Blogs from Southern Pacific Coast, Nicaragua, Central America Caribbean - page 8

To get down to Panama, our final stop of the Central American diaries we needed to get back to Granada so decided to book an AirBnb there with our friends from Bristol and have a last weekend with them. The AirBnb is owned by an American called Glenn who moved to Granada with his wife 5 years ago and we got a beautiful apartment for around £8 each a night. Over the weekend we did some stuff we missed out on in our last visit but unfortunately all the girls got food poisoning on the first day so we couldn't do much. The highlight of the weekend was the trip around the isletas in Granada. In lake Nicaragua and just off the Granada port is 365 archipelagos, some containing houses, some monkeys, some birds, one was ... read more

On Thursday 21 we headed back to the Bigfoot hostel for 9am again, this time to catch our shuttle to Granada. The journey wasn't too bad as it only took 3 and a half hours, meaning we still had the afternoon to explore this colonial city once we got there. Some of the buildings and architecture are simply beautiful and there are plenty of properties with big open courtyards with lucious greens, water features and birds. The central park and cathedral were particularly stunning in their appearance. As well as sporting lovely trees and a decorative fountain, the park has several market stalls selling traditional arts, crafts and jewellery, all of which seem to be handmade and it is also the best place to catch a horse and cart somewhere as they are all stationed around ... read more

We'd heard we just had to visit the lake island of Ometepe. Several people we'd met raved about it and even stayed longer than planned. Ometepe is an island popping out in the middle of Lago Nicaragua (which itself seemingly makes up half the country's area) and consists mainly of two large volcanoes that can be hiked up. Dan did his homework for accommodation and found a nice little place called Hacienda Merida which gives back to the community in two ways: they run a bilingual school, teaching English as a second language, to prepare kids to enter the tourism trade on the island; and they request that all tour guides soliciting business from guests bring four water bottles filled with non-biodegradable garbage (collected on the island) which will then be used as building materials. The ... read more

San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua With high winds blowing we relaxed on the ship, had a leisurely breakfast in one of the dining rooms, then took the elevator down to deck 4 to get a tender to town. Wow what a choppy boat ride into this small port and town. San Juan del Sur is a small town on a horseshoe shaped harbor. Even though we have been told there is not much to see here (many people have opted for the long ride to Grenada or Managua) we elected to poke around today. Today we are happy to just wander around, shop, have a great local lunch and check email. We get off the tender and find ourselves at the far right of the harbor. There is nothing here and only a dirt road heading ... read more

Docked in the horseshoe bay of San Juan Del Sur 7.00a.m. and tendered to the dock. Teamed up with Val and Merv from Sarena (Rae they are friends of Des and Chris from the World Cruise and who are going on the Japan cruise with Vic and Chris and you and Jim), lovely couple, we decided to share a taxi to Granada. Two hour drive to the city which is an old colonial town settled in 1540 and sits on the edge of the magnificent Nicaragua Lake (this lake is 110 mile long by 45 mile wide, largest in Central America), thought to once have been ocean but a volcano explosion separated it from the ocean as there are sharks and fish in this lake that are found nowhere else in the world, they had to ... read more