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Our entry into Nicaragua was a stumble/roll down the hill and land on your head kinda entry!
We had decided to skip through San Salvadore and Honduras, and go straight from Guatemala to Nicaragua, so we caught an 18 hour bus, which left at 6am and arrived at midnight! On the bus we met an Israeli who told us about a canyon in Esteli, right as we cross the border - so we decided to join him to see it and jump off the bus, at the dark hour of 11:30pm, in the rain. Once off the bus, we realised that the bus driver had dropped us 5km out of town - so we started walking, in the dark, in the rain, along the highway. We then found a taxi, but didnt have the local currency to pay him?!
We eventually found a ATM and hostel, and once we checked out the canyon online, we decided we actually werent very interested in it and decided to rather make our way to Leon the next day.
So we walked to the bus station and waited 3 hours for the bus.
2 hours into this bus trip, the bus came to a stop, along with 1km of other busses stuck in the traffic - we decided to get out the bus and walk ahead to see what the problem was - the locals were protesting about something and had blocked the roads, letting 3 busses through every 10 minutes! As we were walking back to our bus, parked at the end of about a km of traffic, we saw a bus come into the wrong lane, up the wrong side of the road at full pace - as it got closer - we realised it was OURS!! We had to run as fast as we could and just jump onto the back, holding onto the metals bars of the chicken bus!
Needless to say, we got to Leon in 1 piece :)
These local busses are crazy!
The reason we headed to Leon, was to try out the volcano boarding!
Our Dutch friend that we had travelling Belize with had told us about this boarding - and we just had to try it out!
We booked a tour and the next day it began with a 40 minute drive to the bottom of the youngest volcano in Central America - Cerro Negro.
After the 45 minute walk to the top, playinging in some volcanic steam on the way, we were given the lecture on how we were going to sandboard down the volcano, with speeds up to 89km/h, on ply-boards reinforced with metal, how to balance, steer and control speed on the slope - which is 45 degrees at its steepest!
We put on our oversized orange jumpsuits and goggles and off we went!
What an awesome ride!!
After Leon, we headed to the Colonial city of Granada and spent 1 night there, before heading to a place called Poste Rojo, which is another tree house, this time in the Nica jungle! The communal area of this hostel is built in the trees, and at night comes alive with tree frogs!
The tree frogs seem to be tame?! As the bar man of the hostel just walks up to the frogs, picks them up, lets you hold them - and they just sit there - posing for photo's ;)
From the tree house, we headed to Isla Ometepe - which is an island, formed by 2 volcanoes, in the middle of Lake Nicaragua! What an incredible place! We arrived and hitch hiked to the other side of the island, to stay in Merida. We decided to chill for 3 days there, lying in hammocks, swimming in the lake and renting bikes (only to realise how unfit we actually are!)
From Ometepe, we headed to the surfing touristy town of San Juan del Sur for a night, before catching a bus to the border to head into Costa Rica :)
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