Nicaragua: 11th December - 19th December
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| After crossing into Nicaragua, I spent a night in a town called Chinandega before catching this chicken bus the next day to Jiquilillo, a remote coastal village. |
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| An old man on the bus. I don't think he'd ever seen himself on digital camera before and he was made up when I showed him this picture of himself. |
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| The beach at Jiquillio stretches as far as the eye can see in both directions. |
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| Wonderfully clear sunsets at Jiquilillo; it's mesmerizing to watch the sun slip surprisingly rapidly below the horizon, although not very good for the eyes. |
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| A young kid collecting coconuts. |
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| After two nights in Jiquilillo I pushed onwards to Leon. By all accounts a very charming colonial town but it didn't ring my bell. I found it not much more attractive than Chinandega (i.e. not very attractive at all) and nowhere near as nice as, say, Antigua in Guatemala. So with time pressing and Christmas approaching rapidly, I moved on the next day to Granada, another supposedly well-preserved colonial town. |
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| Granada was much more enjoyable than Leon. It had a more laidback, peaceful atmosphere, the buildings and streets were prettier and its setting, on the shores of Lake Nicaragua, was also much nicer than Leon's. I had a couple of nights there, in some good company. |
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| Final stop on my brief tour through Nicaragua was the island of Ometepe in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. The island is formed from two volcanoes whose lava flows have created an isthmus that connects them both. I spent two nights at Finca Magdalena on the slopes of Volcan Maderas. I wanted to climb it but for various reasons to do with laziness I never made it. Instead I went for a walk long the lake shore where I met lots of friendly kids like these... |
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| ... and these. The people of Ometepe were as friendly as any I've met anywhere and the island is amazingly beautiful with untold numbers of birds and butterflies, as well as howler monkeys which could often be heard roaring up in the jungles on the slopes of the volcanoes. |
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| Here you can see Volcan Concepcion, the larger of the two volcanoes which forms Ometepe. Once off the ferry, I got a taxi to the nearby town of Rivas with a couple I met on Ometepe, then a scarily fast shared taxi down to the border with Costa Rica. |
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