As planned, we left our hotel in El Salvador in the middle of the night under the light of a full moon and starry sky. We made the 4 hour journey to La Union.
We had to be quick boarding the ferry to take us across to Nicaragua as the water was going out and it was already very low. This meant that we would stop at an island en route for emigration! Exiting El Salvador was simple and we got a pretty turquoise passport stamp.
The views were amazing and none of us imagined it would be such a small boat. It was pretty much just for us!
The journey took around 2 hours and so we arrived on the beach at Potosà (no jetty) just in time to stand around in the midday sun. The immigration process is gruff. They open all of the bags and you have to take out most things for them to have a root around. Water bottles were opened and inspected. It was all a bit much, especially the slow pace of it. Nonetheless we genuinely made good time as they have the power to really mess up your day.
Our bus was waiting and we hopped on after paying our $13 entry fee. The drive to León was smooth enough. The roads are strangely bumpy given how smooth the appear.
We stopped for a quick break in Chinandega and I went on a mini mission with Annalisa to see if we could find a place to top up Guatemalan SIM cards and grab some local food and with horror we found that all the food seems to be deep fried. Hopefully we can find better food in León!!
We arrived mid-afternoon and checked into Hotel Hellenika, very close to the main square and I dropped my bags and headed straight back out.
León has a great vibe and I took a nice golden hour stroll around the city, watched the sun set over the largest church in Central America and then headed back to the hotel to chat about the next day’s activities. We took a quick guided tour around the city centre to get a bit of an orientation accompanied by varying degrees of warm rain.
Vanessa, Janine and I decided we fancied street food. We found a grill with an enormous variety and I ordered us one of everything. It was a fantastic feast! There were lots of vegetarian snacks as part of a mouthwatering array of food. We couldn’t pick our favourite dishes, there were so many good ones. I was intrigued by a grilled bit of cheese, like halloumi, but the area of a full slice of toast! Including two soft drinks, the whole feast cost $16!
In Nicaragua, almost everyone accepts dollars and they give change in Cordoba with a decent exchange rate so it’s just simpler to pay in dollars and avoid exchange fees altogether. The rate is universally C35 to $1 and mostly the xe.com rate is C36.
Sandboarding on an active volcano
Now here’s something you don’t get to do every day….
Up early for breakfast at the hotel which cost $5 for eggs, rice, beans, coffee and orange juice. Then at 7am we jumped in beautiful Land Cruisers and raced off to Cerro Negro, an active volcano just outside of León.
We went for a hike up to the crater, walked around the rim and then descended into the crater itself where we could see steam venting and lots of sulphur oxides on the ground. The views were spectacular the whole time. At the top we saw a skunk snuffling around eating bugs, which seemed so out of place on what could have been the surface of the moon!
The next part was the pièce de resistance – boarding down to the bottom of the volcano. It was super steep – the upper slope is 45° increasing to 55° – but the guide was right, it is surprisingly high friction so it’s possible to go quite slowly for the first bit. I didn’t want to go slowly though and I managed to pick up a decent amount of speed on the upper section and then I was really flying on the lower section.
The dirt got EVERYWHERE!! But it was great, I really enjoyed it and would have loved to go again.
Back in León we took a tour of the cathedral tower (entry is $3 and the church closes at 1230-1400 on Sunday). The roof is beautiful! Pristine white (no shoes allowed) with epic panoramic views of the city and the volcanoes.
We had time for a lazy lunch and I grabbed a variety of street food, starting at the indoor market. I decided to give tamales another shot but I won’t make that mistake again. I bought two for C5 each and they were just tasteless and a horrible texture! I wish I could see the attraction.
I nipped over to a grill and bought a huge slice of local halloumi-esque grilled cheese in a tortilla, covered with salad for C50. Then in the main square, Vanessa and I bought elote, a sweetcorn bathed in cream, cheese shavings, lemon pepper, chili, mayonnaise, BBQ sauce, ranch dressing, squeezy cheese. The works. It was pretty damned delicious. That cost C45 (£1).
Approximately two hours drive from León, we arrived at Lemon Tree hostel in Granada, a city on the shores of Lake Nicaragua.
We had a quick orientation walk around the centre on our way to dinner. We were told to be very careful here and were given clear boundaries about where we could go after dark.
Annalisa booked dinner for everyone at Eco. It was a nice place with a decent menu. I paid C407 (£9.20) for tostadas, a glass of Tempranillo and a classic margarita – amazing really.
Karaoke at Insomnio was a strange experience because half of the bar is a raised platform with loads of benches round the edge. I had no idea we’d be in the main bar for the karaoke disturbing all the other patrons! The music was really loud and the microphone only worked half of the time. I didn’t get a song of my own but I ended up being dragged in to three different songs and we only had about 5 overall. It was fun though. And we tried the local cocktail, macua, made from white rum, lemon juice and guava juice.
Got up early and walked to the central market with Vanessa. We arrived after 7am and things were bustling but it definitely wasn’t all set up by then so we were right in the middle of all the stalls setting up. One noticeable difference was that fresh fruit and vegetables were packaged in single use plastic rather than being loose. We had hoped to find some cool little breakfast stalls but in the end, breakfast at the hotel was really nice. I had delicious huevos rancheros with two cups of coffee for $4.
We popped down to Lake Nicaragua and had a great tour of lots of the islands close to the shore. We saw an incredible variety and quantity of bird life, easily a dozen species within half an hour, including ospreys, tri-coloured heron, little blue heron, a range of egrets, a pair of Caracara, a purpura gallina (jazzy moorhen) and vultures. We saw cute little bats clinging to the underside of a boat. The lake also has bull sharks which swim 120 miles up the San Juan river from the Caribbean sea! There are a large number of privately owned islands and we saw some beautiful houses next to some tumbledown shacks.
Lake Nicaragua was once known by the Spanish as Mar Dulce because when they reached the shore, it was so enormous and full of waves that it appeared to be the sea but they saw horses drinking the water. The Spanish approached from Costa Rica because that British had colonised the Caribbean coast.
I went on a quick city walking tour of Granada starting with Parque Azul with a statue of Fransisco Hernandez Cordoba who, on 8 December 1524, founded the city (about 6 months after he founded León). There’s also a poem monument for Rubén Dario, a Nicaraguan poet who had a huge influence on Nicaragua. His hometown was renamed Ciudad Dario after his death!
We stopped at what appeared to be a woman’s house to try a local speciality Chancho con yuca, composed of mashed yucca, pork cracking, a small amount of pork meat and salad. None of us was very impressed with it as it really lacked flavour. But still worth a try.
The churches look dramatic here. A little tumbledown but this absolutely adds to the charm. Iglesia Guadalupe (or Iglesia Catolica Parroquia Nuestra Señora de Guadelupe) was built in 1608.
Our final stop was Iglesia Merced (or Parroquia Nuestra Señora de La Merced in full) where we climbed up to the bell tower for spectacular views of the city and the lake. Photos don’t do it justice.
During the tour we had a very long-winded explanation about William Walker but Richard explained things more simply – William Walker was a mercenary hired by a local to win the war for Granada against León and to make it safe to sail the paddle boats through to cross from the Caribbean to most of the way to the Pacific. But he turned against pretty much everyone, declared himself president, and tried to force the local population into submission by starving them. He also declared English the official language despite it being rarely spoken. When he was kicked out of the city in November 1856, he burned the city of Granada – if he couldn’t have it, no-one could.
The guides aren’t able to talk freely about the political situation or they face jail. Current president has leukemia and he travels to Cuba for treatment, leaving his wife in charge as Vice President. In 2018 there was a proposed change to the tax situation which caused riots that led to hundreds of deaths. There is a huge crackdown on reporters in the country so people with fancy cameras and long lenses can be stopped from entering, this also explains why drones are really tightly controlled in the country.
León and Granada were both founded in 1524 (León was founded first, on 17 July) but old León was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 1610 and Granada became the capital. There’s a fierce rivalry between the two cities and when León was rebuilt, the leaders wanted the city to regain the title of capital, leading to tension. The capital ended up being Managua since 1852. The rivalry persists through the national sport, baseball.
We drove to the Apoyo Crater Lake and visited Laguna Beach Club (day pass $6.90) and had some lunch (Chicken salad $8). The beach club had a couple of floating platforms and some kayaks – I had a great time paddling out towards the centre of the crater and feeling like I was really exploring.
In the afternoon we visited a fairly large handicraft market in Masaya. I bought a few souvenirs here including two feathers painted with birds for C500. And I grabbed a takeaway cappuccino for £1.49, it was fine, nothing special – definitely not the finest coffee in Central America.
Finally, after a long build up, we drove to the Masaya volcano and had a guided tour around the visitors centre. There’s an excellent 3D model of the enormous caldera which encompasses a huge amount of land and a significant number of volcanic features. There are two main volcanic cones – Nidiri and Masaya – and a larger number of pit craters along with a pretty huge lake at the eastern end of the caldera.
The thing that makes this volcano super special is that you can go up to the San Fernando crater rim and see the magma down below like a doorway to hell!! Access is strictly managed and we only had 20 minutes at the crater. Our guide timed it perfectly so we saw twilight and darkness falling so we had the best views of the red glow. We weren’t close enough to feel the heat and the viewpoints aren’t super well designed but it’s still a phenomenal thing to do.
Dinner at The Garden Cafe was absolutely fabulous! I had steak with chimichurri, mashed potatoes and lots of vegetables plus a cocktail for less than $20. The atmosphere is lush as well – a small group of us sat in the courtyard which was beautifully lit and nicely decorated.
I had a fairly early night and woke up early to do a bit of exercise ready to get shaken to pieces on public transport on the way to Ometepe Island for a couple of days. Breakfast at the Garden Cafe was a real treat too and I had two lovely cappuccinos (best in Nicaragua so far by a long way) plus Chapiollo which is a nice local dish with eggs.
We started the day by taking a local bus to Rivas and then transferred to a private bus which drove right through the central market of Rivas and I was in the front seat next to the driver so that was a lot of fun. Our bags weren’t tied down so the driver kept thinking one of them was going to catch on something overhead or jump off when we went over a bump. We made it to the port unscathed and with all our luggage.
Looks fantastic!
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