27 June - 4 July 2011
We'd decided on a place called Little Morgans for our stay on Isla de Ometepe, but it was a little out of the way. First we had to catch a bus to the Costa Rican/Nicuragua border, wait while we were processed and customs checked(7 hours), get back on the bus for 40 minutes until we got to a town called Rivas (luckily we asked when the bus stopped or we would have gone all the way to Managua), bargain with a taxi driver to take us to the port (he started at USD10 and we got him down to USD4, which is still almost twice the rate we later found out), catch a ferry for an hour to the island and then luckily we found some people to share a cab with down to Santa Cruz to get to
Little Morgans. We arrived and they had given the last bed away around 15 minutes earlier! Not too bad though because we got the last 2 available hammocks.
After all that it was time for a beer (for Kitty at least because Lawrie was on antibiotics for his foot again). The owners of the place are a crazy Irishman and a couple from Melbourne. We immediately felt at home and had some good food and a nice relaxing evening.
 |
| Sunset behind Volcán Concepción from the hostel |
Lawrie went fishing the next morning, while Kitty chilled back at the hostel. In the afternoon we moved into our cute little cabana and lazed around reading. Isla de Ometepe is actually two volcanos joined by a little land bridge made from lava flow and the main reason we had come here was to climb one of the volcanos but Lawrie's foot meant that this was't going to be possible.
 |
Fishing boat. The captain (also security guard) rowed out
to the middle of the lake! |
 |
| Tree on the lake shore |
 |
| Fish |
 |
| Smoke cloud over Volcán Concpción |
The last day on the island we walked to a natural swimming hole called Ojos de Agua. It took us a lot longer to reach than we thought but it was totally worth it - it was beautiful and the water incredibly refreshing. We had another nice night in the bar and Anton and Tess (the Aussie owners) offered us a lift to Granada in the morning, which was hugely appreciated.
 |
| Ojos de Agua |
 |
| Ojos de Agua from a different perspective |
In Granada we stayed at a guesthouse called Casa del Agua, which was run by another crazy Irishman. The place was lovely and our room had a balcony and a 4-poster bed. Not bad for $30 per night! We went for a walk around town because our room wasn't ready and continued our Nicaraguan theme of just taking it easy.
The next day we hired bicycles and road around town, looking at the old buildings and organising our bus trip to Guatemala.
 |
| El Recodo, the oldest house in Granada |
 |
| The cathedral on the main plaza |
 |
| Iglesia de Guadalupe |
 |
| Entrance to the Fortaleza la Pólvora |
 |
Inside the Fortaleza. It was closed so this picture
was actually taken through the bars of the gate |
That evening we attempted to go on the night tour of Volcan Masaya but the weather was terrible and we cut the tour short, with the intention of trying again the next night.
The next night the weather was much better and we got to see the volcano crater again, climbed right up to the top and got some cool panoramic shots, did a cave tour and got to see bats flying out of another cave.
Our last day in Granada we were going to do a kayak tour in the morning but it was bucketing down. Luckily it cleared up enough for us to go ziplining in the afternoon. It was our first time on a dual cable zipline, and it was pretty cool because you can do more tricks like going upside down and superman. We hung out at the hostel until our taxi came to pick us up (early) at 11:15pm to take us to Managua for our bus to Guatemala.
 |
| Kitty geared up for ziplining |
 |
Lawrie and Kitty on one of the suspension
walkways |
 |
| Lawrie |
 |
| Lawrie upside down |
No comments:
Post a Comment