If you read my Philippines posts from earlier this year, you may recall Sonja, one of the friends I spent time with in multiple locations. She is still traveling the world and visited this summer before traveling through Latin America. Therefore, it was only natural we meet up again and head south together as I start my trip. The road goes on forever and the party never ends.
I landed in Liberia, Costa Rica which was a short all day bus trip, overnight in Managua, and shuttle bus away from our initial meeting point in Leon, Nicaragua. Upon arriving in Leon I threw on my two trusty companions for the next six months, my backpack and my daypack, and ignoring all the touts offering taxi or bicycle tuk tuk rides, in true backpacker fashion began the walk to our hostel. And 1 block later, dripping in sweat after realizing how hot and humid it was, turned around and desperately grabbed the first bicycle tuk tuk I could find. Best 20 Cordoba I ever spent. The road goes on forever and the party never ends.
Leon is your typical old town with narrow streets and sidewalks. It has a large cathedral, a few pedestrian only streets with plaques honoring historical Nicaraguan heroes, a large local market, and some museums. One day we did a free walking tour of the town, another a food tour of the local market, and on another we, oh yeah, boarded down a volcano.
The morning of day 3 from town we rode a large, open back military type truck with benches running along both sides in the back to the Cerro (Volcano) Negro. Most of the trip was spent on narrow dirt roads with tropical forest encroaching so everyone had to stay vigilant watching for tree branches that would pop into the truck and smack us on the head. At the volcano we hiked up for about an hour, carrying our board (actually more sled then snowboard), cover-alls, and goggles, needed for our trip down. Once at the top we donned the gear and started our sledding. It was slow going at first as volcano dust isn”t as smooth as snow but when it got steep, it didn’t matter, it was a blast. The road goes on forever and the party never ends.
From Leon, Sonja, Hailey (a friend Sonja met in Honduras} and I moved on to Granada which was a bit more visitor friendly. While still an older city, actually the oldest in Central America, the streets and sidewalks were wider and cleaner. The town sits next to a large lake, Lake Nicaragua, and has one long pedestrian only drag about half a mile long that stretches from the cathedral in the town square down to the lake. The street was lined with open bars and restaurants playing music to attract guests and lots of outdoor seating.
On day one we did a boat trip around the small islands just off shore in Lake Nicaragua, and a walking tour that included a chocolate store tour conducted by our guide, Oompa Loompa Oman. Only way to describe him is to picture Hanz and Franz here to pump you up, about chocolate. Our third evening was spent at one of Nicaragua’s 7 active volcanos and for the first time in my life I saw magma (just fun to say) inside a volcano cone. The road goes on forever and the party never ends.
The next day Sonja and I headed to San Juan Del Sur, a small surf town in southern Nicaragua along the Pacific coast. Because it is the rainy, slow season in Nicaragua the town was pretty quiet. However, sitting in beach chairs with drinks and ceviche at sunset made me a happy guy.
After a couple days we jumped on another bus to Rivas to take a ferry to Ometepe Island. Ometepe is a large island also in Lake Nicaragua that resembles two connected circles with a volcano in the middle of each. Around the towns of Santa Cruz and Balgue where we stayed, the vibe was very chill with yoga, coffee shops, and nature being the draw. All of the hostels are buried deep in the tropical forest away from the road that circles the island.
Ours was only a five minute walk down an unmarked, rocky, muddy, path. The rooms were very basic with tiled floors and wood framed beds. Days were hot and humid and included torrential rain storms that caused the path to flood. Spiders, and a variety of other bugs were ever present on the property. The shower consisted of a thin red hose coming from the faucet that provided only chilling cold water. This place was great.
We were the only guests at the hostel and bonded with the owner, his girlfriend, and staff. Every morning we ate a gourmet breakfast as we looked through jungled forest at Volcano Concepcion. Every night and before every rain, we heard holler monkees in the trees (and periodically saw them). As our 3 days turned into 5, we rented an ATV and rode around the island, hiked up to an amazing waterfall, visited cafes and restaurants along the road, enjoyed a pizza night and fire show at another hostel, and just chilled around the hostel enjoying the sounds of the jungle and the company. It was simple and awesome. The road goes on forever and the party never ends.
We left Ometepe to begin our next journey to the Corn Islands. That and more, later.
Life is good!
Sounds like another fabulous adventure!
Sounds fun!