Blogs from Laguna de Apoyo, Capital Region, Nicaragua, Central America Caribbean

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

13. 8. Granada Nach einer langen Fahrt (2 Stunden im Stau!)mit dem Taxi von Matagalpa nach Granada, bezogen wir unser Hotel in Granada. Ein wunderschöner Kolonialbau mit Innenhof und Pool. Ana Zavala und Maru – zwei ehemalige Studentinnen von uns – haben uns dieses Hotel gebucht und auch sonst die Organisation der nächsten Tage übernommen. Wir freuen uns schon sehr, wenn wir die beiden treffen. Der erste Abend in Granada sollte aber auch noch sehr lustig werden. Kaum zu glauben: Wir sitzen beim Abendessen und am Nachbartisch sitzt eine junge Frau und ich denk mir noch, das Gesicht kommt mir bekannt vor. Plötzlich dreht sich der junge Mann daneben um und wir sind wirklich überrascht: Zalatimo, ein ITH-Student vom Vorjahr aus Jerusalem sitzt am Nebentisch mit seiner Freundin, die hier von Granada ist. Wir haben kaum ... read more

I got lost in Nicaragua today because things don't always go as planned. I had information that I could camp at a place called Centro Ecoturistico La Máquina. There was alleged to be a pretty waterfall here with good swimming in a pool below the falls. This sounded like a fine way to beat the heat so I wanted to check it out. I arrived early in the afternoon to find the place mostly deserted. The manager on duty told me that he didn't know if I could camp and that he would have to discuss the matter with the owner. I went swimming in the meanwhile after I paid the nominal entry fee and enjoyed a dip in coolish water. The falls and swimming hole were nice but I've seen better and the water wasn't ... read more

Hi everyone! We have been busy getting situated in La Mariposa Ecolodge and have been taking Spanish lessons. Rich has been studying hard, but I have doing my best to just shoot the breeze with my teachers and so am not really utilizing my time well. We arrived late Wednesday and took classes Thursday and Friday. Today we had a field trip to Laguna de Apoya which is quite warm because of the underground warm springs that come up into the lake. The lake was really clean, but Rich noticed that there was a real absence of waterfowl and birds on the lake. It was a very large group of people who came from La Mariposa and this was a little hard for loners like Rich and I. We did swim for quite a while and ... read more

After many months of good intentions we finally got around to organising a short stint of volunteering through an organisation called Proyecto Mosaico, based in Granada, Nicaragua. With one of their partner projects based at an ecological research station by a lake in the middle of an ancient volcanic we just couldn't put it off any longer. Upon arriving at Reserva Natural Laguna de Apoyo we found that our volunteering place, 'Estacion Biologica' also doubles as a Spanish language school, which was fantastic as it meant much more people to socialise with by night and practice our own Spanish with. While we were there, there were two other volunteers - Kelsey and Kimberley from Oregan in the US. With no research work being undertaken at the site during our period of stay the main task at ... read more