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I love Nicaragua not only for its natural beauty, but also for its diversity and culture.
When we decided to put Nicaragua in our travel plans, we were thinking of its other neighboring countries such as, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatamala all the way to Belize. It was such a great thought to think we could reach these places if we only we stayed longer. As for Nicaragua, a friend of a friend recommended to go to this place. It is the most populous city located in coast of the Lake Cocibolca (one of the world's largest lakes). We made the decision to avoid going to the capital, Managua due to news of conflict and violence.
Our journey took 2 hours from the Border of Costa Rica to the border of Nicaragua by bus plus a 40 minute taxi ride to the town center.
Granada is simply beautiful with stunning colonial buildings, natural sceneries that includes lakes, beaches and volcanoes. Our sight seeing in the other islands and time spent with the local community was an amazing experience.
The place we stayed in is called Con Corazon (In English: 'With Heart'), a nonprofit hotel dedicated to sponsoring and
helping the children of Nicaragua. A place like this is worth staying to support a good cause.
We would recommend going to Masaya market which has many different shops ranging from antiques, clothing and souvenirs. Don't miss out seeing few live volcanoes of Nicaragua, one in general is called Masaya Volcano which has breath taking view of the fields and the city of Managua.It is also amazing to see one of the largest crater that continues to emit large amounts of white smoke into thin air. From here, you can also go to the bat cave. It is the longest volcanic cave I've ever seen in my life. It's always great to be in touch with nature and to learn more about a place we never knew existed.
The local community visit gave us an opportunity to see many other islands, one in particular is Las Isletas. This collection of something like 365 islands is well worth a day trip. Many of these tiny islands have been converted into private escapes each having its own uniquely designed beautiful house, typically owned by the rich and famous of Nicaragua + some foreigners.
Being with the local community was
a blessing. We got to know how they live and how they survive in poverty. Fishing and farming are their only means of income. Being with all of these special kids makes us realize how lucky we are. I still remember their happy smiles. This is definitely the main highlight of our trip to Nicaragua. 😊
The other places that we went to is the Ometepe Island consisting of two volcanoes, side by side. They are called Maderas and Concepcion volcanoes. To get here from Granada, we decided to hire a car and drove to Rivas which is another poorer, undeveloped city. From Rivas, we head to the main island port called Moyogalpa where we took an hour ferry to Ometepe island.
If we knew this island offers lodging for tourists, we could have stayed here overnight. Make sure to hire a scooter in this place as there is lots to see. If you are heading to this place, we would recommed climbing one of the volcanoes. It takes a full day though.
Our next stop is the beach place called San Juan Del Sur. This is where will spend our New Year of 2010. This place
is a small fishing village full of restaurants and bars along the beach front. THis place also offers different hideaway beaches. To reach these beaches, we drove an hour inside rocky and uneven roads of this jungle. It was a bit freaky as our car was not a 4x4. I was scared that any moment our tyre might burst. Some of these beaches interconnecting the coastline are known to be paradise for surfers. One in particular that we fell in love with was called 'El Coco Playa' situated an hour drive from San Juan Del Sur. The water here is very clearer and beach have magnificent view of the ocean.
The other thing that we did was to visit the turtle nesting.. The place is called La Flor beach, known for its turtle wildlife refuge. It also took us an hour to get to this place through bumpy roads deep into the jungle. Sadly, I was again weary and worried of the rough pathways and bumpy pressure ride our small car had to go through. Luckily, Ben's good at navigation and he always manage to find his way around places esp when he decides to surprise me with his
so called 'mystery tour'.
When we reached La Flor, we were rather disappointed because we paid a lot of money to get inside the beach with a tour guide, only to find locals kids playing around the beach even after midnight. This certainly scares the turtles away. To be frank, this place is suppose to be a sanctuary refuge for these turtles and we didn't feel like these animals are being protected. It's also a pity because these turtles swam long distances to lay their eggs in a safe place, but with all the locals, playing football and digging in the sand, its enough to know how disappointed and sorry we feel for these beautiful creatures.
Our next stop was round two of Costa Rica. When we reached the border of Nicaragua, we were overwhelmed to see hundreds and hundreds of people in line for immigration. There are something like 1 million nicaraguans living & working in Costa Rica and on the very day we tried to cross the border it seemed like everyone else had the same idea, wanting to get back home to Costa Rica after the New Year holidays. In the end we queued for
over 4 hours, just managing to catch the flight we thought we would miss from Liberia to San Jose.
Our last night in Costa Rica was super chilled and we flew the next morning to Hong Kong.
Now looking back at all the things we did and crammed into a two week trip, we surely didn't mind all the hassle, queuing and long haul flights that sucks all our energy away. Instead we enjoyed every minute of it and it is after all what travelling is all about.
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