Another country completed! We can’t believe we are nearly at the end of our Central American leg. We thoroughly enjoyed Nicaragua and ended up spending a lot more time there than we expected. Although there is not always a lot to do in Nicaragua and during our stay the scenery was quite dry and not always that beautiful, on the whole this country is charming and a must see in our books.
Nicaragua was cheaper than some of the other countries we have visited. We didn’t do too many activities in this country and we volunteered for two weeks, which also helped with the budget. Food is typical Central American food, beans and rice, and if you choose Western options you will pay a little extra. The bus system in this country is incredibly efficient and cheap. There are no issues with taking local chicken busses as long as you know when you need to get off and what bus to take. Some people will try and rip you off and convince you to take a taxi when a perfectly adequate bus can take you for a quarter of the price.
If you go to more rural towns, English is not widely spoken, so brush up on your basic Spanish. Our Spanish is still very basic but we managed to get by. Safety is not an issue at all in this country. Just look after you stuff and you will be fine.
Lastly the men in Nicaragua have a tendency to catcall and whistle at foreign women and sometimes you will have an encounter with rude bus attendees who are trying to rip you off, but on the whole people went out of their way to help us and were very friendly.
All in all we loved our trip to Nicaragua. The top 5 places we visited during our stay were:
Our journey from Isla de Ometepe included a bus from San Jorge (C$7pp) to Rivas and a bus from Rivas to San Juan (C$16pp). We were so happy to be by the sea again. We hadn’t booked any accommodation as we had left Ometepe in such a hurry, so when we arrived we walked around for about an hour trying to find something decent. Most private rooms go for between $20-30 but at more popular hostels they sometimes charge even more. We finally found Casa Romano, which is very close to the popular hostel Casa Oro. We got a great, clean room with private bathroom for $20.
We met up with Bibiche and Mikko again who had done some research before we arrived about a tour to some private beaches which includes a fish BBQ and an open bar ($25pp). The tour started at 1pm from ‘O Shop’ where we also met two Americans, Ian and Kayla, and we were taken to two different private beaches where last year’s season of Survivor was filmed! Chris and I have been watching Survivor on our travels and we were so excited to see some of the left over camp and the exact beach where they were staying! We enjoyed the night and made sure we got our money’s worth from the open bar! The fish BBQ was also delicious!
On the 1st private beach on the tour
Howler monkeys came to visit us
On the 2nd beach on the tour
Beautiful sunset
For the next couple of days we just relaxed and watched a ton of movies on our laptop in bed! We walked out of town to the local supermarket (Pali) and bought food for the week. There was a really bad riptide along the entire Pacific Coast, so we avoided the beach until it got a bit better. One day we took a shuttle from Casa Oro ($5pp) to Maderas beach. The waves were still a bit hectic though, so we couldn’t surf, but we packed our cooler box with some rum and hotdogs and enjoyed the day relaxing on the beach.
Enjoying the cooler box treats
Madeiras beach
After a week of relaxing in San Juan we were ready for our next adventure. Chris contacted a few places on WorkAway to see if we could find some temporary work before heading to Costa Rica. With our sailing trip coming up and Costa Rica being very expensive, we knew we needed to save some money before the end of the month in order to stick to our budget. The next day we got a reply from a hostel in San Juan that needed volunteers and we started the following day!
We have now been at Surfing Donkey Hostel for the past week. In exchange for my working at the reception and Chris working at the bar, we get free accommodation and a food allowance. The hostel is in the process of getting renovated so we are also helping with setting up new systems to help the hostel run more smoothly. The whole experience has been really fun and we have loved getting to know the hostel staff.
Surfing Donkey Hostel’s newest receptionist
Chris the barman
Surfing Donkey Hostel’s beautiful pool and courtyard
On one of our days off we took the shuttle from Casa Oro to Hermosa beach ($5pp and $3 entrance to the beach). We enjoyed the day laying in hammocks and swimming in the waves. This is definitely the best beach we have been to in Central America so far. The entrance fee you pay goes towards the maintenance of the beach, so the beach is clean and there are plenty of hammocks and tables to relax by. On one of our last days off we climbed to the Christ of Mercy Statue which overlooks San Juan del Sur. The hike was quite tiresome as we are now quite unfit, but the view was well worth it. It took us 1.5hrs up and down and cost $2pp entrance.
Hermosa beach
Chris body surfing
Lying in the hammocks on Hermosa beach
Christ of Mercy Statue
View of San Juan del Sur
We leave for Costa Rica on Monday, which we are very excited about. We will update the blog with the summary of Nicaragua and our actual costs once we are in Costa Rica.
Our stay in Granada was far more positive than León as the heat was not so harsh and Hostel Oasis was exactly that – an oasis in the middle of a heated city. This is one of the most well run hostels we have ever stayed in. The kitchen is always clean so cooking is easy, the pool is so refreshing, they serve free pancakes every morning with coffee and tea, water refills are free, they have DVDs to watch and great internet; and you can make a daily 10 minute free international call if you want to! Needless to say we enjoyed our five-night stay here. While we were in Granada we did a walking tour of the city. There are old churches and a cemetery that are quite nice to look at. We also went on a boat tour through the Granada Islets – an array of tiny islands in the lake near Granada. We went via taxi to the docks and got a private boat for $40, which we split with the three others we were with. The tour was two hours. It’s nothing especially exciting but a nice escape from the city.
In the Granada cemetary
All the Nicaraguan presidents buried in the Granada cemetary
On the boat tour around the Granada Islets
View of some of the Granada Islets
At the hostel we heard about its sister hostel, Hostel Paradiso, which is by the Apoyo Crater Lake – the crater of a volcano that has filled up with water and is more than 3000 years old. We booked our shuttle to the lake via Hostel Oasis. You can choose to do a day trip or you can stay at Hostel Paradiso. If you do a day trip the shuttle is $10pp, which includes the transport to and from the lake as well as the day pass to enter and use the hostel’s facilities for the day. If you stay at Hostel Paradiso the cost of the shuttle is $6pp and you don’t need to pay the day pass fee. We decided to stay at the lake for one night and were so happy we did. The lake is beautifully clear and the hostel’s facilities are great. We met up with Bibiche and Mikko and thoroughly enjoyed our two days of lazing in the sun, floating on tubes and playing the various games the hostel offers (volleyball, petanque, pool, table tennis, darts and beach football). We even created and competed in the Crater Lake Olympics encompassing all these sports. Shamefully South Africa lost to Holland! We also devoured the delicious food on offer, especially the premium beef steak which we treated ourselves to for $10! The following day we headed back to Granada and stayed one more night at Hostel Oasis before heading south for Isla de Ometepe.
The Dutch giving it their best in the petanque tournament
Chris and Mikko practising for the volleyball tournament
View of the Crater Lake from Paradiso Hostel
Trying out our photography skills on the Nicaraguan national bird -Guardabarranco
Swimming in the Crater Lake
The following was our experience of Isla de Ometepe, we did not enjoy it; and would not recommend it to anyone, but maybe it was the series of events that led up to us getting to the island that impacted on our mood!
We took a local bus to Rivas for C$30pp. We heard some stories about the bus driver convincing tourists to get off the bus before the proper bus stop to force them to get a taxi to the ferry port or to San Juan del Sur. On our bus the guy who collects the money tried to convince us that there were no busses going from Rivas to San Jorge where we needed to get the ferry from. We had read that busses go every half hour though, so we ignored him and his offer for a $10 taxi and got off the bus at the bus stop in Rivas. We were then hounded by taxi drivers and were convinced to get a taxi for $3 to the ferry. Although this wasn’t a lot of money, we did find out later that the bus does, in fact, run every half hour and people are just out to lie to the tourists. So if you are heading in that direction – stick to your guns and don’t believe what anyone is trying to tell you. They are lying!
After all the hassling we took the taxi and made it to the port only to be welcomed by a plague of bugs (some type of sand fly, we think??)! We booked our ticket and waited for 30mins in said plague. These bugs were everywhere! We got on to the ferry and prayed the plague was not an indication of what the island offered! Luckily we arrived and although there are quite a few bugs on the island, the plague was gone. We made our way across the island on two busses and eventually arrived in Santa Cruz two hours later. We don’t really know what we were expecting but the muddy beaches and forlorn accommodation options didn’t do much to uplift our spirits. We settled for a $21 private room in a rundown hostel near the lake. We walked down to the lake to take a dip but got freaked out by the sludgy walk in. Chris stubbed two toes on separate feet trying to get out of the lake. Then we desperately needed to find wifi so he could Skype for a job he is currently doing online and the only place we could find was a good 15 minutes walk from where we were staying.
We reassessed the situation and decided to stay only two nights and then leave for San Juan del Sur but then the next day we woke up to pouring rain! We took it as a sign and hightailed it out of there and got the ferry back to the mainland! Our advice: AVOID ISLA DE OMETEPE. IT IS A SH*THOLE!!!
We didn’t stay on the island long enough to take photos, but this is what it basically looks like!
We are now in San Juan del Sur and are back in high spirits. We found a great place to stay and will relax here happily for the next week or so!
After two days of traveling we were thrilled to finally arrive in Estelí, Nicaragua. The two-day trip had really taken it out of us so we just wanted to find a chilled hostel to relax for a couple of days. The main reason we came to Estelí was for the region’s famed cigar factories. We booked into Hostel Luz y Luna ($25 private, $9pp dorm) for three nights and spent the first day just catching up on admin and updating the blog. Cigar factory tours don’t run on weekends, so we had to wait until Monday to do the tour. On Sunday we decided to hike to Salto de La Estanzuela waterfall. This is 5km out of town and is quite a nice walk along a dirt road. We packed a baguette and some beers and had a great picnic after we swam in the cool water. The water is quite murky and the rocks are slimy, so I was quite scared swimming all the way up to the actual waterfall, but the cool water was so worth it in the heat!
Enjoying beers by the waterfall!
Salto de La Estanzuela waterfall
On Monday morning we finally got to do the cigar factory tour. There are several factories in Estelí town itself, ranging from small to medium to big factories that hire 20, 100 or thousands of people respectively. We went to Tabacalera Santiago factory, arranged through Café Luz, which was opposite our hostel. They are a non-profit organisation that funds community projects in the area. We paid $8pp for the two-hour tour. We got to see the whole process of how cigars are made, from the box-making to the fermentation of the tobacco leaves to the sorting of the wrapping leaves to the actual cigar-making (which is all hand-made). We couldn’t spend more than five minutes in the fermentation room as the odour of the leaves fermenting felt like poison in our lungs! We couldn’t breathe! Watching the workers make the cigars though was like watching art! I watched one worker make a cigar in about 30 seconds – it was crazy to watch! We left with a box full of cigars even though I don’t like the taste of them at all.
Making of the cigar boxes
Suffocating in the fermentation room
Massive tobacco leaf used to wrap the cigars
Men roll the cigars
Women wrap the cigars and make them look pretty
Cigars in storage waiting to be packaged
The array of cigars made at the cigar factory in Nigaragua
Chris enjoying a fat cigar
One of the workers enjoying his produce!
That afternoon, after the tour, we caught the local express bus to León. It took 2.5hrs and cost $C70. As soon as we arrived, the aggressive heat welcomed us. Sweat immediately began dripping off of us! We caught a bicycle taxi to Hostel Nicarao, a hostel we had found online and was supposedly the cheapest place to stay in Leon. We got a private room with shared bathroom for $9 total! We were super happy! The hostel doesn’t have a great vibe and you won’t really meet people there, but they have a kitchen and the rooms are decent, so we were happy to save some money for a couple of days.
The next day we walked around León for a bit but we spent most of the day trying to escape the unrelenting heat! We decided to book our volcano-boarding trip for the next day and then leave León as soon as possible after that! We booked the trip through Quetzaltrekkers, another non-profit organization that helps with educating children in the area with the profits from tours that they organise. The next day we met at 8am and got on an open truck for the 45 minute drive out to Volcán Cerro Negro. We walked for another 45 minutes up the volcano with a provided backpack filled with overalls, gloves and a liter of water; and your toboggan-style board. We decided to go on the farthest right lane when looking down the volcano, which is apparently the fastest lane. I went down first so I could take photos of Chris coming down at the bottom. I can only explain the experience as the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done! The instructions on how to stop weren’t really clear and I thought it would be similar to sand boarding, but as soon as I aimed the board down I was going so fast and my mind went blank on how to stop! Luckily I made it all the way down without crashing, with a mouth full of volcano pebbles. Chris got just as much speed and loved every second of it! Now that we’ve done it, we can say it was great! Quetzaltrekkers is great because they let you go a second time if you want to, but you have to walk the 45 minutes up the volcano again, so Chris and I gave it a miss. Afterwards they also give us a delicious lunch before we returned to Leon at about 2pm.
Before the trek up the volcano
On the way up
View of the crater half way up the volcano
In our overalls just before our descent!
Chris on his way down the volcano
The next day we did some research about sending our cigars home and found that postage is really cheap in Nicaragua. We have felt for some time now that we may have over-packed a little and we wanted to lighten our load. We sent a box home with things we haven’t been using, the cigars we bought and a big bottle of local rum. The whole package weighed 9kgs and only cost $C1700 ($65)! We very happy to only have our backpacks now and to be carrying a lot less unnecessary stuff! After that we left for the bus terminal for Granada. We took a local minivan to Managua (1hr15mins – $C50pp) and a local bus to Grenada (1hr – $C24). We are now in Granada, staying at Oasis Hostel, and we love it so far!
Chris and Ro go... 