Day 17-18: Granada

In the morning I woke up early and took a walk around Leon - stopping at Pan Paz bakery for some chocolate croissants to take with us for the ride to Granada. We transfered in La Perla's van leaving at 10am and were in Granada at Hotel Terrasol (we stayed there last year) at noon. We spent the next two days walking around Granada and had drinks and dinner with some friends we made when were there there last year.
We had good food at Nuestro Mundo (on the south side of the square), excellent steaks at El Zaquan, ice cold beers at O'Shea's, and good coffee at the Euro Cafe.
Day 19: Going home

At about 5am we were awoken to noises out on the street that initially sounded like sheep being herded down the street. Then we started to hear horns so I looked out the window and there was a huge parade of people. Later it was explained to me that it was the "Baby Jesus noise maker" parade and it goes on for 9 days before Christmas - Only in Nicaragua would such a thing happen!

Our taxi took us to the airport and our !:15pm flight left right on time. Unfortunately once in Houston we were subject to a random search at customs. They asked us a LOT of questions about our trip and hand searched all our luggage taking about 45 minutes but fortunately we had plenty of time to make our connecting flight.

Day 15-16: Back to Leon

Unfortunately we had to be back in Leon to return our rental car by 10am. We woke up at 6 and went to lad to car only to discover that one of the tires was flat. After changing the tire we were on our way by 7am and in Leon at 9. We checked back into La Perla and then went to return the car. They only charged an additional $2 to have the tire repaired.

We spent the next two days walking around Leon - going on the roof of the cathedral, drinking rum and hanging out at Via Via, also ran into a friend we made when we were in Leon last year. We also ate at the BBQ behind the cathedral both nights - yummy meat, gallo pinto, and a salad for $2.50.

Day 14: Hungover

I woke up at about 8:30 with a terrible hangover. I forced myself to get out of bed, take a cold shower, and have some breakfast of fruit, yogurt and granola. After swimming in the ocean, Tina made me a few awesome bloody marys to ease my hangover. We had an early dinner and were asleep by 8pm

Day 13: Jiquilillo and Rancho Tranquilo

The next morning Kat was feeling much better so after breakfast we packed up the car and drove north through Chinindaga to Jiquilillo. The road is well paved until you get to the Jiquilillo turn off where it's about 8km of gravel to the coast.

Jiquilillo is a small Nica fishing village - mostly composed of grass huts. We checked out Rancho Esperanza but there were quite a bit of hippyish people milling about so we drove up the road to Rancho Tranquilo and immediately fell in love with the location. We were met by Tina, the owner and David (the bartender) and he showed us to our cabin ($20/night) which was basic but comfortable with a brand new mattress and good pillows and a mosquito net over the bed. We also had a fan and electricity in our room. The shared toilets and showers (cold water) were clean. We learned that all the meals are all vegetarian and they only prepare one (sometimes two) dishes for lunch and dinner. Guests who wish to eat need to sign up and vote for what will be for lunch and dinner. Breakfast is whatever you want from the menu.

After a delicious lunch of veggie burgers and fries we went swimming - warm, shallow water and gentle surf with little, if any, undertow or rip current. Next we took a walk down the beach into the village and watched the fisherman unloading their boats with the catch of the day.

After dinner a party broke out in the bar with great music, dancing, and of course, lots of booze. Some people came from another hotel down the road and we were up until about 3am getting blasted.

Day 12: Wrong turn and an unexpected stop in Leon

We woke up early, had breakfast, and checked out of the hotel. Our plan was to drive back to Rivas and then head north all the way to Jiquilillo. We inquired about the road back to the Pan American Highway at Ochomongo but people told us that it was impossible to do in nothing less than a 4x4. As we left Popoyo we started to see some different scenery then the way we came in form Tola. We also did a river crossing that was a little deep and scary in our Toyota but we made it. I stopped a few times to ask people if we were on the road to Tola and they smiled and nodded. After another hairy river crossing and some really bad roads we came into Ocomongo! I wouldn't recommend that anybody else try this in a passenger car - especially a rental. I think we got really lucky that we didn't flood the car or get stuck anywhere. Once on the highway we made good time to Managua and then onto the road towards Leon. As we were approaching Leon Kat started to feel sick. We pulled over and she got sick to her stomach and vomited on the side of the road. She said she felt better but we decided that it would be best to stop in Leon and recuperate before heading onto Jiquilillo.

We drove to La Perla where we had stayed last year, got a nice room upstairs where Kat took a nap and I went out to find her some ginger ale and alkaseltzer to help settle her stomach. I then took a walk around town and ended up at ViaVia for some beers and lunch. When i got back, Kat was feeling better but didn't want to go out for dinner so i went to La Union and got some bread and lunch meats and we had a picnic in our room while watchig a movie on tv and were in bed by 9pm

Day 10-11: Popoyo

Breakfast was included with our room so we went to the attached Bario Restaurant. I showed the waitress our breakfast coupons and she brought us menus. We both ordered typico nica breakfasts but when it came time to pay the bill the waitress said the coupons were only good for a different breakfast that wasn't indicated on the menu. Since my Spanish is somewhat poor and nobody else in the restaurant spoke much English we grudgingly paid for our "free" breakfast.

Next we walked up to Pelican Eyes hotel tom pick up our rental car, a a Toyota Yaris, from Budget. We next loaded up the car, got some snacks at Pali and headed out of town to Rivas where we took the turn off to Tola. The road to Tola was in good shape but then turned to a decent gravel road with a few stream crossings. Not a problem for a regular car in the dry season but I'm sure in the rainy season you would need something with high clearance. Along the way we stopped at Playa Gigante which looked gorgeous. Once we got to Popoyo the road became really bad requiring some careful maneuvers. We didn't have any reservations but satopped at the first hotel we found, Hotel Popoyo. They had some plain rooms for $45/night and some super plush nice rooms for $62/night with hot water, a/c, wifi, and free breakfast - we treated ourselves to one of the plush rooms. Oh yeah they also had a nice swimming pool on the property.



Popoyo is a one street town with a few hotels, surf shops, and summer homes lining the 1km road along the beach. There is an estuary at the end of the road that fills up at high tide and the surfing waves seemed to be just south of there. On the north side of the estuary the waves were fairly gentle for swimming and there wasn't much of a rip current.

El Rancho is a good restaurant at the end of the road and had ice cold beers, decent food, an immaculate garden, and a great view of the waves. They were only open for lunch when we were there.
There is also a comidor at the end of the road - we had chicken burgers with fries and shared a liter of beer for only $7.
The best meal in town is the pizza at Rana Roja - a really sophisticated place next to Hotel Popoyo. We had a 750ml bottle of 7year Flor De Cana with diet coke, a garlic bread appitizer, salami pizza, and home made chocolate ice cream for dessert for $35

Hotel Popoyo also has a restaurant but we only had our free breaksts there which were delicious.

Day 9: San Juan Del Sur

The next morning we had breakfast, collected some laundry we had washed, and the staff called us a taxi to take us to Moyogalpa for $25. We arrived at the terminal just as the "Che Guevara" ferry was loading passengers. We got some seats on the open top deck under a shady canopy and we were on our way to San Jorge at 11am.



At the terminal we were swamped by people offering us taxis. Most wanted $30 to take us so we kept on walking until we found a driver that agreed to take us for $20. We were in SJDS 45 minutes later and checked into the Hotel Azul Pitahaya - $45 got us a clean room with comfortable beds, satellite tv, cold a/c, and most importantly a HOT shower which was pretty nice after only taking cold showers for the past week.



Kat took a nap while I took a walk around town - SJDS hadn't changed too much since we were there last year. I stopped at El Gato Negro for an ice cold lemonade and to use their wifi to check my email.



After Kat was up from her nap we headed to the beachfront Iguana Bar for some rum and cock while watching the sunset

The best restaurant in town is El Colibri on the south east corner from the church. We shared a bruschetta appetizer and I had fillet mignon kababs , Kat had fillet mignon with gorgonzola cheese. Along with a few glasses of wine the bill came to $40 and was well worth it.





After dinner we went to Iguana and met up with our Australian friends for more drinks - it turns out that ladies drink free until 8 so my wife and a few other girls were sneaking me some of their free drinks :)