Advertisement
I began the long, dusty, bumpy trek back to "Nicaragua" at 5am from Pearl Lagoon, changing at Rama, Juigalpa, and Managua (taxi across to UCA terminal) to arrive in Granada some 15 hours later. It wasn't the most comfortable of journeys: the school buses were cramped, old, and most of the roads were unsealed. During the leg between Rama and Juigalpa I was sat next to a lady with her sick 11 month old son. She was taking him to the nearest hospital - 8 hours away by bus. The son then shat his nappy and the bus driver wouldn't stop for her to change him at the side of the road so I stood up to allow her to do it across our two seats. The bus filled with the aroma of baby diarrhoea and she managed to get some on the seat and on my day pack - nice! She finally got it cleared up and slung the discarded nappy out of the bus window by the feet of about 20 people waiting at a bus stop - nice! (maybe this type of thing is a good reason for using handwash before eating anything on the bus!)
I
then spent the rest of that leg of the journey with a very fat man's belly pushed up against my face. That prompted a conversation with the woman about exercise. Sadly, I could barely understand a word she said as she had a ridiculously strong campesino accent, swallowing half the letters. She couldn't understand my accent either, which she told me by twitching her nose and flaring her nostrils - a lovely gesture they use here to signify "what the hell are you talking about". Another great one I picked up is to point at something by pouting your lips at it.
During the final leg of the journey I had a very different travelling companion - a well spoken man from the Corn Islands who now works at the American Embassy in Managua but lives in Granada (an hour commute). He filled me with great information about Granada, told me where to get off, and recommended a great hostel - all in excellent English. I arrived at the hostel, Bearded Monkey, at around 8pm fairly frazzled. It's a really nice hostel with a good atmosphere and I easily met other travellers to hangout with. I spent the next
few days there looking around the city.
The morning after my arrival I and some other travellers from the hostel walked to Laguna de Apoyo, a beautiful, clear, crater lake surrounded by trees. The walk in the intense sun was a little draining and took around three hours but we were rewarded by a refreshing swim on the untouched deserted side of the lake. The usual way to get there is to take a tour booked through the hostel for about $15 which takes you to the other side of the lagoon where there are buildings and a lot more people.
The following day I took a trip to Massaya - a town about 30mins away well known for handicrafts. We had a look around but it wasn't that remarkable and the handicrafts market was nothing more than the usual tourist trinkets so I didn't buy anything.
Then I took the bus back to San Juan via Rivas to prepare for my crossing to Costa Rica. I spent a couple of days hanging out there with Katyanna and Kristin and doing a bit of yoga. This time I stayed in Pachamama - also full of surf dudes
but much better atmosphere than Casa Oro. And on to Costa Rica!.....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.236s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 8; qc: 52; dbt: 0.1641s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb