Blogs from Leon, Northern Pacific Coast, Nicaragua, Central America Caribbean - page 15

Destination: Volcano Cerro Negro, an active volcano 25km from Leon, Nicaragua. Mission: To sledge down the side of the black sand volcano on a wooden board as fast as we possibly could. Purpose: None whatsoever. Total utter madness. Equipment: One pair of goggles. One orange jump suit Guantanamo-style. One piece of plywood slighty larger than a skateboard, patched at the bottom with a metal sheet, topped with three cross timbers and a bit of rope with a handle. No expense spared. Going up: It was a well marched pathway, made tougher by the fact we were each carrying our own boards. The higher we climbed, the more determined the wind seemed to snatch the boards away. For a short distance the path disappeared. A tremor a few weeks previous had covered the path in rocks. That ... read more

So after a relaxing few days in Utila, scuba diving, chilling with some fellow canadians, and just taking it all in...we made it Leon, Nicaragua after a day and a half of driving (left the Bay Islands at 620am and made it to a town right outside the border of Nicaragua at about 10pm). Its beautiful here...quite like Antigua. Old churches (the biggest in Central America is here), very lively, but the surrounding areas are the poorest I think I´ve seen to date. We´re staying in a hostel called the Big Foot...very english. It has a tiny little pool in the courtyard...and when I say tiny, I mean if I layed straight out on the surface of the water, I´d meet both ends of the pool. We met a dude from the States who´s been living ... read more

On 31st December we caught the bus from Tegucigalpa in Honduras to Leon in Nicaragua so had a border crossing ahead of us - great way to end the year! We got on the bus prepared for another spanish dubbed movie when The Mask came on.... in English! Lorna got very excited as is her second favourite movie. Now what many of you may not know is there was a second mask movie made called Son of the Mask, which was nearly as bad as the S Club movie we watched on the Mexican bus. Very close to call though. But we still watched it cos it was in English but there is a good reason it isn´t well known. The border crossing was nothing really, because of the agreement. Just have to pay $10 to ... read more

Leaving Los Naranjos at 6 in the morning we managed to get to Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, by about 11, although we were expecting only a couple of hours journey. From there we literally jumped on a moving bus that would take us to Choluteca, from where we took a minibus to the Honduran side of the border. We were dropped off by the minibus and very swiftly picked up by a fat man on a trike, with space for the bags, who peddled us, rather half heartedly in my opinion, to the border formalities and part of the way to the bus stop for Leon, we may of got a bit ripped off but he was really struggling bless him. At 6pm, yes thats 12hours travelling so far, our bus to Leon left and we ... read more

Today was finally a relatively laid back day. Our only plans were to check out Leon then head to Managua in the afternoon. I still woke up around 5:30 AM, used to early starts I guess. My laundry was getting stinky so I washed some clothes out and hung them to dry; I'd hoped to have some clean clothes for the trip back home tomorrow. Even better, we actually had time for breakfast this morning. The hostel offered a breakfast of pancakes, fruit and juice.. quite yummy. We set off and spent a few hours wandering around town. There are a few good churches in town; specifically the Cathedral in the main square is the largest in Central America. There are also several murals around town. Leon is still a pro-Sandanista town, we saw FSLN signs ... read more