We met up with my mom in Nicarauga, and made a speedy path through the country.  We might have lingered longer, but our C-4 visa which covers Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua was just about expired after our lengthy stay in Utila, Honduras.  We had to get to Costa Rica to reset it, but even so, we left the Nicaragua on the last possible day, taking in as much as we could.

Nicaragua Summary:

Length of Stay: 16 days
Average Cost per Day for Two People: $31.80 CAD
Cities Visited: 7
Distance Traveled: 779 km in 12 automobiles and 2 boats
Days Sick: 0 for Ashley, 1 for Mike
Number of Items Lost: 0
Biggest Tourist Traps: The beach at San Juan del Sur was full of touts hawking everything from jewellry and sunglasses to wooden bowls
Exchange Rate: $1 CAD = 23 Cordobas

For more great stats, check out our statistics page!

Tree in Granada park

Our Route:

Managua – León – Las Peñitas – Granada – Isla de Ometepe (Moyogalpa, Merida) – San Juan del Sur

Highlights:

• Seeing my mom!!!
• Full moon lava hike at León
• Beautiful sunset walks at Las Peñitas
• Fried yuca at the market in Granada
• International Poetry Festival in Granada

Lion guarding the León Cathedral

Lowlights:

• The food at Hacienda Merida on Isla de Ometepe (it was exceptionally tasty, and expensive to match.  The alternatives were likewise cheap, and not so delicious)
• The “typico” Nicaraguan meal from a mall food court in Managua… should have known better
• We couldn’t stay in Granada long enough to experience more than a night of the International Poetry Festival
• Nicaragua didn’t enamour us the same way as other Central American countries have – probably because we had to move too quick to let it

View from the rooftop of León Cathedral

Surprises:

• Nicaragua is supposed to be the poorest country in Central America, but we didn’t really get that impression… there were a lot of cars everywhere we went.
• We had heard Nicaragua would be cheap.  While the prices were definitely reasonable, it wasn’t as cheap as we were expecting.

Lessons Learned:

• Travelling quickly through a country makes it difficult to fall in love with a place.  We easily could have spent more time at nearly every town we were in, but were limited by our visas.
• Always reapply sunscreen after playing in the surf.  Ouch!

Sunset at Las Peñitas

Nicaragua Journal – Where Did We Spend Our Time?

Managua – 1 night
We didn’t really see much of this place… it was just a meeting point with Mom and Terry.

León – 2 nights
León was a beautiful city with lots to see and do.  We took a tour of the Cathedral, wandered around an art gallery, and explored a strange folklore museum housed in a former prison.  The highlight of our time here was the full moon lava viewing hike on Volcan Telica which we did with Quetzaltrekkers.

Las Peñitas – 2 nights
This quiet black sand resort beach was a great place to relax after our all night hike.  We napped, swam, and walked the beach at sunset.

Granada – 3 nights
Granada was probably our favourite city we visited.  We joined Mom and Terry for a horse and carriage tour of the beautiful city, explored the graveyard where the first president of Nicaragua can be found, wandered the parks, went to a chocolate museum and caught the start of the International Poetry Festival.  We watched the performance of Nobel Prize winning poet Carlos Martinez Rivas’ work and took in the free Katia Cardena concert.  Mom and Terry did a boat tour of Las Isletas, while we wondered the city getting Mike’s glasses fixed.

Moyogalpa, Isla de Ometepe – 1 night
This town was where the ferry dropped us off.  It was almost sunset when we arrived, so we decided to stay the night before moving on.

Merida, Isla de Ometepe – 3 nights
We stayed at a hacienda just outside this small town.  The location was beautiful, but food options were limited.  The hacienda had stellar food, but a small and expensive menu.  Some of the best food we had here came from the Valentine’s Day festival in town, which included some bull riding.  We went horseback riding to San Ramon waterfall, walked to some Petroglyphs, learned how to make tortillas and hung out in the hammocks at the hacienda.

San Juan del Sur – 4 nights
This was a touristy beach town.  We played in the waves until our blistery sunburns kept us out of the sun.  Spent some time relaxing, reading, visiting with Mom and Terry, and catching up on the blog.

Hanging out in the lobby of our hotel in Granada

Bird on Isla de Ometepe

Butterfly in our hotel in Granada

For more of our Nicaragua pictures, check out our gallery.

Aside from horseback riding we didn’t really do much on Isla de Ometepe.  Our time on the beach of San Juan del Sur was quite similar… a few days of relaxing and catching up on the blog at each place.

On Isla de Ometepe, we stayed just outside of the town of Merida at a resort with highly overpriced but good food.  The town of Merida is quite small and has only three restaurants of the lowest quality.  It’s easy to surmise that the budget travellers in us ate enough bad cheap food to drive us off the island completely.  That was a mistake.

Merida did have it’s positive points though.  For one, there was the Valentine’s Day festival and rodeo – complete with painted baby chickens, bull riding and Valentine’s Day rice.

San Juan del Sur is a nice beach with strangely cold water.  So cold, it reminded me of swimming in a lake back in Saskatchewan, Canada.  I’m not sure if we were just there at the wrong time and caught a freak current, or if it’s always that cold.  We’ve been in the Pacific Ocean at points both north and south of San Juan del Sur, and it’s definitely the coldest place around.

Regardless of the bad food, or cold oceans, we managed to get out there and take more than a couple of photos.  Here are some of the highlights.  As always, there are more available in our photo album.

Isla de Ometepe

Unloading the ferry.

Valentine’s Day Chicken.

Spectacular Scenery.

And some more.

Really old Petroglyphs.

Sunsets.

San Juan del Sur

Christ watches out over this town.  I’m not quite sure what he’s trying to point out though.

Every day at sunset we would head down to the beach with Ashley’s mom and Terry just to watch.  We were never alone.

One of the things that Mom and Terry wanted to do on their journey with us was go horseback riding. Now, given my propensity for falling off things and my slightly irrational fear of riding horses (stemming from my first ever attempt to ride by myself – I was about 13 or so – when my trail horse took off at a gallop along a busy highway and I couldn’t do anything but hold on for dear life), I was a little less than gung-ho about the whole idea.  But I figured now was as good a time as any to try to get over it. Especially since one of Mike’s biggest goals is to ride horseback across Mongolia.

Thought I’d practice “riding” this wagon before getting on a horse….but it didn’t do much to bolster my confidence

We decided to rent some horses near Merida on the island of Ometepe and ride to the San Ramon waterfall.

Isla de Ometepe, formed by two volcanoes

The trip took about four hours in total, including a short hike on foot up to the falls and some time to relax and possibly swim under the waterfall (well, stand, really, since the pool beneath it was a shallow).

At the last minute, Mike decided to stay back at the hostel and try to beat the cold he had been getting. Truly, I think he was feeling sicker about the cost of the horses (a hefty $8 USD per person per hour), but we let him stay behind anyways.

Mom, Terry, and I set out with Harry of Harry’s horses and his helper, Carlos at about 1:00 pm. Five minutes in, Harry was telling me my form was good but I needed to loosen up. I tried to untense my muscles, but it just wasn’t happening. Every part of my body was clinging on for dear life.  Fifteen minutes in, my entire body seemed to be cramping up.  I was looking at my watch thinking How the hell am I going to make it four hours? This is painful!. I continued checking my watch every 3-5 minutes for the first hour, thinking this was some sort of crazy torture and wondering if I could just jump off my trotting horse and walk beside him. Given what I figured was the high probability of falling or being dragged from this action, I decided to power on.  Then, something changed. Despite my sore butt, I felt like I fit better in the saddle and could finally relax my aching muscles. When we broke into a canter on a flat stretch, I actually couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

Terry’s horse, checking in at the entrance to San Ramon waterfall

After about an hour and a half, we tied up the horses and hiked a short but steep path to the waterfall. Since the horses had brought us most of the way up, I didn’t find the hike so bad, but I had a few volcano summits under my belt. Mom and Terry struggled up the path behind me, unaccustomed to the steep slopes that you can’t find back home in Saskatchewan.

Me and my horse, Pinto

Finally at the waterfall, we took in the beauty of the spot.

The sun even came out from behind the clouds to show us the rainbow in the falls.

Mom and Terry rested, dreading the hike back down, I think.

Tired out from the hike

Back at the horses, I slid into the saddle and felt immediately comfortable. I was given the option to go ahead with Carlos, while Harry stayed back with Mom and Terry’s slower horses. The two of us cantered and galloped back, slowing down to give the horses a break, to check out the amazing views, and to chat in Spanish (much needed practice for me after so many months in English-speaking Utila – I believe I told him I had been married for 27 years before correcting myself).

So was it worth the cost? The jury’s still out. At $32, I found the price tag quite a bit higher than I would have liked. If seeing the waterfall was my only goal, I would have been just as happy hiking there. And there’s cheaper horseback riding options in other parts of Nicaragua. But Harry and Carlos were great with us novices and I gained a newfound confidence on horseback. I was really happy to get past the discomfort of the first hour with the longer ride, though Mom and Terry (and their butts) would have been happier with a shorter ride. Would I do it again? Probably not ($32 can go a long way on living expenses here), but I don’t regret it at all.

I still have a long way to go before riding across Mongolia, but I’m getting there. As I told Mike after… I’m still not sure that I like horseback riding, but at least I can now see how people might like it. That’s definitely progress.

Pretty flowers on Ometepe

Spending a little over a year saving up cash and selling everything we own before this trip taught us several lessons. One of the most important was the value of money, and the rate that its value diminishes when you buy new things. We sold a tonne of stuff before we left home, much of it lightly used, and all of it at prices far lower than we paid for it. To say it was depressing would be an understatement.

We also learned that there is a thriving used goods market back home. Between garage sales, free online classified ads, and eBay you can pretty much find anything you need without paying full price if you have a little patience. Before we left home, we both vowed two things: 1) Never to buy new if we could find what we wanted used, and 2) Never buy more stuff than we absolutely need. Nice to haves are just not worth the money they cost, especially when all they do is collect dust.

Now, Central America has taught me a new lesson. You can fix pretty much everything. There’s no need to throw something out just because it’s old and broken. In pretty much every Central American city, you can find people out on the street who will fix whatever needs fixing at very reasonable prices. Between Granada and León, I tested their skill on several items.

First, my watch strap had started to come apart. This is a classic Timex Ironman watch that Ashley purchased way back in the 20th century. Back home, I probably would have considered a watch that lasted me more than 10 years a good deal, tossed it out, and bought a new one. But we just bought a new watch in Utila (a time piece is required for diving) and it cost $23 dollars. That’s a lot of money in Central America.  So what did it cost me to fix the watch strap and put a new battery in? Only about $5, and it’ll probably last another decade.

Shiny New Watch Strap – Decade Old Watch

The next things to go were my shoes. They are a little over a year old, and have plenty of tread left. Unfortunately, all of our volcano hiking has done a number on them, and the soles were separating from the tops. They looked like they were talking. I was lucky enough to notice a sign in the market of Granada for shoe repairs. Behind the sign sat a gentleman with some thread, a screwdriver, and a sewing machine. He took a quick look, then for a mere $2 sewed them back up right as rain. Even used, it’s hard to find a good pair of shoes for $2, and these ones are already broken in.

My Sewn Up Shoes- Good as New

And the Man Who Fixed ´Em

I needed one more repair before I left Granada. One of the screws that hold my glasses together had rusted through and snapped. My right lens fell out, and there was no way for me to remove or replace the screw with the tools I had. A quick trip to a jewellery store, to make use of a tiny drill press and another to an optical store, and my glasses were good as new for the low low price of $1.50. Actually, I´m lying a bit, they are not quite as good as new because I dropped my lens on the street while walking to the jewellery store and a small chunk of glass chipped out. But they will serve for another year at least.

Broken Glasses- Soon to be Fixed

All in all, I fixed my watch, a pair of shoes, and my glasses for about $8.50. Back home, I would have tossed everything out and spent at least $200 replacing them. Sure, I’ll still need to replace them at some point, but probably not this year. My world just got a whole lot less disposable.

Before we ever left home, my mom and her boyfriend, Terry, told us they were planning to meet up with us for the month of February.  They had already booked the vacation time and were anxiously waiting to find out what their destination would be.  You see, they were willing to be super flexible and show up wherever we were at the time.  The problem with that, as anyone following our journey probably knows, is that we typically don’t know where we’ll be in a week, never mind a year.  We originally told them it would probably be Chile and Argentina.  Then we said Peru or Ecuador.  Then Panama.  Finally, as we were still in Utila, we settled on Nicaragua.  (Even with this plan, we ended up skipping the rest of Honduras and El Salvador to meet up with them on time, so we are currently backtracking a bit to see some of what we blew by).

As the date got closer and closer, I was more and more excited to see my mom.  Seven months of Skype conversations over sketchy internet connections are no replacement for seeing a loved one in person.  I expected that we would have an amazing month together.  And we did. But not without a little drama.

First night with my mom in Managua

You see, the truth about travelling with mom and Terry is that we simply have different travel styles.  While we are budget backpackers out to get great value for our money and willing to sacrifice a few creature comforts to save a buck, they would rather fork over a little more cash for some “necessary” items.  We are looking to immerse ourselves in the culture and food of smaller communities a little off the beaten track.  They are looking for – as Terry put it – a beach with a 7/11 around the corner.  And so be it.  This was their vacation too, and we wanted them to enjoy every minute of it.  We never expected them to travel like we did.  But we also coudn’t just sacrifice a month of our budget for their comfort.

Trying to make a plan that suits everyone

So we compromised.  Where possible, we tried to find accommodations which would fit everyone’s needs (typically dorm rooms for Mike and I and a private ensuite room for Mom and Terry).  When this wasn’t possible, we stayed in separate places, trying to keep them as close together as possible.

For food, we had one to two meals together a day and the others apart.   Mom has kidney disease and can’t eat much salt and Terry doesn’t like onions, peppers, or really much for veggies.  This made finding suitable restaurants difficult at times.  They wanted a lot of burgers and fries.  We stuck to local set plates and street food.  They went to Subway a few times.  We didn’t, having vowed never to eat at a multi-national North American chain outside of North America.  Terry liked meat and potatoes.  We tried to limit our meat consumption to one meal every day or two.

Our kind of lunch!

It’s hard to travel with a group.  As a couple, Mike and I have pretty much figured each other’s preferences out (and, thankfully, they’re remarkably similar), but it still becomes difficult to compromise day in and day out.  We share one plate for most of meals out, which makes every meal a compromise.  Just trying to decide what to order can be a challenge after eating out a few days in a row, nevermind deciding where to go next, how long to stay, and what to do when we get there.

Mike, Mom and Terry

Throw in another couple with different travel preferences and you’ve got a challenging situation. Communication is key.  We struggled with communication at the beginning… for example, Mom and Terry told us they all they needed for accommodations was a private room.  A private bathroom would be nice.  After a while, we realized that they actually wanted a private room with a private bathroom, at least a fan, and windows with good light; hot water and air conditioning strongly preferred, and a television would be nice.  There’s nothing wrong with this list, but knowing it from the start would have made searching for hostels/hotels a lot easier in the beginning.

Not exactly the type of place Mom & Terry wanted to stay at.  But at only $12 a night for a private room with wifi in San Juan del Sur, we couldn’t pass it up!

In the end, it was absolutely worth every challenge we had just to have my mom around.  I loved being able to sit down to breakfast with her, chat about things going on in our lives, share the experience of exploring new cities and foods (one of their favourite foods in the end was fried yucca in Granada), and playing cards while chatting the evenings away.  They treated us with a couple of meals that were beyond our price range and we were able to cook one of our favourite splurge meals of spaghetti bacon carbonara (complete with red wine) for them.  It was sort of a cheer-them-up after they were robbed at the beach (more on this later).  They were great sports about some of “challenges” of backpacking through Central America… I got to see my mom ride in a chicken bus with standing room only, complete with a chicken!

Mom and Terry treated us to an early 5th Anniversary dinner

Mom… I know you are reading this.   I love you and miss you and can’t wait for our next adventure together! I’m so proud of everything you tried and opened yourself up to on our trip (I still can’t believe you went ziplining with us.. awesome!). Enjoy every minute of every day and I’ll see you soon on Skype! And please wipe those tears away… we’ll be together again before you know it! (I wonder where?)

My mom

Las Peñitas is one of two beaches located just 20-40 minutes outside of León by chicken bus (if you´ve ever been on a chicken bus, you’ll understand the time variance). I’d have to say that this was the closest thing to an all-inclusive resort that we’ve seen since Cancun, Mexico. The soft black sand beach is rimmed by a lengthy line of hotels, hostels, B&B’s, and restaurants. There’s just one street running on the opposite side of the beach, and no town to speak of.

It’s not really an all-inclusive resort, of course, as it only cost us $6 USD per person per night, including no meals nor drinks. But without a town, you’ll find that you eat all your meals in restaurants, and you’ll probably spend most of your days lazing on the beach, so what’s the real difference?

The swimming is alright, with a low sloping soft sand beach, and gentle waves continuously rolling in off the Pacific. We stayed two nights, relaxing after our all nighter volcano hike. Each night the sunsets at the beach gave us a beautiful view. We hope you enjoy it too!

Welcome to the zombie march! If you don’t know why we call it that, you soon will!

Sometimes the best moments of a journey come from being in the right place at the right time…

We arrived in León, Nicaragua with little plan of what to do. We had just met up with my mom in Managua, and León was the first city on our agenda. She wanted to travel like we do, which for us often means arriving in a city and letting it tell us what sights to see once we get there. We knew we had to check out the Cathedral de León, a UNESCO world heritage sight. As we sat down on the sidewalk outside the cathedral to contemplate our next move, we ran into a couple that we had dove with in Utila. They told us all about a full moon lava-viewing volcano hike they were doing the next night with one of our favourite Central American organizations, Quetzaltrekkers (we had hiked with them before in Xela, Guatemala and were already planning to check out what they had to offer in León).

This sounded too cool to pass up, so we ran over to Quetzaltrekkers to sign ourselves up. At this point, we still didn’t even know the name of the volcano (Volcan Telica, as we later found out) and didn’t care. We paid our $30 USD each (normally $35, but there is a discount if you’ve hiked with them before) for guides, return transportation, supper, midnight lunch, breakfast, snacks, and water; and headed back to the cathedral to check out the almost-full moon.

Almost-full moon through the window of the Cathedral

The next night, after a full day of walking and museums, we met with our guides and sixteen other full moon hikers at Quetzaltrekkers at about 9:30 pm. We sat down for a huge meal of spaghetti, rice, and vegetarian tomato sauce and after a quick ride in the back of a pickup, we arrived at the the trailhead.

The start of the hike

We started hiking at 11:30 pm. The trail was fairly easy and flat, though there were lots of loose stones to deal with. The full moon was often obscured by clouds, so we relied on our headlamps a lot.

Full moon

Near the end of the hike, the trail started getting quite a bit steeper. The guides wanted to keep the group together, so there were lots of breaks and it was an easy ascent.

Full moon over Volcan Telica

At about 4:00 am, we reached the summit of the volcano. We dropped off our gear at a camping spot, and spent 15 more minutes walking to the crater’s edge. As we approached the crater, wafts of sulfur invaded our nostrils. It made our eyes water and our throats burn, but there was nothing stopping anyone from crawling up to the edge to see the glowing lava.

Lava!!!

I don’t think I could find the right words to truly describe how incredible it was to see and hear the lava, and our pictures definitely don’t do it justice. We could hear it roaring below us and the pools brightened and darkened as the lava moved and cooled. It was seriously one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced.

We didn’t stay long at the lava. Despite it’s awesomeness, the chemist in me knew that the burning in my eyes, throat, and chest was from the sulfur dioxide in the air reacting with the water in my lungs and throat to create highly acidic hydrogen sulfide. Not wanting to subject my body to these conditions for long, we took in the sights and sounds and returned to camp for a “midnight” lunch.

As we sat finishing our lunch of cream cheese and veggie sandwiches, with the guides working hard to keep people from nodding off, the sky began to brighten. We climbed up one last hill to watch the sun rise over several volcanoes in the distance. The view kept getting more and more spectacular and, despite the fact that most of the hikers around me were complaining about being tired and cold and wanting to get back, I felt re-energized. This was the first time I have ever just watched a sun rise in its entirety and it was beautiful.

Sun rise

We watched the sun until it was completely up (the camera battery died at the start of the sun rise, which allowed us to watch it away from the viewfinder) , turning around every once in a while to watch the full moon set over the volcano behind us.

Full moon setting behind us over Volcan Telica

We hiked back to the entrance and, looking around me, I understood the zombie march reference. A lot of hikers looked like they were having a hard time staying upright, but as I said, I was invigorated from all that I just experienced and really enjoyed the early morning hike. We returned to the starting point at about 9:30 am, and were back in León celebrating our experiences with a tasty breakfast of yogurt, fruit, and granola by 10:00.