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Published: January 4th 2014
Our arrival in
Leon was full of something … hard to say of what though. We did not know where we were when the chicken bus entered the town so we watched out for the cathedral. In the end it is the largest one in the whole Central America - hard to miss. With a large big church look-alike building in sight we hopped out of the bus. Little did we know at the time how many big churches actually there are in Leon.
We quickly discovered that we were still around 5 blocks away from the
Parque Central which is the epicenter of everything going on in this town and where we wanted to be located for the next 4 to 5 days. We are usually great with maps but somehow this maze of little streets and colorful houses made us lost. We found the major sights but could not locate the hostel we wanted to stay in. We must have walked in circles, not joking. In the end we found the
BigFoot Hostel which looked very appealing because of the pool (and it was boiling hot at the time) however we opted to stay just opposite in
ViaVia.
Why, you may wonder, as pool, parties and great atmosphere may seem like exactly the things we should have chosen?
Well, we had a hunch that is all. When you walk into ViaVia home-like atmosphere of great bar/dining area hit you. Very often they have live music over there and that is so much fun:-) Then you follow through to the chill-out zone with hammocks and bookshelves with great travel literature for you to enjoy around beautiful flowery courtyard. And only then you enter the living/hostel quarters which are also located around garden. Sounds great ha? It truly was. Our dorm was beautifully decorated with huge beds, soft sheets and private bathroom. And every morning and evening we could relax outside of the room on the patio.
There is plenty to do in Leon and majority of people come to this town to surf
Cerro Negro – an active volcano nearby. We had an opportunity but 40C in the open space, black sand and thick ‘surf suit’ did not sound like fun to us. We were also invited to join the trip to the
Las Penitas beaches but again we did not feel like it. Who said you
should tick the list of activities available in a place you visit to make your stay memorable?
Instead of doing all that we opted for doing whatever we felt like. Kind of last chance for us as from Leon we were planning to enter the world of Mayan Temples so plenty of sightseeing to do. We would wake up very early in the morning (before 6 am) to have a coffee in the courtyard and enjoy mild temperatures of the day. Around 9 it was already quite unbearable to be outside to be honest. Before breakfast, we would also take a stroll through empty streets of Leon admiring architecture and street art. This place is pretty great to be honest even though it did not have the expensive makeover like Granada. Then we would enjoy beautiful cafe breakfast (great not to be cooking) and the day filled with relaxing and reading books. In the evening we would go to the
Mercado Central for a street BBQ for 5$ (we even met the Israeli girls we spent so much time with in Granada), sitting on plastic chairs with a great view of the cathedral. Brilliant!
Then follow the cinema.
Yes, the cinema was our guilty pleasure in Leon. We were visiting it every single day while there, enjoying new Hollywood productions in English, air con and big buckets of popcorn hahaha It reminded us our time in Borneo where we would do the same for a week. Back then we watched ‘
Lincoln the Vampire Slayer’ and now ‘
Lincoln’….and even though I appreciate the Oscar winning performance I still think the first one was more entertaining :-) We felt like on holiday - without agenda and really no pressure to see or do anything. Besides it has been a while since we had any ‘date-like’ evening. May sound insignificant but when you spend 18 months together 24/7 you do need a little bit of push for romance!
Of course we also had to make some decisions as time came to move forward. When we finally decided where to go we went to Tica Bus office and booked ourselves ‘guard protected’ journey to the capital of Honduras – Tegucigalpa. Call us crazy but we did not want any troubles at this point of our journey. The bus was leaving, or rather passing the stop, at Panamericana highway outside of the
town which was not ideal. Somehow I did not like the idea of sitting on the side of a highway with all of our possessions at 6 am in the morning with nobody around. We quickly got company of coffee vendor and other travelers so it was fine. We keep reminding ourselves that very often the danger is only in our head :-)
So Nicaragua was great, we totally enjoyed it. Isla Ometepe was all about nature, Granada all about people and Leon only about us – perfect balance.
Additional Note - Summary of Nicaragua: • 12 days, stayed in 3 towns
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our favorite landscape: around Volcanoes on Isla Ometepe
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our favorite activity: cycling around Isla Ometepe
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our favorite hotel/guest-house: ViaVia in Leon
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our favorite food: must be the amazing cheese tacos in Mayogalpa
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our favorite thing about Nicaragua: the architecture
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our total cost per day: 30£/48$ per day for both of us
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taracloud
Tara Cloud
A hot time in the old town...
Brilliant move to hang out and enjoy reading, the cinema and each other! Great photos under that beautiful, blue sky, but yikes--40 degrees in the winter! I love your summary of Nicaragua's highlights, and that we/you get to still enjoy your travels. Happy new year!