Jinotega, Matagalpa and beyond..

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Ok, so sorry for being slack a combination the only excuse we can offer is a combination of hot weather, small towns with no computers and immense amounts of re-planning as the trip changes day by day. Enough excuses now, back to the update.


We left Esteli after a couple of interesting days and a trip to the barbers for Ben (see pics) and headed for Jinotega, dubbed the city of mists but should have been called the city of corregated iron. We arrived in Jinotega after 3 and a half hours, a rocky path and a bus breakdown later. We wandered around in the scorching heat looking for somewhere to use the bathroom, when we stumbled across a local bar. Upon entering the bar, the whole place seemed to stop, cowboy hats turned and had there been music the record would have scratched to a halt! We were instantly given a litre of beer without asking and the cheapest food I have ever eaten in my life (a couple of empañadas for under a pound). After much deliberation we decided not to stay in Jinotega as none of the locals seemed to know where anything was and the lying planet had struck again.

Back on the bus we headed for Matalgalpa on a beautiful scenic road which twisted up through the mountains on an actual road rather than dirt path. Our arrival in Matagalpa was less stressful and we did a whistle stop tour of the town, which included a couple of games of pool in the most local pool hall in the world!

The next day we headed for Leon, which was once the capital of Nicaragua and remains the Sandinista capital of the country. Other than the rubbish that littered the streets, Leon was very pretty and provided us with good times and great street meat! We attracted many street kids as tourists, who attached themselves to me and wanted to wear my sunglasses (see pics!).

We took the opportunity to head to the beach for the first time since we had been away. Our first attempt was unsuccessful, being the only cloudy day we had so far, but we did meet an American who kept us entertained with conspiracy theories and other tales. Our second attempt, was more succesful with a glorious day and a delightful cerviche lunch!

After a week in Leon we decided we needed to relax....

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