Nicaragua – Where the streets have no name

Learning of trip #147: the worst hangovers are cured with fried chicken. The long-day journey to León, Nicaragua, wasn’t looking that good after the great farewell party in Utila, just a couple of hours sleep and a ride on the ferry to La Ceiba; but the hearty breakfast worked marvels as we hit the roads of Honduras for 16hrs in a shuttle bus.

Nicaragua is the biggest but also poorest country in Central America. Apart from the capital, Managua, the country is also one of the safest to travel and we found their people really welcoming and honest.

Check out the man-shaped columns of the Insigne y Real Basílica Catedral de la Asunción de la Bienaventurada Virgen María! This is the biggest cathedral in Central America… and one with the longest names too!

Rubén Darío is their most relevant personality, a poet who initiated the Spanish-American literary movement known as Modernismo that flourished at the end of the 19th century. It was great to read fragments of his poems scattered across towns and their monuments. Sandino is another national hero, as he was the revolutionary leader against the US military occupancy.

Once in the beautiful colonial town of León, we realised that most of the streets in Nicaragua have no names (although U2 didn’t write their song because of this). Finding places proved tricky as addresses are just based on a landmark and then they tell you to go a number of blocks from there in a cardinal direction. Sounds simple… as long as you know where your North is!

Anyway, we couldn’t have picked a better day to get to León (15th August) as we were welcomed with La Gritería, which are the Fiestas de Asunción de María!

Marching band at the main square

The local people believe that the Virgin was able to stop a volcanic eruption by praying louder than the roars from the volcano. Since then, they take images and statues of the Virgin to their windows and doors, from where they give lollies and other goodies to kids… and not-so kids.

In order to get your sweets you have to respond to the question “¿Quién trae tanta alegría?” (who brings so much joy?) with the name of the Virgin “La Asunción de María!“. It’s a beautiful tradition, with fireworks, correfocs (people running with firework boxes on), dancing giants, capgrossos (people dancing with giant head masks), processions… everyone was in a good mood.

Definitely similar to the catalan correfocs, but on a small scale

We used León as a base for a couple of excursions. The first one to the close Pacific Coast, at the dark-sand Beach of Las Peñitas, a great spot for surfers.

Playa de las Peñitas on the Pacific Coast

The second excursion involved a long hike and camping overnight. We went to the Telica volcano with a group of 8 organised by Quetzaltrekkers, a not-for-profit organisation that donates their proceeds to improve the lives of disadvantaged kids. The hike started in San Jacinto, a little town with “hervidores” (boiling mud pits) that stunk of sulfur. Just out of the town we crossed some steam tubes connected to a local thermoelectric plant, 20% of Nicaragua’s electricity is powered by their volcanoes!

 

Then 4 hours, 2L of water and some live termite snacks later we were setting our tents on the secondary crater of Volcán Telica, a couple of hundred meters below the active crater.

Tasty termites

The view from our campsite

We checked out the active crater which sounded like a roaring 747 permanently coming in to land and then hiked a bit further to a batcave for sunset. Once in darkness we went back in search of some red hot lava…the smoke coming out of the cauldron made it quite difficult to see, although we did manage to catch a few glimpses (see the red dots in the pics?).

We returned before sunrise in the hope that some of the sulphur smoke would have subsided, but no luck, although the views at sunrise were quite amazing as we could trace the volcanic range all the way to El Salvador.

From León we headed to Granada, another pretty colonial town with lots of Spanish influence as you can tell from the names.

Men chatting and having a “Raspado” (syrup over a snow cone)

After ticking the boxes of more churches and nice streets we took a small bus to the Pueblos Blancos, a series of little towns well known for their artisans and their proximity to the stunning Laguna de Apoyo.

Interesting artisan crafts

Laguna de Apoyo from Catarina lookout

We completed the loop back to Granada after visiting and having lunch at the Masaya markets. We love eating at the local markets! Not only are they inexpensive (good meals for $50cts), but they cook traditional food with fresh ingredients and they let you try it first!

Awesome market food in Nicaragua!

However, we treat ourselves every now and then… later that night we ventured out to a TripAdvisor recommended restaurant for a Guapote dinner, much to Sal’s disappointment it was a big ugly fish to share between two. I enjoyed it a lot.

La Isla de Ometepe was our last stop in the country, the biggest island in the world in a fresh water lake, Lake Nicaragua.

The kind-of-floating ferry that took us to Ometepe

The island is also topped with 2 distinctive volcanoes (Concepción and Maderas), there’s plenty of life and jaw dropping scenery and, despite being a tourist destination, it remains relatively genuine.

Concepción on the left, Maderas on the right.

Our first stop was Santo Domingo, for the best of the island’s beaches. It lies right in the middle of the island where the land strip is narrow and you can see both volcanoes.

Santo Domingo beach and views of Maderas

From here we also visited the natural pools Ojo de Agua, which according to legend just one dip in its waters and rejuvenates 20 years.

Ojo de Agua

We spent the last 2 nights on the island in Mérida, a little town lost in the dirt road where we stayed in a Hacienda, witnessed great sunsets, tried the best Nacatamales and home-made coconut icecream and hiked to the waterfalls of San Ramón.

Nacatamal – it may not be the most appetising meal, but it tasted pretty amazing!

While the waterfalls were not really worth the 3hr walk, we spotted howler monkeys and exchanged some howls with them :)

It was precisely in the Hacienda in Mérida where we randomly picked a photography book of Costa Rica which made us change our plans. After seeing the pictures in the book, we decided to pack our stuff, skip San Juan del Sur, a busy surfer’s paradise, in order to arrive to Ostional (Costa Rica) right in time for the New Moon, the best time to witness the “arribadas” or Olive Ridley turtles arriving enmasse to lay their eggs.

Beautiful sunsets from Mérida

We’ll let you know how it went in our next post!

Hugs for everyone!