Our time in Nicaragua was quickly coming to an end. Next stop: El Salvador. Leaving Nicaragua was rather simple. We got up at 0430hrs to catch the 0500hrs bus the 10km to the border for NOI10 each. There were plenty of locals on the way as well; but whether they were on the way to work, or their fields that were only accessible from the Honduras side, we're not sure. At the border we spent USD2 each to leave Nicaragua at the El Espino border. We took longer than the locals and got left in their dust. We sauntered across the border and had no troubles on the Honduras side... until we went to catch the bus. We thought the border town would be a little bigger so we walked a little farther to a bus ... read more

Initially, we were on the fence about whether or not to visit Leon. Really, it's another colonial city in a long list throughout Central America so if it's in the middle or end of your trip it would be easy to skip. But we strongly suggest that you don't (skip it that is). As soon as we got to Leon with Antony (a Shetlander that we did our final dives with on Little Corn and he supported us when we couldn't withdraw money from any bank machines) at 1930hrs, in the dark after a long day of traveling from Bluefields, we instantly appreciated the place. First of all, we felt so safe. We wandered around with our packs looking for a hostel when the first one we went to turned us away because they were full. ... read more

We arrived on Little Corn shortly before sundown and walked up to our hostel. The restaurant was closed since they'd had a going away party down at the beach for an old employee so we had a quick bite in town and found a great lending library at Tranquilo, one of the major hangouts on the main strip. We grabbed a Mexico travel book and Mockingjay; finally we'd be able to finish a book that we were half done when we left home. Water Sporting The next week and a half was awesome. We didn't have a ton of ways to pass the time but we made alright use of our time there. One of the main things we wanted to do was get a couple more dives under our belts. We ended up doing seven ... read more

Following the hustle and bustle of Granada we decided to head out to Laguna de Apoyo which is a crater lake just outside to city. It's a beautiful spot to take a break for a couple days from the chaos of Managua or Granada. There isn't much in the way of transportation to get there. You could take a bus to Masaya and catch one of the two daily buses that head to the lake, or one of the couple shuttles/tours that go directly from Granada (there must be shuttles/tours from Managua but that wasn't the direction of our travel so we didn't look into it). We opted to take the afternoon shuttle out, which conveniently departed from our hostel, so we could do a little more running around in town. When we arrived it was ... read more

We'd heard we just had to visit the lake island of Ometepe. Several people we'd met raved about it and even stayed longer than planned. Ometepe is an island popping out in the middle of Lago Nicaragua (which itself seemingly makes up half the country's area) and consists mainly of two large volcanoes that can be hiked up. Dan did his homework for accommodation and found a nice little place called Hacienda Merida which gives back to the community in two ways: they run a bilingual school, teaching English as a second language, to prepare kids to enter the tourism trade on the island; and they request that all tour guides soliciting business from guests bring four water bottles filled with non-biodegradable garbage (collected on the island) which will then be used as building materials. The ... read more