Nicaragua🇳🇮

Nicaragua is our next stop and wow, have we got good things to say about this country! From La Fortuna in Costa Rica, we went over the land border at Peñas Blancas and then onto Ometepe Island. The whole travel day from door to door, took a total of around nine hours, but the overall ease of it was fairly simple.

From La Fortuna, there are two buses, which run to the border. One bus runs to the halfway point at Upala, where you have to get off the bus and then get on a second one. There are a few buses, which run throughout the day that stop off at Upala. The other bus runs directly from San Jose directly to the border without having to swap buses. This is the bus we got and left La Fortuna at around 7:30am from Peñas Blancas Bus Stop.

From La Fortuna it took around six hours to get to the border. You then have to get off the bus, with your bags and walk to the Costa Rica immigration centre. You have to pay $8 USD exit fee for tourists, get your passport stamped before walking about ten minutes over the border into Nicaragua. It was pretty easy for us and there were employees on the way who can help direct you, if you get confused. Once in Nicaragua, you have to go their immigration centre, answer a few questions, pay the entrance fee, which is $13 USD each and then pass your bags through scanners. It took us probably forty minutes to an hour to go through immigration on both sides!

From immigration, we got a public bus, also known as ‘Chicken Buses’, to the stop Rivas. If you don’t want to get the bus, you can get a taxi from the land border. However, I would recommend getting one which is linked to an app, rather than a random one. This is just my preference in terms of safety, as the border can be a bit hectic but it is completely your choice. The bus took us to Rivas, which is where we had to get another taxi/tuktuk to the Port San Jorge. As we were going to Ometepe Island, we had to get here to get the ferry across. Once we were at the port, we got the next boat to Moyogalpa, which is the port we needed to get to on the island. The boat took around an hour but was pretty straightforward again. Overall, our journey from Costa Rica to Nicaragua took around nine hours with five different forms of transport. A very long day, but we made it to the island in time to see the most beautiful sunset, so it was completely worth it!

Ometepe Island

🏨Hostel Life is Good / Raindance Hostel (Wednesday Pool Party)

There aren’t a lot of hostels that I will big up, but Life is Good Hostel is worth the mention! It is run by a couple Roman and Barbara who are so lovely and welcoming. The hostel itself is amazing and we were so surprised they weren’t fully booked when we went! It has both dorm rooms and private rooms and a nice social area with hammocks and benches for you to relax in. There is also a small bar and restaurant, and the food is incredible. We had the most delicious meals for breakfast and dinner, with the chicken tikka masala, sweet and sour chicken and chicken bowl being the favourites.

Aside from this, they are also so welcoming, recommending us all the activities to do around the island, organised our moped for us as well as our transfer from the island to our next stop. Overall, 10/10 experience and if we had the time we definitely would have stayed here for a few more days as there is a lot to do here!

Drive through the island
We hired mopeds with our hostel for $18 USD a day and spent every day driving through the island to different sights. If the weather is good and clear, you will be able to see both Concepción and Maderas volcanoes whilst you drive. In some spots you will also be able to see a variety of wild monkeys in the trees as you drive. We managed to spot so many different coloured howler and capuchin monkeys, it honestly made Ned’s day!

Punta Jesus Maria Beach
You must go to this black sand beach! It is a stunning peninsula in Lake Nicaragua and is famous for a shifting sandbar, which stretches up to 1km into the lake during dry season, creating the unique sensation of walking on water. If you walk to the end of the sandbar, and the weather is clear, you may be lucky to see both Concepción and Maderas volcanoes in the distance.

There are food stalls and restaurants on the beach, and it is the perfect place to watch the sunset. For our first night we had the most incredible one! The sky went a beautiful mixed tones of yellow, pink and orange and we spent forty minutes watching the sun set.

Kayak Lake Nicaragua
We hired a kayak and spent the morning paddling through a small river in the middle of the island to spot all kinds of wildlife. We went with Caiman Tours and opted for the double kayak and did it ourselves, but you do have the option to take a guide with you. We had such a good morning and spent a couple of hours spotting different species of birds and caimans.

Reserva National Ojo de Agua
Spend a few hours in the natural cold spring water pools. Tickets are pretty expensive, but you can use the cost of the ticket inside the park and spend it on food or drinks for the day. We spent the late morning here relaxing in the different pools and using the rope swing. It is a very sociable area with lots of backpackers going there for the day.

Charco Verde
You must walk the Charco Verde circuit, which is a roughly 3km walk around Green Lagoon, where you can spot more amazing wildlife, including monkeys caimans and bats, if you’re lucky like us!

Other things to do on Ometepe Island

• Hike Volcán Concepción (8 hours).
• Trek up Maderas to the misty cloud forest and hidden crater lake.
• San Ramón Waterfall.
• Zipline.
• Chocolate and Coffee tour.

San Juan del Sur

🏨Hola Ola / Surf Town / Hostel Pachamama

You can easily get stuck in San Juan because the small town vibe is really fun and you meet a lot of backpackers. However, personally, the town as a whole, in our opinion wasn’t that amazing, it wasn’t well kept with a lot of rubbish everywhere. The town is more known for the surrounding beaches and being a really good place to surf, so a lot of people stay in the town then drive everywhere. We were only here for two days and spent our days at different beaches or the hostel pool.

The hostel we were staying at was really social and did a lot of activities together, so would highly recommend staying at Hola Ola if you are a solo traveller. Every day Hola Ola does an activity, such as beach BBQ, trivia etc. On Wednesdays they go to Surf Town Hostel for live music night and then every Sunday is Sunday Funday, which is where all the hostels go to one place and have a huge party till the early morning. If you are not into surfing and are tired of the beach days, you can easily miss this spot.

Popoyo

🏨Amahula Hostel

Popoyo is another incredible surf town, only an hours drive away from San Juan. Similarly to San Juan, if you’re not into surfing or want a break from the beaches, then this spot can be missed. Aside from surfing, the beaches aren’t that incredible. If you want to stop here, there are only a couple things, which you must do:

• Guasacate Tidal Pools - beautiful natural pool to swim in, we went at around 10am and it was the perfect time for us. There is a beach next to it, so you can spend the day hopping from sunbathing to relaxing in the pools.
• Tree House Nicaragua - they have a main event every Friday, which you can get a shuttle bus from Popoyo arranged with the hostel.
• Popoyo Secret - happens every Saturday, is a big event that you need to buy tickets for, but it is completely worth the price!
• Comedor Mendoza - a local restaurant, a one minute walk away from Amahula. Incredible food, very popular and incredibly cheap for such huge portions.

Granada

🏨Tree House (party hostel outside of town) / Hostal Azul (in Granada Town)

We were in Granada for two full days, but you can definitely spend at least four days here to do everything. Sadly, the second day we were here it was torrential rain, so we couldn’t do a lot.

Granada Cathedral and Bell Tower
We walked around the town and to the Granada Cathedral for the afternoon. We were really lucky with the weather, being able to see the gorgeous, surrounding views over Granada. Climb up the Bell Tower, for a cheap price and you will be able to see panoramic views over the city.

Las Isletas de Granada
Take a boat or kayak around the Isletas de Granada, which are a huge group of 365 small islands located in Lake Nicaragua. We got a boat for one hour and it cost us $20 USD for the both of us. The boat takes you around the different islands, seeing some untouched and uninhabited ones, others where locals live and several islands, which hold private accommodation and holiday homes. Some islands are covered in dense vegetation, where a variety of wildlife, birds and monkeys live, that you can spot along the way. Kayaking would be a lot of fun as it allows you to paddle quietly through the lake, and see more wildlife up close, however, it is a huge workout!

Paridiso Hostel and Lagoon
Paridiso Hostel is a fifteen minute drive away from the centre of town and is a jungle hostel that you can also stay at. It leads back onto Laguna de Apoyo, which you can pay $7 USD to enter and spend the day at, using all the facilities, such as kayaks, social area, bar and restaurant.

The Garden Cafe
The Garden Cafe is a highly recommended cafe, that you need to pop into when in Granada, we spent the afternoon here when it was rainy to make the most of the day.

Other things to do:

• Hire a moped.
• Walk around the town.
• Laguna de Apoyo Crater Lake.
• Masaya Volcano and Night Tour.
• Sunset Point.
• Iglesia La Merced.
• Hike Mombacho Cloud Forest at Reserva Natural.
• Calle La Calzada.

León

🏨Big Foot Hostel (party hostel)

Big Foot Hostel is the main party hostel to stay at in León. We were here for three nights, but you only need one full day here if you need to save some time. It’s a huge hostel, full of backpackers, is really sociable and has a pool, social area and kitchen. They have parties most nights, with the music turning off at midnight.

Volcan Cerro Negro - Volcano Boarding
The main activity to do in León is to board down the active Cerro Negro Volcano. You can book this tour with Big Foot Hostel, which costs $40 USD each, and includes the transfer bus there and back, snacks, dinner and drinks! The tour takes up the whole day, involves hiking up the volcano, boarding down, then a full on party bus back to town before continuing the party at the hostel. If you don’t want to drink you don’t have to, just let them know beforehand! Either way, it is a really fun and sociable way to meet other backpackers.

The day starts at 12pm, so make sure to eat beforehand as you don’t get a lot of snacks and dinner isn’t until 6pm. You meet at the Big Foot Hostel bar for a small induction, where you get your jumpsuit and goggles, before boarding the party bus, which takes you to the volcano. The journey takes roughly an hour or so, but once you are there you will receive your board and then have the option to take it up the volcano yourself, or pay $5 USD for one of the locals to take it up for you.

The hike up takes around an hour and includes a steady incline at the beginning, with uneven paths and small rock scrambles. After twenty minutes, that is where the hike becomes steeper, the path leads right up the side of the volcano, made completely of magma. Towards the top of the hike it levels out allowing you to walk along the rim of the active volcano. Luckily for us as we got to the top, the clouds suddenly cleared and we were able to see the incredible surrounding mountains and volcanos in the distance!

Once at the top, you change into your jumpsuits, putting your personal items in the small drawstring backpacks provided, which you wear on your front as you board down. You get a quick demonstration on how to ride your board properly before you start lining up. Make sure to not dig your heels in, as it will cause the gravel and volcano magma to fly into your face. Ned learnt this the hard way and it was painful getting the tiny fragments out of his eyes, as the goggles are pretty useless!

As you go down, you can go extremely quickly and can hurt yourself if you’re not careful, so go at your own pace. They do test the speed of each person as the fastest and slowest people will get a reward at the end of the day. Some people in our group went up to 70mph whilst the record is currently 110mph, which is dangerously fast. When we went, it had been raining a lot over the last few days causing the boards to stick on the gravel, which stopped us from going too fast. It was still really fun, and I personally thought I was going really fast! Once you have finished your board, you can go back to the party bus and sit on the roof watching everyone else go.

Once everyone has finished, you board the bus and this is where the party starts. You all get one seltza and then mixed spirits to have the entire journey back. It takes twenty minutes to get to dinner, which is rice, meat and vegetables before ending with toasted marshmallows! After dinner it's another thirty or so minutes back to the hostel, where you continue the party on the bus. During the journey back, the party bus is at full force, everyone standing up, dancing on the poles and boogying to iconic songs.

Cathedral de León
The other thing I recommend to do is go up León Cathedral for sunset. We got tickets from the office around the corner before going up and walking around the roof of the cathedral. It only costs 4 USD each and the views at the top are breathtaking. We had such a clear day so we could see all the different, surrounding volcanos and panoramic views of the city before watching a beautiful sunset.

Walk around the Town
Aside There isn’t a lot to do in the town, but spend an hour or so exploring, popping into the local markets, stalls and the different colourful churches.

Food

• Pan y Paz Bakery.
• Local Nicaraguan Food (couple stores down from Big Foot Hostel).

Parties

Nicaragua is also known for its parties and events. Definitely double check dates and plan your route accordingly as some events are incredibly fun!

1. Tuesday, León - Volcano Boarding then Beach Party.
2. Wednesday, Ometepe - Raindance Hostel Party.
3. Friday, Granada - Treehouse Nicaragua.
4. Saturday, León - Volcano Boarding then Bar Crawl.
5. Saturday, Popoyo - Popoyo Secret Beach Rave.
6. Sunday, San Juan - Sunday Funday.

Brexit Boat

Our next stop is to El Salvador and the only way to get there from Nicaragua, and vice versa, without flying is by the ‘Brexit Boat’. Honduras recently changed their visa restrictions, making it impossibly hard for UK citizens to travel to the country. If you want to go to Honduras you have to have organised your visa before leaving the UK, which of course Ned and I couldn’t do because we were living in Australia. This is because most times you are required to do an in-person interview. For a majority of other travellers, they can go via bus through land border of Nicaragua to Honduras and then onto El Salvador. Once those restrictions were put into place, the Brexit Boat was created, which takes backpackers from Nicaragua to El Salvador.

The boat runs every day, apart from Wednesdays and Sundays and you can book this transfer with Big Foot Hostel, which costs $90 USD each or directly through Geko Travels for $50 USD. $90 USD is pretty expensive, but includes the three hour bus transfer from the hostel to Potosi, which is where you catch the boat from. If you have time, you can probably take the public bus yourself from León to Potosi for a much cheaper price, but for us it was a lot easier booking it all with Big Foot, as we were on a tight schedule. When booking the transfer, you can choose different drop off points in El Salvador, La Union (where immigration is), El Tunco etc, so make sure to plan your El Salvador route first before booking.

We were collected from our hostel at 7:45am and then it took three hours to get to the Immigration Centre in Potosi. Once we were there, we had to get our passports stamped, which took just over an hour. We had to fill in an exit form, pay an exit fee of $3 USD, get our bags checked and then we were good to get on the boat.

We were extremely lucky with our weather, it was clear skies and the sea was extremely calm. The boat journey took around an hour and a half and the views along the way made the journey even better. We saw the surrounding mountains, volcanos and islands of Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador as we crossed. Once we arrived in El Salvador, we had to wait to get our passports stamped, which took twenty minutes before being allowed to move on.

I would recommend choosing La Union as your drop off point as there is an incredible camping spot on top of Volcan Conchagua! I will go detail on this spot in my El Salvador blog.