-world -- retirees and people looking for life of a different stripe. Most tourists were young backpackers. Today, the ranks have swelled to include more ex-pats and more tourists of means. A house you could have gotten for $60,000 in 2001 -- one with an open-air garden in the middle -- now may cost $175,000.

Ms. Tabor, who spent her first two years in Granada with the Peace Corps, said she knew of no other gringos and few restaurants when she first got there. Filthy street urchins would attach themselves to her as if she were Velcro, fixing her with puppy-dog eyes for something to eat.

The investment in Granada has brought jobs. All of our waiters were young Nicaraguan men. Merchants sell the work of local artists in galleries and shops. One young man Ms. Tabor knew as a child works as a waiter and as a fitness trainer for gringos.

Yet the prevailing station for most is still very low.

Because of poverty and a perennially disappointing government, many Nicaraguan children forgo school to work. They work alone or with families as vendors from carts and on foot. They wait in doorways of gringo restaurants and stop at sidewalk tables to sell hammocks, ceramics, Chiclets, cigarettes, small paintings and jewelry.

A little boy with an early-Beatles haircut set a tray full of ceramic whistles shaped like animals and painted bright colors on our table one night. I pointed at my favorite, "el pollo," and he picked up the chicken and blew into it. It sounded like a breeze through a window, but he was puffing like Maynard Ferguson, trying to make it scream. I didn't bother to tell him volume wasn't the selling point.

He made 60 cordobas, about $3, selling animal whistles at our table. He gave us a missing-tooth grin before walking away, swinging his shoulders.

I carried the ceramic chicken home wedged in a shoe and rolled in a T-shirt that reads "I Nicaragua."

Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.