Departamento Rivas

Ometepe is with his 270 km² the world largest volcanic island in an sweet water lake! Its name derives from the Nahuatl words ome (two) and tepetl (mountain), meaning two mountains. The two volcanoes of Concepción and Maderas are joined by a low isthmus to form one island in the shape of an hourglass or peanut.

‘Schwarzenegger’ - my car and so to say home - would float once more. The ferry takes you in a short ride to San Jose, probably the biggest village on Ometepe. On the ferry I would bump into this one guy I saw somewhere before on this trip. I recon all longterm travellers know that feeling where you subconsciously start filtering people and names because the mass gets to overwhelming. In my case, I rather remember the nationality than the actual name. So this.. - lets call him Dude for now (its the Dude on one of my pics with the funny tattoo). So this Dude, from Canada, got actually stuck on Ometepe for a couple of months before. I just thought to myself - How convenient, the Dude knows the whole place!

I offered the Dude a ride to wherever he suggests. For the first time I would have the pleasure of driving four people around! It wasn't that much of a pleasure for the guys in the back thought! With close to 40C in the shade the Schwarzenegger would be very close to a Finnish sauna, additionally the road would elevate in the style of a roller coaster! They grew a bit disconsolate when I stopped quickly to take some pics of the blooming trees. Well, it would be the last picture for a while! After Ometepe my camera got stolen and with it the rest of the pictures from this stunning place.
After a while we got to Rancho Morgan. A great place with a view tower, a nice bar and oh surprise a pool table! Unfortunately the only available unit was pretty dirty and with 50$ not in the price range we where aiming at. After a quick game we hit the road with the goal of finding a shelter for the night. We didn't take into account how quick the sun would set though. After close to two hours of driving and asking around we found a bungalow resort. The condos stood just a couple of meters away from the beach and there seemed no one else to be there. I bargained the original price of 60$ down to 25$ per unit and with that we had a really cosy room for the next three nights.

We spend the time like proper holidayers. After the many location changes of the last past days reading, hiking along the beach and chilling in the sun would charge our batteries up. Our travel mates, Ester and Devon would after the time here go their own way. It was a great time with them howsoever I think everyone felt the urge for less boundaries and more flexibility.

The move to the eco friendly El Zopilote hostel on the other side of the island came with the need to discover more of this picturesque place. Once more we had the pleasure of sleeping in a treehouse. If you like yoga, healthy food and with that a lot of hippies - thats your place!

With San Juan del Sur on the mainland we enter a completely different climate. Even if I would have pictures from there, they wouldn't make it on the blog. This is not because the place is not much to look at, but its a typical party stronghold. Busloads of young party folks come here every single Sunday for the famous SUNDAY - FUNDAY celebrations. So this is how it works; First, you pay 50$ and get a stupid tank top where Sunnday Funday is printed on. Second, you get transport that drives you in-between three different hostels in town. And thats already it! Now you can spend another 150$ on drinks so this whole think makes any sense. Or in my case I just decided to have a bottle with friends for 15$ on the beach and go to the last location to have a laugh of all these drunk kids. Well unfortunately I don't have the badass tank top now!

I found a nice deal on Booking, so we stayed at the Surf Ranch. Its way off the crowds and offers brand new rooms and a great pool area. Through a huge coincidence I found out about a small Discgolf course nearby. The Marsella Valley course offers twelve ‘self made’ baskets and is run by this nice American fella named Vince.
After a couple of rounds Vince came by and invited me after the game to a barbecue his friends do weekly, in one of the nearby resorts. We followed the invitation and where quite perplex when we encountered this big group of Americans that moved to Nica for good. It seemed a bit surreal. The display could be anywhere in California. Friends doing a typical barbecue with typical US dishes and the usual chitchat. The warm welcome by the whole group and the interest in our storys would make me longing for the times in the US.

So this was Nicaragua for me. It couldn't keep up with the expectations, which where due to feedbacks of other travellers pretty high, but it was a great time after all. Maybe my judgement is still affected by the fact that I lost my precious camera here…

Granada Departament

The way from Leon to Granada leads us through a dramatic scenery of mountains, lush forests and the vast lake Managua. Not intending on a visit of the capitol, Managua, we still had a nice view from the mountain range above. The city is surrounded on one side by the lake and on the other by the lush green. Due to this unique setting it doesn't appear like a 2.3 Mio. citizens metropolis. Shortly after we arrived in Granada. The city was founded in 1524 by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, ostensibly the first European city in mainland America!

Even before looking for an accommodation, we decided to visit first the old, deserted hospital and the cemetery just next to it. I love this kind of spooky, abandoned and crumbly scenery. The sun was just about to set what gave this place an additional ambience. Once more we were urged not to move to far away from the main alleys due to the high possibility of being mugged by locals. While travelling on my own I’m usually don’t follow this kind of advice - you get the best pics where nobody else is taking them. The insurance of my equipment relieves me from the burden of worrying all the time about the financial loss of my gear in case it gets stolen - and that is something definitely worth looking into before your next trip! It’s different though when you travel in a group, you automatically take responsibility for the others and of course you don't want to put your friends into an unpleasant or even dangerous situation by your actions.

We didn't bother to do an reservation for an hostel so it took as a while to find something in our price range. Luckily Granda is very touristy and offers over twenty hostels in city centre. I can’t recall the name of the hostel we finally decided on. I do remember well though, that non of us spend a relaxing night. The next day I suggested a place that was recommended to me - the Poste Rojo Treehouse! It’s around a half an hour drive southwards on route 4 from Granda. That said I better mention that its quite an challenge to find the dirt road that goes off the main road. I our case we stopped next to a little hut and asked an older guy who was working on something in his garage. Turns out this dude is a German fella that lives over 15 years here. Due to the fact that the owner of the treehouse is a good friend of his (apparently he gets wasted there quite a lot) he offered to drive along with us so we don't get lost. The dirt rack led us first over some meadows to the slope of a forrest covered hill. From here on it was a steep hike up to the nicely covered treehouse hostel. Super sweaty we where greeted with a free water and a amazing view.

Living in a jungle is in my opinion fantastic! To be fair I don’t struggle as bad as others on mosquito bites. The feeling being just a sand corn in a dessert is probably the closest to describe how i feel in rain forests - hihi, ironic analogy. But yeah, the millions of animals becoming a symphony of sounds makes me feel unimportant and small in a good way.

So far I enjoyed traveling in this group of the four of us a lot. But as most things, it comes with a down side. Es and Dev where rather short on time and announced to me that they can just stay two nights here. I agreed on taking them further to Isla Ometepe even before we got to this fantastic spot. Unfortunately I regretted this promise afterwards - because this place is one of these spots where you can get easily stuck for a while. Anyway, we had a blast here the time being and moved as usual further down south!

Leon Departament

Except of the nice sounding name of Leon I didn't know nothing about this place. To be honest I just found out now that it has the second oldest university of central America (1813), that it’s the second biggest city in Nicaragua after Managua (210,100) and hosts the largest cathedral of central America! Well so much to the quick facts, if you want to know how I spend my time here hit the “Flip out” button!

It seems the Nica guys love to play pool over everything. Wherever you go you'll find at least a decent table and company to play against. Dev and Es love the game as well so we spend a lot of time playing Nica rules where you have to sink the 15 on the left centre pocket and the 7 on the right. Other than playing pool and parting in the Big Foot hostel with Dean (2nd encounter) we honestly didn't do much more the first days!

For a change we decided one day to visit the turtle sanctuary on the seaside. On the way there I got pulled over by the police for overtaking and speeding. Just a couple days before I had to brag about that I never had any encounters wit the coppers so far, except the Grand Canyon story. So there we go. Papers please- I pull a passport copy. No original! In the hotel. No, no, original or car will be confiscated. Good I didn't give them the originals because then they would hold a real bargain against me. I got this one good advice from a friend to stay patient and pretty much sit it out until they get bored. Fact is I have plenty of time! So after twenty minutes I asked the question. How much to solve the problem? With 500 Nicaraguan Cordobas (18USD) their day was made and I saved the initially asked 5000!
Our target, a turtle sanctuary could be reached just by a short boat ride. Once on the peninsula you hike for another 20 min through a lush mangrove forest with millions of colourful crabs until you reach this beautiful sanctuary/hostel on the beach. We spend the day here relaxing on the shores and slack lining.

The following day we finally decided to do the cultural part in the old city centre. As I mentioned in the begging Leon hosts the largest cathedral of central America. The Cathedral of León, also known as the "Real and Renowned Basilica Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary”, short RARBCOTAOTBVM, has a fantastic feature. You can climb on the roof. Painted completely white it gives you the impression being on a snow covered mountain, or more biblical- in heaven (bring shades or you go blind)! The view is a blast. You get a 360 panorama of the city with its church towers and the volcanos on the close horizon. In my opinion the greatest foto-opp in the whole area! With this done it was once more time to get the kids in the car and drive on…