Sweet rum, broad lakes, rising surf breaks, smoking volcanoes and smoking cigars.........How to spend 3 weeks in a mysterious land........

Week 1

Welcome the arrival of a new member to the wolfpack, this time a wolfette to help curb the testosterone fuelled preceding weeks of misadventure. Melissa arrived to a welcoming marching band and parade, with myself trying to feign interest in catching up, while assembling my bike, which she had bought down. Not much time for rest though as we were promptly testing ourselves and our bikes on a short trip down to the closest coast from Leon. A confused river crossing and a beach walk later and we arrived on a remote island with a small lodge where we would rest and swim and rest some more. Nothing like a hammock strung up in front of your own private cabana on a private beach to really put your mind to ease.

Carrying local produce

river crossings with bikes = fun

Melissa making friends with the locals

Time for contemplation

View from the cabana

Paradise couldn't last forever though and a few days later we were off again on the bikes to Leon where we teamed up with a volunteer trekking company to tackle some volcano boarding along with an overnight hike over a few volcanoes. Camping on the side of a volcano while overlooking a perfectly shaped, active volcano sitting in a lake with the ocean to the East in the distance.....it was like Nicaragua was competing for the world's best viewpoints at every turn.

Sweet outfits for volcano boarding

Down we come

Top of the hike

In the top 10 of my camp spots of all time

Sun setting over the pacific in the distance

Returning to Leon we decided it was time to head to the hills in Northern Nicaragua to try out some local highland culture. The fact that cigar, rum and chocolate factories were also located in this region is of pure coincidence. Tours of chocolate factories and cigar factories followed with some samples taken back to the lab for testing of course.

Local samples

Lab testing

Pumped up after a few days of excess rum, high cocoa rated chocolate (after our tour we now know all the intricate facts about chocolate production) and regional cigars, it was time to split the wolfpack up for a few days, with the 2 more hardy members cycling way up, then back down the northern hills and towards Granada, a quaint colonial town straddling Lake Nicaragua, Central America's largest lake. Quiche made the quicker and decidedly drier trip on the bus and set up shop there before we arrived discovering the best coffee places and bakeries, all the important things....The 2 tough members fought out some km's through the hills and rain all the way there. Melissa was enjoying a nice intro to cycling in Central America with the men, young and old, seemingly oblivious to her being accompanied by another male were hooting and cheering her every time she rode past. One ingenious fello even managed to hang from a moving bus and, without knocking her off, get a full grab of her rear end as she cycled. As you can imagine, she was less than flattered but I thought the whole effort was nothing short of bloody impressive.

Ah the rain

Fixing flats while fixing a drink - more my style

The region around Granada included some quieter villages and with only 2 bicycles and 3 people, we decided there was only one option - scooters! So off we went, scooting around, honking horns and dodging cows along the bumpy roads through small villages and against all plans and better judgement, somehow ending up smack bang in the capital city of Nicaragua, at night. Probably not the safest option but we buzzed out of there quick enough. Spending money and eating gelati at a higher than desirable rate, it was time to get out of tourist towns and head for the lake...



Melissa on the scooter

 Week 2

With a tear in our eye, we boarded a rustic ferry to cross the massive lake towards the beautiful Isle de Ometepe. Why a tear you ask? Well, Quiche got the call up from the international mountain goat association and was invited to be a key note speaker in their Vietnam AGM and had to leave suddenly, leaving me with no reasonable excuse to drink excessive rum on weeknights. Life must digress though and the island was just the place to do that. I say island, but really it is just a chunk of land formed by volcanic flows of the 2 massive volcanoes jutting out of the lake. People make their living from fishing, farming and generally taking life as slow as humanly possible. Buses run occasionally, roads get fixed sporadically, but everyone has time for lunchtime siestas and a cold beer as the sun sets. This was life the way the higher powers intended it.



Crossing the lake




Sunsetting back over Granada

 Swimming in the lake, horseriding the mountains and cycling old dusty roads, while continually being in the shadow of a 1,600m monster volcano was an eerie and very rewarding experience. The line "I could live here" has never been uttered from my lips in such high volume as the 5 nights we spent on Ometepe. Truly a special place.

Cycling on Ometepe island

Refreshing lake swimming

Dodging the local traffic

Melissa making friends again

Hammock camping with a view

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This one's for Quiche

Week 3

After a very stressful week on the island.......ok, I can't even type that with a straight face....we got the morning ferry back to the mainland and reality. Well reality at least for a few hours as we pedalled straight for the south west coast to a neat little village called San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua's surfing capital. While apparently overun with white folk, we found it very chilled and relaxing. Sure, there was more than a little foreign investment and a distinct tourist feel, but how can you blame the place. Snug in a cover and surrounded by picture perfect beaches with nice surf breaks. A day of surfing and a few more of general relaxing, while developing amazing business plans based around living in this new paradise were just enough for us.



Making friends with the hostel cat

 So now we sit, sweaty and tired in a dodgy neighbourhood in Managua, waiting for a 5am bus to Honduras tomorrow where we will continue our assault on mountain regions and small villages on our bicyles. No day dreaming on fantasy islands in the schedule unfortunately....

A note on Nicaraguan's

While I feel, as I do in all places where I haven't spent sufficient time, inadequate to summarise a culture in a paragraph, I will note down some observations, both good and bad, about a country and it's people that we really enjoyed spending 3 weeks with

Relaxed, laid back and easy going. For a country barely out of civil war conflict, the culture and the people are remarkably welcoming, friendly and chilled out. In fact, in some communities, if they moved any slower, they'd almost be going backwards. Almost everyone we met (aside from the sleezeballs hissing at Melissa from car window's) were eager to talk to us, hear our stories, share their's and assist with any request we had for help or directions, even if they had no idea where they were going themselves. I learnt more from the semi trailer driver who picked us up stranded in the rain one day and made us sit in his cab while making his brother sit on the flat deck in the rain, than I have from some of my close mates.

As with other Central American countries visited so far, there seems to be a very wide gap between the countries rich and poor. Brand new American built trucks driving through impoverished villages in not an uncommon site, particularly in the tourist invested South West. Young kids aspire to some North American cultural ideals as do many people in other countries but the focus and importance of family is evident at every turn. Homes are built around a central common area where the family sits and eats and discussed life, all together. An ideal that is lost on some more developed economies' cultures unfortunately.

So with an interesting culture, warm people, stunning landscapes and scope for adventure, Nicaragua is firmly planted in my mind for future travels.

Let's see what Honduras has in store.....

Until next time Nicaragua