The Temple of Poseidon was constructed between 444 and 440 BC, with 38 columns that rose 20 feet into the air. It once housed a 20 feet tall bronze statue of Poseidon in the hall of worship. It is located at Cape Sounion at the southern tip of mainland Greece. The first version of the temple was constructed in the archaic period. However, it was destroyed in 480 BC by the Persians during the Greco-Persian Wars. Pericles rebuilt the temple around 440 BC, although only 16 of the original 38 columns remain standing today. According to Greek mythology, Poseidon’s power is second to only Zeus. As the god of the sea, the mariners and fishermen of ancient Greece prayed to Poseidon to keep them safe from storms and shipwrecks and often left animal sacrifices and other ... read more

Masaya is one of 18 distinct volcanic centers that make up the Nicaraguan portion of the Central American Volcanic Belt. Formed by the subduction of the Cocos Plate beneath the Caribbean Plate, this belt of volcanoes runs from volcán Tacaná in Guatemala to Irazú in Costa Rica. In 1979, Masaya became Nicaragua's first national park, named Parque Nacional Volcan Masaya. The park has an area of 54 km² and includes two volcanoes and five craters. Volcan Masaya is about 30km west of Granada and is one of Nicaragua's most active and unusual volcanoes. In contrast to most other volcanoes in subduction zones, it has been erupting mainly fluid basaltic lava. At the time of the Spanish Conquistadors, it contained an active lava lake and it is rumoured that there were attempts to extract the volcano's molten ... read more

We took the rest of the morning to clean-up which was difficult to do since we hadn't yet gone shopping and had to split a tiny bottle of hotel shampoo and a mini bar of soap between the two of us. There also wasn't a heck of a lot of water pressure. But, I still felt 100% better afterward. Before heading out to see the rest of León we stopped by the Ticabus office to purchase our onward tickets from Granada to Liberia, Costa Rica. We were lucky and scored 2 of the last 5 seats on any busses that left April 15-16. I wasn't able to book this ahead of time and being Easter the busses had booked up quickly. We had a lovely lunch at a local commodore (eatery) before visiting more of this ... read more

The original city of León was founded in 1524 by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba. The city was abandoned in 1610 after a series of earthquakes (the earthquakes seem to be closely related to the eruption of nearby Momotombo). The current city of León was built shortly afterward about 30 km west of the original site. León had been the capital of Nicaragua since colonial times, so when Nicaragua withdrew from the United Provinces of Central America in 1839, León became the capital of the new nation. For years the capital shifted back and forth between liberal León and conservative Granada, until as a compromise Managua was agreed upon to be the permanent capital in 1858. León is hot, temperatures while we were there were generally around 35 celcius during the day. We arrived at the UCA ... read more

El Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. Somewhat bypassed on the tourist trail, many people miss out on immense expanses of natural beauty, forests, beaches, and even the opportunity to view some archaeological sites. We'd planned to bypass it also because of time constraints but the last leg of our flight to Nicaragua was overbooked so we got to spend one short night in San Salvador courtesy of Avianca Airlines. Other than the military presence at the airport and the hotel we didn't see much ... but it wasn't too big of an inconvenience as we hadn't planned to stay in Managua for more than a few hours anyway.... read more