Nicaragua part 2

After the ferry and a few chicken busses we made it to the very charming Granada. Granada is said the be best maintained colonial town in Nicaragua and it certainly was very cute.  

It is also one those places we had intended to stay maybe 3 nights but ended up being many more. We stayed at the great Boca en Boca hostel with cute cats, well everything there was great apart from the wifi I couldn't connect at all. But the hostel was full of awesome people to hang out with so I didn't need it! Also our first time coming across other brits, and we ended up being a group of about 10 brits😂 + Melin and Julian.

Granada has a Irish bar Riley's, everyday some staff would come into the hostel and hand out free rum and coke tickets, everyday! And on certain nights ladies or gents get rum and cokes for free until 12. These are lethal! As you may imagine we had a couple of crazy nights there. Though we did manage to use Granada as a excellent base for a few day trips. Like kayaking around some volcanic island on lake Nicaragua. 

We also hiked the volcano that made these islands years ago Mambaco. My first ever volcano hike! Yay. Although the way up is a super steep paved road, you do have a few well maintained trails around the craters at the top. Stunning views! 

The next day we rewarded our selves with a trip to the beautiful Laguna de Apoyo, a sunken volcano/crater lake. What felt like half the hostel were all going to the lake that day and as we hopped on a public bus the drivers decided to take us the whole way(small extra fee). They dropped the 2 ladies on the bus off then took on no one extra, private bus! Some of the guys were staying at a hostel there so we all just followed them and paid to use the facility's of the hostel for the day. 

Honesty a great choice they have kayaks, tubes, paddle boards, various games (pool table etc) and a pontoon out in the lake. 

I think every single person in the group got pretty badly sunburnt, as we spent most of the day in the water, jumping from the pontoon and also trying to see how many people we can fit in a kayak! Record is 4 people standing, really hard to have so many people try to get in from the water and not capsize it! Definitely got hit in the head by the kayak at one point 😂 

Rad and I contemplated going back the next day to stay as it was so picturesque and peaceful, but we had just decided to include a stop in Honduras so thought it was time to move on. We said goodbye to Melin and Julian, they were heading back south to fly home to Germany. It felt like we had been travelling with these two for much longer than just over a week! Our next stop was Leon activity central. 

We found a super cheap hostel that was pretty much empty, felt like our own little place! Unfortunately at this point in time a tropical storm was over Nicaragua (another reason to not go back to the lake in the rain!). It rained non stop in Leon for two days and we just hibernated and caught up on wifi and sleep. 

Once the weather started to clear up a little we wandered around the town and booked our trips. 

1st tour volcano boarding!  Essentially you climb up volcano 'Cerro Negro' and then sand board down the other side! Climbing up with the gear wasn't the easiest but it was a short 45 min hike. Coming down on the other hand took less than a minute! Supposedly the average speed people go down is 40-60km per hour!  

I almost lost control twice going sideways and Rad actually managed to fall off his 😂. (As did half the group). 

The company we used Volcano Day also had the option for a free shuttle to a little fishing village that has become a popular spot. So we rewarded ourselves by going that afternoon. We had been thinking to go and stay there but with the bad weather had thought better of it, this let us see it at least for the day. 

Lovely beach setting if it hadn't been cloudy the sunset would have been magic! We had a fun afternoon playing volleyball and drinking games. As it was nearly Halloween a big bar/hostel in town was having a Halloween party. Obviously we didn't pack something just for Halloween and we didn't want to buy something either so we opted for a hilarious and lazy costume of swapping clothes. I went as a boy, Rad went as a girl. He pulled it off nicely😉. Our night out was supposed to be short as the next day we were hiking another volcano to camp! A few beers and two bottles of rum later meant that the hike was not so pleasant. Not helped by the return of the tropical storm. Day started out glorious but soon had torrential downpours. Once we got out the city the rain stopped but half way through our hike it started again. We all got soaked and Rads sleeping bag somehow also got wet!  

Once we reached our camp site the rain was on and off which made making a fire with wet wood very hard. Visibility was also terrible you could only see a few meters ahead so we couldn't see the lava at the centre of the volcano, the whole reason for the hike! Luckily after a few hours it cleared up about so we went to try again and this time we were not choked by sulphur and we got the view down the crater of a active volcano at the lava below. Made it all worth it! 

We woke up super early to visit the crater again and watch the sunrise. Great experience from such a high elevation. 

The weather on this day was great so we had a lovely hike down getting to enjoy the views we had missed coming up. We gave ourselves a recovery day and then it's goodbye to Nicaragua and hello El Salvador.