Nicaragua Vacation

Nicaragua was a great trip! It was actually surprising how much there was to see and do. Here in Honduras there are a few cool things to do, but you can't have too high of standards for all the supposed "tourist destinations," so we weren't expecting the moon or anything. But it was really fun!

Here is a map (although tiny, of course) to look at if you want to see where some of the places we visited are located:
First stop, Leon:

A liberal city, with a good vibe. The cathedral above was one of many scattered around town.

Next, Granada:

(colonial city on Lago de Nicaragua)

The lake at sunset:

We met this painter who showed us some of his artwork:

Granada has a lot of fine places to eat and chill. I really liked this place in particular, with its interior garden, hammocks and colonial architecture:


From Granada, we spent one night on an island in the middle of the lake (Isla de Ometepe). The island was two active volcanoes, and here is one of them:

San Juan del Sur:

(southwestern Nicaragua near the border with Costa Rica)

The view from our hotel in San Juan:

This hotel had a fabulous balcony, as you can see. We loved it! And it was the cheapest place we stayed the whole time...just $10 a night. However, the room also came with ferocious biting fire ants, that bit at night in bed as we slept, and attacked anything and everything in our bags and trash (including dirty laundry and clipped fingernails....gross)!

Another balcony picture:

San Juan had more surfers than I've ever seen in one place. They came from all over the world for the waves that crash on the beaches just north and south of San Juan. Although we didn't try surfing (this trip at least) we took a water taxi north one day to see some of these beaches.

This really cheesy guy came up to me on the beach and started flexing to get my attention. It didn't work!!!

The waves were really big and scary! We both got rocked a few times and after one good scare I decided to keep my distance from the crashing waves while swimming in the water.

Our last stop on the trip, the Laguna de Apoyo, just south of Masaya.

(a small, peaceful lake in a crater)

We spent just one night here, although we could have done more. While out on kayaks on the lake, we could hear monkeys in the trees, even though we didn't get to see any.

In several places on the trip, we met travellers backpacking through Central America. (Central America sort of lends itself to the backpacking traveler - cheap, lots of countries close together and many fun and exciting things to do.) Its always fun to meet those travelling types and hear their stories. You get to meet people from all over the world. We even met two American guys bicycling from Cancun to Panama City. Although we were joining them in many of the same destinations, we couldn't help but feel a little different from the backpackers. Understanding the language, the culture of the region, etc gives us a different perspective. You definitely see the difference between a person who is backpacking through and someone who has lived in the area for awhile. It was nice to be the latter.