Blogs from Southern Pacific Coast, Nicaragua, Central America Caribbean - page 7

Granada is a beautiful colourful city, and we arrived at our hostel just before dusk. Sam and I bumped into a couple of guys from England in the communal area, and they came with us on a hunt to find Radio Shack (an electrical shop) for some essentials. Unfortunately we had a very out of date location (turns out it's just round the corner from the hostel!) but we had a lovely walk anyway! On our way back we had dinner in the plaza - chicken, rice and beans, naturally. The next day Sam and I had to wait for our laundry to come back before we could do anything- we hadn't done any since Antigua(!), and my phone being stolen in Leon meant we hadn't done it then, so basically everything we owned was out. ... read more

Geo: 11.5217, -85.6013The storm last night presented Annemarie and I, and our new travel buddies, a bit of a set back. We now had to travel again to get to our small town destination of Santa Cruz on the island.After a quick breakfast we were able to locate a bus that would take us. We arrived about an hour later where we were once again dropped on the side of the road. We asked directions and in blind faith hoped for the best. We had a nice walk of about 2km up a gentle hill. Along the way we were entertained by a small band of noisy howler monkeys. Arriving at a hostel, that doubles as an organic farm and a local coop for coffee growers, we had to decide our next step. Annemarie was really ... read more

After a significant lack of sleep due to practically sleeping with the livestock who were vocal all night Scott was awake at 5a.m to leave to climb one of the volcanoes. Annie went to the beach with most of the girls and was wondering the whole time if he was okay! To be fair, the four that hiked the 1000m incline did it in a very good time of 2 hours 35 minutes up then 3 slippery hours back down. When they turned up at the beach they looked surprisingly healthy and not at all exhausted. After lunch we went to the springs on the island which were very refreshing and had monkeys in the trees above for entertainment. On our return to our temporary home here we had a lovely dinner with our Ometepe mama ... read more

We were really roughing it today! We started off by cruising around the Isletas, where there are 365 little islands consisting of hotels, mansions, a graveyard and a monkey island! The morning was a little over cast which suited this trip as the humid temperatures are enough to deal with, but as we continued our busy day to a laguna beach club where they had VIP cubanas and hammocks overlooking the beautiful laguna, the sun came out which made for some amazing photos! We spent a few hours there and it was like paradise! After relaxing at the laguna and having a go at paddle boarding and kayaking, we took a short ride up the mountain to Masaya volcano. The volcano was very active and its last explosion was in 2012. We took a hike up ... read more

It had only been a day since we left New York (delays weren’t voluntary this time, sadly) but it already felt like we had been on the road a fair while. Our first stop was Panama City. Our first signs within the airport were good but a little disconcerting. We arrived at immigration expecting a barrage of questions and an interrogation worthy of Panama reputation as the stricter of the Central American countries. What actually happened was a reasonably cheery lady didn’t really bother to look at the form and took our photos and fingerprints before waving us through. It struck us that we were pretty much the only ‘gringo’ tourists on our flight or indeed any of the flights at that time. We weren’t quite sure about what that said for Panama tourism industry or ... read more