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Published: November 17th 2006
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Hola Amigo's, commo estan???
I'm all good, well have had a hangover that lasted almost 40 hours but now that's passed am back on top form again!
Well you'll be glad to know that i don't intend to write as much as i did last time, but then again, i never did last time so we'll see!
We stayed in Granada for just 2 nights in the end and felt pretty much the same about it as we did Leon. That is, not that impressed. It was a really pretty town with loads of multicoloured houses and churches, but apart from walking down and around the streets we couldn't seem to find much else to do there. We visited it's tourismo area and that was absolutely deserted. It was on the lake of Lago de Nicaragua but the lake failed to impress after Lago Atitlan in Guatemala. So, after 2 nights and 1 terrible nights kip in the worst beds we've had the misfortune to sleep in as yet (we swaped to a cheaper hostel for the 2nd night) we left Granada and headed for Isle de Ometepe which is the big island in the Lago de Nicaragua.
The island is basically 2 volcanoes next to each other and it's beautiful. To get there you chug along slowly on this small boat for an hour across the lake, with a very impressive view of the island forever getting closer. When we got there we headed for a hostel called Hostel Meridia in a small village of the island called Meridia. To be honest calling it a village gives it a bit too much credit, i think there were only 2 hostels, and a small shop! It took us an unexpected 3 hours to get to the hostel and we turned up at about 7 at night after yet another more or less full days travel. When we went to sign our names in the visitors book we got quite a shock, the page we signed at the bottom of was already full of English signatures, there must have been about 15 of us out of about 20 odd people. Seeing as we'd come accross very few English up till then it was quite a surprise! So we dumped our bags and went to order a beer to discover that they'd all been drunk. I found this very
fitting for a hostel full of English!! So, we headed to the local shop with 2 other Englih girls we'd just met in the hunt of beers and came back with 2 litres of Rum between us all as all the beer from the shop had gone also!!! The thing was, there was absolutely nothing to do there as soon as darkness hit except drink and eat.....
The next day we decided that we were gonna trek up to this waterfall but th heat was incredible and instead we made it half hour down the road to the next hostel where we decided to hire out some kyacks for an hour. That was well funny. We were told that we should steer well clear of the two islands just off where we headed out into the lake but found tht we had absolutely no control over their direction! The reason to stay clear was the monkeys on the island that are very dangerous and will bite you if you get close enough. Anyway Me and Mita ended up sharing the 2 seater kyack after 20 mins or so of me on the 1 person one and i got a
little bored simply drifting about so decided to start getting Mita wet with the use of the oars. We were quite wet already cos so much water kept coming in and we ended up absolutely saturated! Then, we decided to row over to the bank where there were some cute little kids playing in the lake. This one boy, he must have been only about 7 imediately jumped onto our kyack, right at the front, grinned at me with his toothless smile and kept asking for the oars. He sat straddled on the front of the boat rowing away and i had to lean right back to stop myself from getting gerotted by his over enthusiatic actions. Gem had 2 young girls jump on either end of her kyack and we messed around on the lake with them for a while. They were well cute! Anyway, by the time we'd had enough, I'd wrestled the oars off the little boy and Gem had taken back charge of her kyack we eventually managed to negotiate ourselves back to shore. And almost as imediately as i got out Mita decided to jump ontop of me and submerge me in the lake, both of us fully clothed. I think the few locals looking must have thought we were insane, but the kids loved it cos whilst me and Mita were acting the same age as them they took the kyacks and had a whale of a time messing around on them themselves.
We had planned to spend 4 to 5 days there but after 1'st night we had already decided to leave after just one more night and get to somewhere more interesting/exciting. The second night there we got to know some of our fellow travellers a little better and found that the group that we were chatting with best were also planning on leaving the next day and were also heading to San Juan Del Sur. The gang turned out to be the 2 English girls i mentioned earlier, a South African guy who'd spent the last 7 or so years of his life living in Leicester and his travel buddy - a guy from Canada. The 2 English girls, Cassie and Danielle were both from London, living in Hackney and had been doing much the same trip we had. Except theirs finishes after 6 months.
So the next day we went to the bus stop and practically the whole of the hostel had had the same idea and there must have been about 20 of us waiting for the bus. Anyway when it arrived, we piled on it to find the the seats were hard plastic. Now this was very bad cos half the 3 hour journey back to the boat is on a dirt track. With a slight hangover from the rum the previous night i think aost of the people on the bus had the worst journey of their travels. My arse was seriously hurting by the time that ride was over!!!
To be honest up to this point we'd all, not just us the other travllers we were with too, been quite disappointed with Nicaragua. So many people had raved about how great it was but we were finding it hard to agree and had had more fun in our previous countries. There didn't seem to be much fun had in Leon and Granada and it also wasn't quite as cheap as others had made out. Also i think the scenery had been more impressive elsewhere, except for those few days on the pacific coast at Pochomil and our 5* treat! However all 7 of us were headng to San Juan and every single one of us was dying for a big night out, and it just so happened that it was a Friday and San Juan was about to be our saviour to Nicaragua......
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