We left Costa Rica having been impressed with almost everything we saw. We were looking forward to our next destination, Nicaragua, because we had heard rumors from other travelers that it was at least as beautiful as Costa Rica, except much cheaper. In-fact, it’s common these days for backpackers to catch a bus from Panama to Nicaragua, bypassing the relatively expensive Costa Rica altogether. Immediately after negotiating a chaotic border crossing, we started to question the accuracy of that theory as the landscape almost instantly changed from the lush green we were used to to a relatively barren brown. Even so, we tried to keep an open mind.
Our first stop was San Juan del Sur, a small surf town on Nicaragua’s southern pacific coast. The town itself doesn’t have a great surf beach; the prominent gringo surf population just use it as a base and take 4x4 day trips to better breaks to the north and south. What San Juan del Sur does offer is a beautiful, calm, crescent-shaped west-facing beach, and the opportunity to enjoy memorable sunsets from one of many chill beachfront bars. For us, sunset was the clear highlight of each day, not only because of the view but also because it brought relief from the stifling daytime heat. We stayed in a nice hostel on the hill, enjoying elaborate cooked breakfasts every morning on the rooftop terrace with views of the town and beach below.
Our first stop was San Juan del Sur, a small surf town on Nicaragua’s southern pacific coast. The town itself doesn’t have a great surf beach; the prominent gringo surf population just use it as a base and take 4x4 day trips to better breaks to the north and south. What San Juan del Sur does offer is a beautiful, calm, crescent-shaped west-facing beach, and the opportunity to enjoy memorable sunsets from one of many chill beachfront bars. For us, sunset was the clear highlight of each day, not only because of the view but also because it brought relief from the stifling daytime heat. We stayed in a nice hostel on the hill, enjoying elaborate cooked breakfasts every morning on the rooftop terrace with views of the town and beach below.
After a couple of days in San Juan del Sur we took a collectivo inland to San Jorge on the edge of Lake Nicaragua, the largest lake in central america, and the only lake in the world that hosts fresh water sharks. From there, we caught a ferry to Isla Ometepe, the prominent island in the middle of the lake, which is formed by two volcanic peaks. On our first day in Ometepe, we hired bikes and rode around part of the island, getting off at a narrow sandbar named Punta Jesus Maria (so named because at the end of the sandbar you look like you’re walking on water).
We’d read that you can’t visit Nicaragua without hiking a volcano, and Volcan Concepcion, the higher of the two volcanoes on Isla Ometepe, is the most popular hike in the country because it offers stunning views of the lake and on to the pacific ocean if you’re lucky enough to get a clear day. We were told the hike would take all day so we reluctantly got up at 4am. Unfortunately, the good weather we enjoyed for most of the hike deserted us at the summit, where visibility was limited to a few feet. We still enjoyed saw some good views of the island and lake on the way down before arriving back at our hostel before 11am (as it turns out we could have started the hike much later, although the heat in the early afternoon would have been near unbearable).
After leaving the island we caught a chicken bus to Granada, stopping at least 50 times to load/unload school children, old ladies, vendors (selling everything from hotish food to shampoo), chickens and rooftop cargo, in an unbelievably slow 2 hour trip along a straight, traffic-free, 60 kilometer road.
Granada is known as one of the prettier colonial towns in Central America, so to take it in, we stayed in the historical centre of town, visited dozens of nice old churches and buildings, ate dinner outside on a historic cobblestone street, and took a ride around town on a horse-driven carriage. For one full day, to escape the heat, we caught a shuttle to Reserva Natural Laguna de Apoyo, spending the day swimming, kayaking and relaxing at a small resort on the edge of the volcanic lagoon.
Our final stop in Nicaragua was Leon, the colonial capital, which features lots of impressively large churches and buildings but lacks the color and vibrancy of the newer and better kept Granada. By the time we reached Leon we were just about sick of the heat and were getting good value for the exorbitant premium we had to pay to get an air conditioned room, only leaving the hotel during the day for short 1-hour sightseeing bursts.
On our last night in Leon we caught a cab to a surf-town about half an hour away to watch the sunset and enjoy a nice meal. We knew that we weren’t going to be able to get a bus back, so we arranged with our cab driver to pick us up again at 7:30 after dinner. We arrived at the pick-up point a few minutes early only to be told that the cab driver had come and gone at 7:20. After spending an hour on the main road we didn’t come across a single cab, so we had to formulate a plan B. We met a nice man who was heading back to Leon after fumigating the restaurant we were waiting outside, so we hitched a ride in the back of his truck, along with 10 very large restaurant workers (far from the safest or most comfortable journey we’d taken but it was certainly one of the most memorable).
We were extremely relieved to get back to our air conditioned hotel room in one piece that night. To be honest, we were also not disappointed that it was our last night in Nicaragua. Although we have no regrets, of the 14 countries we had been to by that stage in our trip, it was a close call between Nicaragua and Uruguay as to which was our 14th favorite. Costa Rica, by contrast, sat towards the top of our list, so we would really caution against swapping Costa Rica for Nicaragua. To a large degree, a comparison is unfair to both countries, because travelers more interested in volcanoes and colonial towns than national parks and beaches, for example, would be better off visiting Nicaragua.