Emma and Roland's Little Adventure: Nicaragua

Wednesday. 11:30 Today we made our way to Nicaragua. We paid $50 each for a posh Collective (it had air conditioning, comfy seats and movies!) to take us all the way to Leon. We gave the driver our passports and $16 each to cover all the costs associated with the 2 border crossings (we crossed into Honduras, then Nicaragua). For the next 12 hours we sat back, relaxed and didn't do anything apart from watch a load of movies and get sore asses!

We arrived at Lazy Bones about 10pm. This was a lovely hostel which had a small swimming pool all for $20 a night.

Thursday. WooooooooowwwwwWaaaaaah! 7:00am. Woken up by the old war siren which I am sure is the morning alarm for all of Leon ... It was that loud! We got up and indulged in the free coffee offered by the hostel before we headed out to explore the area.

The hostel had a pool!

Leon is a nice colonial town, similar to Antigua in Guatemala, but a lot hotter!

God knows what this was - it was nice!

After 3 hours of sweating we headed back towards our hostel, first popping into Quetzal Trekkers to see what they had to offer. Before we knew it we had signed ourselves up for a 3 day hike to the Northern Highlands (El Mirador trek now forgotten) followed by a full day hike up a volcano! It was going to be a busy 4 days of adventure and fun.

Roland was a very social bee today and was chatting to everyone in the hostel (I was less social and hid in the cool bedroom). He befriended a Dutch guy called Bobby who we ended up eating dinner with at the local 'Comidor' (65C for a main) and drinking beer with at the Mirador Bar. We discovered that he seemed to be a walking accident after sharing many funny stories about his travels and injuries.

Friday 5:15am. We headed off to Quetzal trekkers not really knowing what to expect during the 3 day trek - should have asked more questions yesterday. We packed our rucksacks with 3 days worth of gear thinking that we had done quite well with minimising as much as possible (we didn't want to carry too much). As soon as we walked through the door we realised that our expectations of carrying our little backpacks 'went out of the window'. There lying before us were full sized backpacks with camping equipment, food rations and 14 litres of water to carry between us! OMG initially went straight through my head as I realised we had to carry our own equipment. This was going to be an 'interesting' few days!

Our guides Rory and Charlotte shed light on what we would be doing during the trip and introduced us to the poo kit - a shovel, antibac and loo roll. Hmmmm. With a breakfast of eggs and potatoes and full bellies we headed out walking across Leon to the bus station (30 minutes) with our heavy backpacks. We had only walked about 10 minutes and I was already sweating!

We got on a chicken bus and attempted to get some more sleep during the 3 hour journey to Matagalpa.

Matagalpa is famous for coffee so with that in mind our first stop was at a coffee museum where we downed as much coffee as possible (we needed to wake up!) before walking across the town (getting a lot of strange looks from the locals) to the smallest chocolate factory I have ever seen - El Castillo Cacao

Map showing where coffee is grown

We were really pleased to visit the place as we were told how chocolate was made and got to sample quite a lot while drinking more coffee. We ending up buying 540g of chocolate - it was really quite yummy!

A steep hill to climb!!! Urghg!!

The next part of the adventure involved us walking for about 2hrs in the lush country side, up steep hills, before stopping for lunch in the middle of a field. By this point both Roland and I were completely soaked in sweat from carrying our heavy backpacks and were relieved to know that there was only 1.5 hours of walking left.

Lunch

We climbed to the top of this mountain!

We arrived at our camp in time to put up our tent and climb the last part of the mountain to watch the sunset. Beautiful!

Saturday. 5:00am. Bursting for the loo - I had to rush out of the tent to pee behind a bush. We did not sleep well at all as the wind blew all night threatening to blow our tent off the ground! We had breakfast, packed up our tents and headed off again to trek into the wilderness.

We were hurting. Trekking is hard work when you have to do it all without the help of a mule! Surprisingly we only walked for about 1.5 hours before we hitchhiked a ride to our final destination for the day Cascada Blanca After a quick snooze in the hammock, we headed to our campsite for the day - a cave behind a waterfall!

We stayed here for the rest of the day. Roland and I escaped the guides and went on a little adventure up the river to have a much needed wash - we stank - and sit in the sun.

The evening was spent drinking beer and rum and cokes around a campfire, watching the bats fly in and out of the cave and telling scary stories (well Rory did).

Sunday. We still hadn't used the 'poo kit' and we were very thankful to hear that there was a real loo nearby ... We decided that we had had enough of roughing it and made the decision to leave for Leon as soon as possible. We quickly packed up and headed back to the main road to catch a lift. It didn't take more than a minute before a guy stopped in his Toyota to offer us a lift back to Matagalpa.

This guy turned out to be a really lovely man and drove is to the city's viewpoint, paid for us to get in and then afterwards drove us to the bus station - all for free! We were lucky that there was a Collective about to leave for Leon as soon as we arrived at the station. After jumping in we waited for about 20 minutes so that the final person could literally be wedged in place ... he happened to be a rather fat Nicaraguan who was wedged in right next to Roland - definitely a case of 'little and large' . I couldn't help but have a little giggle when I turned round to see the look on Roland's face.

Monday. Lava day! We had arranged an 8 hour trek up the Telica Volcano with promises of seeing lava. We were both a little tired from our previous adventure so we made sure we drank loads of coffee before heading back to Quetzal Trekkers. This time we were greeted with a small backpack with only 4 litres of water and a small amount of food to carry each - big sigh of relief! Also joining us on the trip was a French couple Anais and Laurent from the Auvergne region where they work in 1 of the only volcano museums in Europe (big volcano enthusiasts!).

We repeated the journey to the bus station to get a chicken bus to the small village where we started out trek. Rick (our guide) pointed out the volcano that we were heading to - it looked miles away. The first part of the trek took us past some steaming hot mud pools.

It was soooooo hot today and even though we were only carrying a small backpack we were soaked with sweat almost immediately. We trekked through corn fields, steep rocky paths and beautiful countryside before making it to the crater of the volcano. We stopped here to see the sunset before we climbed the final bit to see lava.

You can see the volcano in the background

As you climbed closer the the edge of the crater the noise of the volcano got loader and loader - it sounded like the jet engine of an aeroplane! I could not believe my eyes when I reached the top and peered over the edge - about a 100 metre drop to the glowing lava pit! It was mesmerising and I couldn't quite believe that in front of me was actual lava. This is something I had always wanted to see since I was a little girl. We stayed here for about 30 minutes before we made our way back - trekking the same way we came, but in complete darkness!

We made it!!!!

The glowing red thing is LAVA!!!

Walking back in the dark - Roland was knackered!

By the time we got back to the hostel, we were all smelly, dirty, tired and hungry! Luckily the restaurant opposite the hostel, El Mediterráneo, was still open and was happy to accommodate us, even though we stunk! We stayed here for 1.5 hours scoffing pizza, chicken wings and washed it all down with a few well earned beers.

Week 10

Tuesday. We left Leon in a Collective to head to Granada (are we in Nicaragua?). We arrived at our hostel GM Granada and were greeted by Greg, the owner, who gave us some great information on what we should do during our 3 days stay. We spent the afternoon wondering around the beautiful city and enjoying a few drinks and snacks along Calle Calzada

Iglesia La Merced

View from the top of Iglesia La Merced

Another view from the top of La Merced

Cathedral Of Granada

Train Station

Old railway change over ´thingy´

San Fransico Convent

Government buildings around the plaza

View of Lago Nicaragua

In the evening we stumbled across a street party. We had no idea what was being celebrated, but I am guessing it was something to do with Jesus or Mary ...

Jesus? Mary?

Dancers with masks on

Wednesday. We joined a German couple for a 2 hour boat ride around the Isletas de Granada ($25 for 2 people).

Stopped off on one of the islets to admire the vie

My favourite part of the trip was feeding the monkeys - not sure that crackers are that good for them but they seem to prefer them to bananas! We saw quite a lot of wildlife, mainly birds and overall it was an enjoyable and relaxing couple of hours.

In the afternoon we attempted the journey to Masaya via a chicken bus. A journey which should have taken 30 minutes ended up taking us 2 hours!

Yay, finally I was allowed to shop! Masaya is famed for its handicraft markets and we left with quite a few souvenirs - not sure how we are going to get them back as we were advised that the postal system in Nicaragua is not to be trusted. I now have a very heavy backpack!

We managed to find the chicken bus stop and waited with a million other locals for our bus back to Granada. The bus pulled up and there was a surge of people all pushing to get through the open door - Roland and I were in the middle of it. Eventually we squashed on, almost hanging out of the door! I did manage to get a seat after a few stops but Roland remained squashed at the front of the bus. The expression on his face was one of bewilderment and I couldn't help but giggle a little.

Spot Roland!

In the evening we returned to Calle Calzada and ate at Nectar. The food here was really nice. We had an array of starters washed down with beer and cocktails.

Man from Masaya hand carved maracas for me

Rather pleased with them!!

We were entertained by some street dancers

Xmas tree in Granada

Thursday. We jumped in a taxi and spent the day by Laguna De Apoyo
which had been formed in a crater of a Volcano! I spent the whole day swinging in a hammock while Roland ventured into the warm waters for a little swim. The most beautiful place to swim in Nicaragua (apparently!)

In the evening we ate at Kanpai My goodness, the food was delicious and we really did treat ourselves (bill was 1000 Cordoba's!). It was owned by a Japanese man who had fled Japan after the numerous natural disasters, finally settling in Nicaragua (mainly because Masaya was his name and there is a town with his namesake here).

Friday to Monday. We left Granada and treated ourselves to a taxi to San Jorge, on the edge of Largo Nicaragua ($30) which happened to be driven by a baseball legend from the 70s, apparently! We caught the ferry to Moyogalpa on Ometepe Island (70C) followed by a 1.5 hour bone breaking taxi ride ($35) to our home for the next 4 days - Finca Mystica.

This place was lovely and at $30 a night we had our own little hobbit hut with private bathroom! The food here was wonderful - I am sure that I have gained a few pounds after staying there!

Garden surrounding Mystica

This was MY chair!

Hibiscus field

During our stay:

We walked to the nearby beach to view Costa Rica and Nicaragua in the distance.

We made friends with a lovely Dutch couple, Lola and Sam, who we kayaked with for 3 hours ($20) to see the wildlife.

Lola and Sam

Nice hat Roland!

Well earned Beer and Food - Trip was 3 hrs in total!! Arms were killing!!

On one of the evenings I gained control of the kitchen and was let loose on the rum and various juices - creating the 'Emma Special'! I managed to get quite a few people a little merry :-)