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After leaving the girls we slipped back into our more uncertain means of travel. What I mean by this is we rocked up to the bus stop and asked a few questions and crossed our fingers, hoping that a bus would go where we wanted to go. Most buses tend to go when they're full and that didn't take too long. Our plan was to head north, back to Nicaragua and spend some time there. We got a bus, a boat and another bus and ended back in Liberia, which was a lot livelier as the festival was on.
We headed back to the bus stop early in the morning and a local pointed us in the right direction for the bus to Nicaragua, telling us the price and time it left. Unfortunately traveling can make you skeptical of people, as a lot of people see a "gringo" and want to make a few bucks from them. So when a person is genuinely kind, it always is remembered.
The border crossing was straight forward, a 500m walk between countries. The scam the locals try and do at both borders is make you pay for the exit/entry form, but we held tight and got the free one in the immigration office.
Our first stop in Nicaragua was Ometepe Island, in Lake Nicaragua (8000km2!). The island consists of 2 volcanoes, joined together by a narrow isthmus. There's good land for growing plantains and there's a couple of villages and a few thousand people. We met a Nicaraguan and his sister (and their friend), who very kindly offered us transport to Merida, in the south. We happily accepted and traveled in the back of their truck. We stopped at a point where Kim walked on water and the other exciting thing was running over a chicken. We were oblivious until we heard some honking and then saw an explosion of feathers! That was dinner decided for one local family.
Hacienda Merida, is a great hostel, right on the lake with stunning sunsets and a very tranquil chilled out atmosphere. We lay in hammocks and did a bit of kayaking to Monkey Island. Kim nearly jumped out of the Kayak when the monkeys made a B line for us, swinging from the trees. They were like naughty kids, looking for someone to play with, or bite!
After 2 days looking at the intimidating sight of the volcanoes we decided to hire a guide and tackle the smaller one. We left at 7am and returned at 2pm. 7hrs of hiking was pretty tough, the terrain varied from a stone path to climbing over roots of trees in the cloud forest. Kim likes to tell people that I slipped more times than her, which is true. We ended up very muddy! And the guide was spotless, apart from the mud we splashed him with, he does it 3 times a week, so lots of practice. We tipped him well as he hiked in a pair of extremely worn and ripped Puma trainers. The views were unfortunately solely of cloud, so the only thing we could take from it was surviving it, achieving it and some sore legs for the next few days.
Our Nicaraguan friends had left the day before so we got the local bus which took about 2hrs longer and amazingly avoided all livestock on the roads! The local buses are a great way to see what the people get up to on a normal day and can actually be a lot of fun. The boat we got looked a bit dodgy but we put our trust in the fact that the locals were getting on happily. It had a level for cargo and a few seats downstairs beside the engine. We stayed on top with the cargo and watched our rucksacks nervously as they swayed from side to side in the big swell. When we arrived at the dock we were thankful only to have our hearts in our mouths when we saw the crew throwing our rucksacks from the boat to the pier across a 2m gap!! Did they not know those rucksacks were all we had!
We caught another bus to Granada, a colonial city on the edge of the lake. We spent 2 days here just walking around and doing some housekeeping! (Laundry still has to be done when you travel, unfortunately!)
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