Kayaking Lake Nicaragua

We were up early this morning to meet our guide outside our hotel. He drove us to the boat landing where there were sit-on kayaks. Unfortunately I didn't feel confident enough in their stability to use my good camera so it stayed in the dry-bag the entire time. It was very quiet and relaxing on the lake and the kayaks cut smoothly across the calm surface of the water. We saw beautiful large flowers blooming on trees hanging over the water, lots of birds (Ringed Kingfisher, Bare-throated Tiger Heron, Green Heron, Northern Jacana, Cormorant, Turkey Vultures, Osprey, White-ringed Flycatcher, Great-tailed Grackle, and White-throated Magpie-jay), and two types of water lilies.

Tomorrow we get picked up at 4:30am to go to the airport for our flight home. It's been a wonderful vacation but both Devin and I are ready to head back home.

Masaya Volcano, pottery, and handicraft market

We started today with some "leisurely" volcano hiking. We visited the Masaya volcano (active volcano) and hiked around the San Fernando crater (extinct crater). Unlike Cerro Negro, this volcano was covered in verdant vegetation, some of which was responsible for the scratches on Devin and my legs. From the top of the crater we had a beautiful view of the surrounding valleys including the Masaya lagoon that we visited before. A couple of parts had some difficult climbing, mostly because the lava rock is very sharp.

After hiking we got to visit the Handicraft

Market in Masaya City. We didn't really get much since most of the vendors had the same exact items and they were more expensive that what we could get from the stands set up in central park. By the time we were done shopping we were both starving and we had lunch at Mirador de Catarina, a nice restaurant overlooking Granada, a lake, and the islands of Mombacho. I had to order something special because there was a beef, pork, chicken, or fish option and what I got was the worst spaghetti I have ever had. It was mushy noodles drenched in butter with chunks of garlic. I recommend staying away from Italian food if you ever visit Nicaragua. Devin said his meal (pork option) was good.

After lunch we visited the "white towns"(thus named because all of the buildings used to be white - Eduardo thinks that the government should by cheap white paint in mass quantities and

supply it to the villagers for free so that they would still be all white), typical villages that produce all kinds of handicrafts. One of the locals showed us the process for making pottery. First, they have to haul the mud from a certain location and then they have to stomp on it to soften it up. They now use a manual pottery wheel, although back in the day it was made without a wheel. They do the initial shaping, then refine the shape. Then they polish it by scraping a rock over it, then by scrapping a certain seed over it, next they carve in a design such as turtles, butterflies, or geometric patterns. After that they apply color alternating with polishing, more color, more polishing, etc. Eventually they finally get to the step where they put in in the kiln and add a final polish of wax to make it shine. This whole process takes months and months. All this work and it cost me $9 for two pots. After the pottery demonstration we visited a couple of different pottery stops to see the different styles and levels of quality. Devin and I were shopped out and we went to bed early.

Zip lining and boat ride on Lake Nicaragua

Devin and I both felt well in the morning and excited to go zip lining through the canopy. We drove up to the canopy of the Mombacho volcano where the zip lines were set up. Devin and I were in our own group and we had three guides helping us through a total of eight zip lines and three suspension bridges. The highest of the platforms was 40 meters high and the longest ride was 300 meters. These zip lines were shorter and faster than the ones I did in Peru; they were also more of a ride and less of sight seeing. I got to do one superman style (or super-chicka style as they called it) and another one upside down. On one of the middle ones I actually got to fly past a butterfly. The last zip line they bounced us up and down as we descended to the ground. Both Devin and I had a lot of fun; I wish I could go zip lining every day. After our canopy adventure, we stopped at a local cafe for some shade grown coffee samples. I thought it was pretty good but Devin didn't try it since he doesn't like coffee. They had the three stages of beans shown there; from the whole bean and shell to the bean without the shell and finally to the roasted and ground stages.

We spent some time touring Granada and stopped at a chocolate museum where we got to sample tea made from the leaves of the cocoa plant as well as some dark chocolate. They may grow the cocoa plant but I think I'll stick to Belgium for consumable chocolate. We also stopped at a potter

y museum where we saw the different pottery styles of each time period. My favorites were the ones that had animal depictions included in the designs. After the museum we stopped for lunch at a cute local restaurant.

After lunch we headed to Lake Nicaragua for a boat ride. We got to see a

some of the 356 islands that were formed by an eruption of the Mombacho volcano, some which had locals with simple with houses

and others that had huge mansions on them (including the house of the richest person in Nicaragua). There was also an island that had non-native spider monkeys. We saw lots of tropical birds including king fishers, fly catchers, cormorants, green herons, a tiger heron, and other birds. My favorite was the tiger her

on which I spotted. The rain held out just long enough for us to finish our boat ride.

We waited out the rain in our hotel and then wandered around central market when the weather cleared. It was mostly clothes, lots and lots of shoes, and thrift type stores. Devin got a watch for $6 since I lost mine and we thought it would be nice to be able to tell the time without turning the TV on. There were also a number of food vendors selling bread, cheese, fresh fruit, and other edibles. I got some mango which in retrospect was probably a bad idea since it gave me a tummy ache but I wanted to see how good the mango tasted. The vendors started packing up their shops so we grabbed a burger for Devin in central park and headed into the hotel for the night.

Food poisoning and Apoyo Lagoon

As you can tell from the title, today was not our best day. I woke up with stomach pains and was generally not feeling well. Devin's food poisoning set in later but was much worse. Eduardopicked us up at 9:00 to start our city tour of Granada. We made it to the first museum before Devin was sick and had to run to the bathroom. We tried to continue the tour for a few minutes and then decided to visit the pharmacy and head back to the hotel instead. We took a nap until noon and then went to the Apoyo Lagoon which is a lake in the crater of a volcano. Devin was still feeling awful but we thought he might feel OK lying down in a hammock at the beach; he ended up spending the entire time lying on a rock bench reading. I was feeling better, except for occasional stomach pain, and I had a great time snorkeling. The bottom was all rock which made it kind of painful wading out. Most of the rock was covered in fine algae. I saw a couple kinds of fish, one was only a couple inches long, the body was translucent, and it had a neon greenish-yellow stripe down the side. The first fish I saw had a black line down the side and also black splotches on the skin and ranged from a couple inches up to 6 or 8 inches. I got to follow a couple of this type of fish around as they followed a school of smaller fish that they were snatching up for meals. The last fish was bigger and had a pan fish shaped body with black dots down the side. I only swam in water that was about 10 feet deep because after that the bottom dropped off really quickly. I tried swimming down a couple of times and I saw fish as they disappeared into their holes in the side of the drop off and some sea weed. I checked on Devin a few times but he stayed lying down the entire time. I had mushed plantains with fried cheese covered in cream for lunch and then we headed back to the hotel.

Devin stayed in bed but I went down to the streets because they were celebrating Fieste de San

Roque and had bulls running down the street as well as lots of people walking or riding horses down the street. I tried to walk down the street by myself but didn't like all the attention I was getting as a single female walking down the street so I went back to the hotel and read with Devin. We went to bed really early and hoped that Devin felt better in the morning.

Climbing Cerro Negro (active volcano)

Today was awesome. How many people can say they climbed to the top of an active volcano and then ran down the side of it. Awesome.

We had breakfast at our hotel and left at 7:30 to go climb Cerro Negro. Cerro Negro is the most recent of four very young cinder cones and it's most recent eruption was August of 1998. The drive there was over an hour, even though it wasn't very far away, due to poor road conditions. I'm pretty impressed that we didn't get stuck or tip over. As soon as the volcano came into closer view I said, "There's no way we're climbing to the top in and hour" which was what was on our schedule but we did. The volcano is almost all black lava rock and there is no vegetation; we followed a trail through the volcanic rock ashes. Most of the climb wasn't too bad but there were parts that you had to use your hands to climb and you had to watch for rocks that weren't stable. By the time we got to the top I was covered in sweat and exhausted, but it was worth it. In the crater of the volcano (which we hiked through) you could see sulfur coming out in many places and in some places you could see crystallized patches of it. From the top you could see almost 20 miles and we saw the city of Leon, other volcanoes, and the Pacific ocean.

The hike down was much, much easier than the hike up. We basically just walk/ran/slid down the opposite side we had climbed up. By the end I was covered in volcanic ash and I had a ton of rock in each shoe.

On the way back to Leon I saw an oriel fly in front of the van and asked Eduardo about it. This set off a long birding expedition on the way back. We stopped a couple of times trying to get a picture of an oriel but they flew away before we got there. Twice we got out of the van and walked a little trying to spot something without the noise of the engine. At one point they had us duck under a barbed wire fence to check out a tree with fruit that birds like to eat. We got really lucky there because we saw a blue-crowned motmot (the national bird), a Yigürro (aka gray thrush, National bird of Costa Rica) and a torgon.

Then we drove back to the city so we could take a quick shower and wash all of the sweat and ash off. After we cleaned up we had lunch at the same place we had dinner last night. Then more time in the van (not my favorite part) as we drove to Granada which was about 3 hours away. I spent most of the drive sleeping since I was exhausted from climbing the volcano. We checked in at the hotel and then wandered around central park and had dinner. We went to bed fairly early looking forward to the next day of adventures.

Boiling mud and the city of Leon

Our day had an interesting start. We got up early and enjoyed a delicious breakfast with the best orange juice I have ever had. I got the Nicaraguan breakfast which had rice, beans, and scrambled eggs. Devin had the American breakfast which came with fresh fruit, toast, and eggs. The toast had a really yummy papaya fruit jelly that tasted more like honey. We wanted to get some money changed into Cordobas (local currency) so we asked the hotel to take us to the ATM which the night front desk staff had told us was free. Well, the driver took us there...and then left us there...and didn't come back as far as we know. After standing around a while we grabbed a cab back to the hotel. Luckily for me, Devin speaks a good amount of Spanish and can get us around town and understand all of the staff who don't speak English.

At 9:00 our driver, Antonio, and our guide, Eduardo, met us at our hotel so we could start our adventures. Edwardo told us a lot about the history of the country, his views on all of the politics, about his family, and was very patient while answering all of our questions about everything.

The first place we stopped was a local eatery where we got quesarillos which is a cheese slice in a tortilla filled with some sort of onion mix. Devin also put the chille sauce on his which I skipped. We had diste to drink which is a beverage made with water, cocoa, corn, and spices. Both were really, really great and surprisingly filling.

Our next stop was to see the boiling mud in San Jacinto. As soon as the van pulled up, at least half a dozen children surrounded the car in hopes of getting paid to be our "guide" or holding our hand while we walked

around. Devin managed to stay free of small children, but of course I made a new friend and had a adorable little girl walking around with me. The boiling mud was really interesting and also really hot. I took lots of pictures and Devin took video of the

rolling boil of mud and the steam coming out of the ground. Devin and I each got a gift of a small

pot from the kids and when we had our fill of mud we headed back to the van.

Our last stop was the city of Leon. We checked in to our hotel, La Posada del Doctor, an

d freshened up before heading on a tour of the city. Our room

had just enough space for the

bed, a nightstand, and a small table that folded down from the wall. The bathroom had a swinging door and the toilet didn't have a handle to flush it (we took the tank top off and just lifted the chain). It was super charming and Devin and I both really liked it. The courtyard had flowers and grass that with box turtles wandering around. After a nice siesta we got back in the van to see the city. We saw old spanish churches including La Recolección Church, San Francisco Church, La Merced Church, and San Juan De Dios Church. We also saw largest cathedral in central america. Eduardo told us that there was a rumor that they had switched the plans for the construction and the cathedral was actually supposed to be built in Costa Rica.

We also toured the house turned museum of Rubén Dario who is a Nicaraguan author credited for shaping the modern Spanish language. We also went to the Museo Ortiz-Gurdián (art museum) where we viewed older European art and more modern Nicaraguan art.

After a very full day of walking around we were dropped off at the hotel and left on our own for dinner. We walked to central park and viewed the local shops and grabbed a yummy dinner of quesadillos and plantains with rice, beans, and cheese. On the way back we stopped at a local grocery store to pick up water and also got a pineapple tart for dessert. After that we got lost trying to get back to the hotel which had me completely panicked although nothing happened and we got directions from some nice locals before giving up (mostly because of me panicking) and grabbing a cab back to the hotel. As if that weren't enough for one day, Eduardo picked us up again at 8:30 so we could experience some of the local nightlife. The first bar we went to we sat on the roof and had a beautiful view of the park. We got the local rum, Flor de Caña, and fresco. When you order it here you get the entire bottle of rum and then mix your own drinks. After we finished our bottle we headed to another bar where Devin had a mojito and I had a girlie drink. After we chatted for a while we were on our way to another bar with live music, however, it was really crowded which made me happy because I was ready to head back to get some sleep.

Nicaragua here we come!

So a while ago Devin and I decided to go to Nicaragua, 1. Because a travel writer and photographer I met in Peru highly recommended it and 2. It was one of the very few places my frequent flier miles would get us. So, Thursday morning we ran around getting last minute items for the trip and finished packing. We dropped off Grant and Halo at Scott’s house and Ryan took us to the airport. After a long flight we made it to Managua, Nicaragua. There was a driver waiting for us as soon as we left customs to take us to Hotel Mansion Tedolina. It was dark out so we couldn't see a lot of the city but from what I saw it was very similar to Lima, Peru or the Dominican Republic. We got there pretty late and were exhausted from the trip so we ate trail mix and dried fruit that we brought with us for dinner and headed to bed.