Central America - Days 8 and 9 (León to Granada, Nicaragua)

Day 8 started out very slow with 9 hours of sleep! My body definitely needed it after the long day yesterday.  I walked to the cute, little coffee shop around the corner from the hotel for breakfast. It was a cute place with a relaxed vibe and great coffee. I ordered a croissant with bacon, egg and cheese along with some fruit. 

I caught up on my reading and blogging before we checked out and departed for Granada, about a 3.5 hour drive.

The drive was easy and we arrived in Granada with no issues. The hotel is nice and has a swimming pool (La Estacion).  

I relaxed in the room before we headed out for a group dinner. The place was really nice and I had fish tacos with carrot cake. 

Day 9 - Granada Tour

Our entire group booked a full day tour leaving at 9 a.m. and coming back some time early evening. Granada is a much bigger city than León with about 134,000 people and is surrounded by volcano. 

Here are the events of the day:

1. Boat Tour

We started the tour with with a boat tour of the isletas seeing different aquatic birds, monkeys and many different private a local islands. It is clear that the people buying these islands have money and the houses are the grandest around. There is electricity on each of the islands as well. The tour guide said there are crocodiles, bull sharks and other creatures in the waters, but we didn’t see any. 

2. Granada City Tour

We then continued with the panoramic Granada city tour including a visit to the bate bate chocolate to have free samples of chocolate, cocoa butter and chocolate tea. We also stopped by the bell tower of la Merced church to see the whole city from a high point of view.There are many gorgeous churches around the cite and this one is no exception. 

3. Diriomito Lookout Point

Next, we drove about 25 minutes to Diriomito lookout point to see the following sites: Apoyo Crater Lake, the city of Granada, Lake Nicaragua and Mombacho volcano. Lake Nicaragua is very impressive, but the crater lake was interesting as it was in the middle of the volcanoes.

4. Laguna Beach Club Resort

We then hit the Laguna Beach Club resort for a few hours, which is right on the crater lake. We had access to kayaks, stand up paddle boarding, inner tubes and floating dock. The tour operator also provided fruit, guacamole and the local cocktail. I had a chicken quesadilla and headed down to the beach to grab a kayak for a spin around the lake. The waves created a fun challenge and the temperature was perfect. These few hours we not enough, but soon we headed out to the next stop. 

5. Masaya Handicraft Market

We stopped by the local handicraft market where there were many souvenirs and handicrafts. I especially like that they had some cutting boards so I shared pics with my dad. 

6. Masaya Volcano

After the handicraft market, we made our way to the Masaya Volcano for a short hike along the steam vents and a view of the incandescent crater.

It was a long day, but definitely full of incredible sites. Tomorrow, we are off to an island for a homestay. 

Central America - Day 7 (La Libertad, El Salvador to León, Nicaragua)

Today was a tough day of travel after a short night. We departed at 3:30 a.m. and drove about 4 hours to get to the place where we were going to catch our boat over to Nicaragua. Before the boat, we stopped at the immigration office to exit El Salvador, but they didn’t stamp our passport. We completed the paperwork for Nicaragua and headed to the dock with our luggage. 

The trip by sea is only an hour an a half versus another three hours of driving, so the tour included the boat ride. I have had some interesting boat rides in the past, but thankfully this was boring and predictable. 

Entering a country through the shore with immigration at the dock was a new experience for me. We got out of the boat in the water because the dock was too high for the boat and it was clear that no one has used the docks in many, many years. As soon as we reached the shore, we were greeted by three immigration officers who went through all of our bags. Our guide had warned us about this, but they went through every pocket of our luggage, so it took some time. While we were being inspected, our guide took our passports to get stamped. 

Line for immigration

While we got off in the water, the guys helped us down. It was a smooth disembarkation.

This guy carrying our luggage had impressive strength.

After our passports were stamped, we climbed aboard our new bus and headed towards León. One our drive, we passed many beautiful, green volcanos and most of us passed out on the drive. 

Once we reached the town, we checked into our hotel (Hotel Hellenika) and learned about the different sites around the town. Then we headed to a local bar for some lunch that we pre-ordered, so it would be ready. I had chicken quesadillas with tostones. They served the tostones with cheese and beans, which was tasty and different as to eating them with my normal ketchup. 

We opted to go purchase tickets to see the rooftop of the Cathedral de León, the largest cathedral in Central America. The official name of this church is the Royal and Renowned Basilica Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was a cool experience going through the narrow stairwells and up to the top to walk across the domes. We were also able to see all of the volcanoes from the top of the church. 

León is a small town with 17 churches surrounded by volcanoes. There is a rich history from the Revolution that I didn’t really learn about while we were here, but I will read up on it when I have time. We found a cute, little terrace bar where we finished our evening.