Nicaragua

Our trip to Nicaragua started with a very early morning - our bus picked us up at 2am! We stayed in the cheapest hotel we could find (only $9 for both of us), knowing we’d only be sleeping for a few hours before starting the trip.

There are two ways to get to Nicaragua from El Salvador without taking a plane. One is a long bus ride that goes through Honduras. The other is you take a bus to La Union in El Salvador, then you take a bumpy, 1.5 hour-long boat ride across the Gulf of Fonseca to Potosi, in Nicaragua. There is no dock, so it’s shoes off walking through the water onto the beach with your bags. The immigration office is just a table with a couple of immigration officers who check your passports and your bags. From there, it is another bus to Leon.

In Leon we stayed in a lovely little hostel with a pool, with plans for more volcano running near the city. We got on a local bus early in the morning to get to the trail head to head up to the Telica Volcano. Even at the bottom there are steaming craters all around you as you enter the trail. It was definitely not a fast run - we were tired from the last few weeks of volcano and trail running in Guatemala and El Salvador, plus it was 40 degrees and sunny. For me (Julie), it took me a while to get into the run - I was definitely the more tired of the two of us! The crater, however, was incredible. It was massive and had plenty of steam coming out of it, as Telica is still an active volcano.

Getting back from the volcano meant some well-deserved drinks in the pool. The next day we explored Leon and caught up on some work. Leon isn’t the most beautiful city on the planet, but it definitely has character. We walked past a pharmacy that had someone dressed in a mascot-type costume, except the “mascot” was a pharmacist, and they were dancing to reggaeton music to entice customers to come in.

We then headed to Granada, which is a picturesque little town situated along the shores of Lake Cocibolca. Here we took a momentary pause from trail running and instead went on the Booze Cruise that our hostel organizes. It’s a boat trip that takes you around the lake and then stops at a place where you can jump in the water and swim around. The boat had platforms to jump from and a slide, as well as a bar with a certain number of drinks included in the ticket price. We weren’t sure at first because we were worried it would be full of really young backpackers getting sloshed, but we actually had a lot of fun. Sunset from the boat was amazing, and we met a really nice Quebecois couple who we had fun talking and dancing with. The boat then stopped at a place to pick up other passengers and go to a “secret spot” for a bonfire party, but we decided that was a good place for us to disembark. We’re glad we did, because it was at this “after party” that apparently the really heavy drinking started, something we didn’t necessarily mind skipping out on. We also weren’t interested in staying up late because we had a 6am kayak tour the next morning of the islands to see the lake’s wildlife.

This sunrise kayak tour was recommended to us by a friend and we understand why. First of all, kayaking through the calm morning waters was really enjoyable. Our tour also ended up being private simply because no one else signed up for that time. We chose the early morning so that we could see the monkeys and other animals before the tourist boats, which come later in the morning, scare them all away. We saw plenty of howler monkeys - and of course we heard them, too. Our guide told us you can hear them from up to 2km away! We also saw plenty of beautiful birds.

Our next stop on the Nicaragua itinerary was Ometepe Island, an island in the middle of the lake. We stayed in a lovely guest house with some pretty cute dogs, who we loved playing with. What was our plan on Ometepe? Trail running, of course! Our first morning there we got up at 4am to jog to the trail head of the Conception Volcano. The trail is a beautiful, jungle-like trail to start. As you climb higher and higher, that fades away into lower bushes, grasses, and shrubs, and then finally rocky volcanic terrain. We didn’t quite make it all the way to the top, however, because the summit was covered in a cloud and the terrain was really technical. We didn’t love the idea of descending the technical terrain in a thick fog, especially when there would be know “from-the-summit views” as compensation.

The next day we got back on the ferry to Granada, where we then headed to the Pacific coast to take a few days break. We were feeling pretty exhausted from the constant motion, and found ourselves having silly arguments over things that normally wouldn’t bother us. So we headed to Playa Madera for a few days of R&R.

We originally had a beautiful hotel booked, but we thought that they had a kitchen where we could cook, so we did a whole grocery shop in San Juan del Sur before heading to the hotel. Upon arrival, we found out that, no, the kitchen wasn’t actually for guests. Thankfully, they allowed us to cancel the reservation free of charge and we booked a different place where we could cook and use the food that we had bought.

Disappointed at first, the new ended up being even better than the other place. We stayed for four nights in a lovely surfers guest house owned by an Australian-Nicaraguan couple that was three minutes walking from the beach. The other hotel we would have had to take a taxi to get there. We relaxed, of course did some running, and took in as many beach sunsets as we could - and enjoyed home-cooked meals. There was also another hotel a 15-minute walk up the hill that, as long as you bought a drink, allowed you to use their gorgeous infinity pool overlooking the ocean. We switched up sunsets between directly on the beach and from the infinity pool on the cliff. It was paradise.

After a few days of rest, we were ready to start travelling again. Next stop: Costa Rica!