One evening at the lovely Hacienda Merida on Isla Ometepe, I met a guy from Texas, a guy from
England, a German girl and a guy from Austria and we spent a number of hours drinking and playing "pigs" together. Only the Texan,
Travis, was going my way after Ometepe so we hooked up to travel a few days
together.
Travis persuaded me to deter my plan to go to
Granada by one day so that we could check out San Juan beach on the
Pacific coast. I was easy to persuade as I knew it would be my last
chance to be on a beach for this trip. Travis pointed out to me that
as the Lonely Planet has to cover a lot of ground in its travel
guides, it has to be extremely economical with its descriptions and a
couple of words can be crucial. Thus, argued Travis, if the guide on
Nicaragua stated that San Juan was a place where the elite of
Nicaragua went on holiday, it must be a pretty nice place. In short,
how could I come to Nicaragua and not go there? (I've said something similar to myself so many times on this trip ... but there's only so much you can fit into a world trip!). I'm glad he persuaded me anyway; San Juan is a lovely resort. We had one evening there
and went, armed with a bottle of rum and some cokes, in search of sun set views. When we got to the lookout of
Christ on the rocks, however, we were too late. We tried to bribe
the security man up there with rum but failed so stumbled down in
darkness, trying to dodge hundreds of crabs. We settled for a bit of
a karaoke session on the beach with my ipod and speakers and
continued it, via getting some food, back at the hostel. We paid for
it in the morning when the cleaner sang outside our room at 8am. I
looked across at Travis to get his reaction and saw him lying with
his head torch still on and his light beaming from his forehead. An
hilarious sight to wake up to.
The next morning, we got a chicken bus
to Granada. Going with Travis' technique of reading INTO the LP, we
went for the hostel with “roof top views” and it led us to some nice accommodation (Hospedaje Cocibolca) in a very pleasant area of Granada. Granada was pretty but apart from the food stalls around the plaza at night and a little bar we came across with live music and people salsa dancing, we
found it to be a bit souless. We therefore decided to see
some of the surrounding area and did a day trip to Mayasa to visit
the markets (an artisan one and a local smelly one where we braved
lunch). From there we hopped on a bus to Lagoon Apoyo and arrived
just as a storm started. It didn't stop us from plunging into the
lake though. I've never seen a lake with so many waves!
I spent my 29th birthday in
Granada. I enjoyed a great breakfast with Travis (omelette, scrambled eggs, pancakes, tortillas, coffee) but the rest of the
day was a bit dull as I had to sort out an onward bus ticket to
Guatemala, it rained and the lakeside walk was a huge disappointment.
We went out for a Mexican for dinner but I had to leave at 1am for my
18 hour bus journey to Guatemala City ... so although I didn't get much sleep, it wasn't because of wild celebrations!
