April 14 – April 16, 2018
We were nearing the border of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and decided we needed one more beach stop before we crossed. We headed towards San Juan del Sur, a touristy beach town, and, as it turns out, also a cruise ship port.
April 13 – April 14, 2018
We headed back to towards Lago Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua) to take the ferry to La Isla de Ometepe. Ometepe consists of two volcanos, the active Concepcion (which hasn’t done anything in probably about 70 years) and the inactive Maderas, which ages ago became joined to form a single island.
April 8 – April 12, 2018
We left Lago de Apoyo and headed towards the city of Granada, only 20 or so kilometres away. We had planned to camp in the parking lot of the Red Cross in Granada, as we had read that they allowed overlanders to stay there for only 100 Cordoba a night (about $4) and it was close to the city centre and had some facilities.
April 6 – April 8, 2018
We headed towards the capital city of Managua, hoping to avoid the city as much as possible on our way to Volcan Masaya, and active volcano that you can drive to the rim of. We arrived at the gates and they explained that we would only be able to stay at the rim for 5 minutes and that we would not be allowed to do any of the hikes in the park, as the volcano was particularly active right now.
April 3 – April 7, 2018
We got an early start the next day in order to drive towards the Pacific Ocean for a little beach time. Before leaving the town of Somoto, we stopped to get some Rosquillas, a corn flour and cheese baked treat that the area is known for….sweet and savory and really yummy!
April 1 – April 3, 2018
We were happy to be back on the road and after a few hours of driving on good roads we arrived at our campsite at Somoto Canyon. We parked in a green field next to the river with a great variety of birds, including the national bird of Nicaragua, the Guardabarranco, which looks like this, I have yet to get a good picture of one, but, as you can see, they are pretty gorgeous. Feathers like that and you may imagine that this beauty lives in an elegant nest, surrounded by eider down throw pillows and firefly lanterns, but no, they live in a hole in the dirt banks alongside roads, trails and rivers (thus the name which translates to the guard of the bank). Could be quite nice inside I guess….
We did manage to do one of the tours while we were at El Pantano, and that was the tour of Finca de San Antonio. The finca is run by four brothers and is home to them, their families and their 80 year old parents. Manuel, one of the brothers, picked us up at El Pantano and we began the walk from there to the finca. The dirt road was steep and the day, even at 8 am, was already hot and muggy.
March 24 – April 1, 2018
The drive to the small town of Jalapa near the border of Honduras and Nicaragua took us through several small villages. The road was so much better than the ones in Honduras….it was made of paving stones and we came across a few crews working on repairing sections of it along the way. All along the road, power poles, traffic signs, trees and boulders were painted black and red with the letters FSLN painted on them, a reminder of the recent civil war in the country and the highly political nature of life in Nicaragua. Very often, even peoples’ clothing seems to reflect this colour combination with red shirts and grey pants or skirts.
We knew that Semana Santa (week long Easter celebration) in Latin America would be a crazy, crowded week, full of parties late into the evening, closed businesses and intense traffic, some of it impaired by too many Easter cervezas. Everyone we consulted advised that we would be smart to find somewhere quiet to hang out for the week and to stay off of the roads. But we thought the week began on Good Friday. We found out at the last hostel that the week actually begins the weekend prior to Good Friday, leaving us only one week to make plans as to where to stay before Semana Santa celebrations started.