Blogs from Estelí, Northern Highlands, Nicaragua, Central America Caribbean - page 9

LEON It seemed liked I´d changed worlds completely when I left the tranquil beauty of La Moskitia outlined in my last blog and, after spending more than a day and a half on buses, arrived in the groovy Spanish colonial city of Leon, the 2nd largest city in Nicaragua. It wasn´t just that I´d gone from primary rainforest to a decent sized city, but when I was out in Moskitia there were hardly any other travellers to see; Leon, however, is one of the main cities on "The Gringo Trail" through Central America, somewhere that almost everybody backpacking through these parts will stop at, and after having spent some time in the previous weeks a bit isolated from other travellers I purposefully went and checked myself into one of the budget traveller places in Leon with ... read more

Miraflor The first of two organic farms we planned to WWOOF for, Finca Neblina del Bosque, was twelve-hectares on the edge of Miraflor Nature Reserve, 30km from Estelí. Only a year old, the farm´s fruit trees are just knee-high, they had only one chicken (with chicks), one pregnant pig, two horses, and a sweet collie named Fiona. It´s run by an interesting couple - Isabel is German and her husband Edwardo is Nica - who started the farm after selling some land on Isla de Ometepe. We volunteered doing mostly repair and maintenance work, while indulging in the serene setting, and studying Spanish with a sweet tutor named Marta. They fed us basic meals, lots of potatoes and gallo pinto (rice n beans), and housed us in their bamboo eco-cabañas powered by solar panels (the source ... read more

We departed Granada and said goodbye to Veronica and Achim and wished them well on their trip back to Europe after traveling all over the world for nine months. It was hard to say goodbye as we had experienced so much together in such a short amount of time and not knowing when we would see each other again, but they were extremely tired from such a long trip and looking forward to going home and resting up. We went to Esteli to do some volunteer work at Hope Clinic (A medical clinic based out of Ypsilanti, Michigan) Esteli, Nicaragua branch. We heard about the clinic through one of Michelle's friends back in Michigan and were excited about helping out in the Nicaraguan clinic. Esteli is the principal town between Managua and the Honduran border and ... read more