Nicaragua Part 2

Here's the second (and last) photo dump from our trip. We're moving this weekend though so stay tuned for some pics of that. 

This is Aj at Laguna de Apoyo. It's a lake that formed in the crater of a volcano. It's so cool! It was way too wavy, we tried to go kayaking but Aj fell out and we gave up. We swam a bit with tubes but I didn't last long. Too spooky. We stayed at a hostel at the Lagoon called the Monkey Hut. It was gorgeous. We had a nice little room that looked out onto the lake, and the room came with a bar tab which we used until about 8pm when we passed out. We realized that we're on kid sleep schedules (minus waking up a few times per night), as in we fall asleep at 8 and wake up at 6 now.

This is us back to normal. Our friends came over last night to hear about the trip and catch up with what they did over the break. It was fun.

Laguna de Apoyo

This is the morning we left Nicaragua. We're sad about it.

Masaya Volcano: you can only stand there for about 5 mins before you'll pass out, or feel sick because of the gases. It was so cool, and so deep. Apparently you can see lava there at night. Wicked! You also have to park facing away from the volcano in case it erupts to give you a chance to get away (yea right).

This is our room at the Monkey Hut in the evening. 

The car didn't fit all of us so we took turns sitting in the trunk. Pretty comfy actually.

This is a ton of coffee beans drying in the sun. We drove for ages to go to Matagalpa for a coffee farm tour, but we got lost and couldn't make it. So we started heading to Esteli for a cigar factory tour, and we came across this place and asked for a tour. So they showed us around and it was soooo cool. Fair trade, organic- and just so neat. Also never made it to the cigar factory. :(

This is me attempting to 'photo-bomb'

This is my crappy posture, and the shirt I bought at the market we went to on day 2.

Sam & John bought Everlea the cutest little straw hat that said Nicaragua on it. She refused to keep it on, but it was adorable anyways.

Tailgate party. This picture was sort of unattractive of everyone involved, so I put like 6 filters on it, so you couldn't tell we were stuffing our faces with fried chicken. (and I cropped Aj out. ha).

This is weird, but pretty. The government is putting these huge trees up on the main road in Managua. They look good, but I think there's some messed up things behind them- but Sam and John know more about that than I do.

Masaya Volcano, collecting some rock.

This is the Monkey Hut.

This is me and Aj partway through our hike on the Mombacho Volcano. There's a fissure that they call "the Tunnel" that formed naturally, and our guide Estela offered to take a photo for us. We learned a ton that day. It was a good, long hike, and we got to speak to a local in English (which was awesome), and got to see some pretty neat stuff.

This is a photo of one of the volcano craters. Kind of hard to tell. But you can see the trees get smaller and smaller, and deeper. 

After the hike.

This truck takes you up the volcano to where you start the hike. And it's like a 40 degree incline, and about a 40 minute drive. It was madness, and really coool.

This is the station where you get your guide and start your hike.

Another story: 

When we left the Monkey Hut our hotel guy called us a cab cause we were in the middle of nowhere. And the cab driver, Daniel took us to Mombacho and when we got there we asked how much the cab was. He was like "$20, but I can take you to where you need to go after you finish your hike for $35" so we were like, that's incredibly expensive, but okay cause we're in the middle of nowhere. And he waited at the bottom for 3 hours for us to drive us to Granada. Because $35 is about 6 days of wages for the majority of Nicaraguans.

This was in Granada. It was by far my favourite place. So beautiful. 

This was our hotel in Granada, specifically the hallway to our bedroom. It was a beautiful hotel, and they had a dalmation puppy that wandered around and he was so cute. That place was neat, we had complete access to their kitchens, ingredients, and we even had keys to the hotel. The staff left in the evenings and trusted the guests with the hotel and their dog. And everyone was so friendly, and actually hung out in the lobby and visited. We made KD for dinner there, haha.

Hotel from the outside.

In Granada, there's a touristy strip that most people hang out at. We went there on the first day and bought some souvenirs (little paintings, and annoying toys for Aj's little cousins), but decided we didn't need to go back. So we sought out the market that the locals shop at and walked around there the next day (the picture above).

This is Lake Nicaragua, but the beach was kind of gross so we just walked along the pier.

Here's Masaya again, this picture shows where it's erupted before- all the black.

This is our room at the Monkey Hut again.

This is me drinking a mojito with some strays. They were so cute, and everywhere. We couldn't decide if the hostel had adopted them or if they had just wandered in. The cat seemed to have a permanent place in that chair.

Also at the Monkey Hut.

Laguna de Apoyo

The Monkey Hut had a big pizza oven, so we had that for dinner, and it was AMAZING.

So yeah. That's the rest of the pictures (sort of), from Nicaragua. We would recommend going there, despite the craziness with our stolen stuff. I'd go back in a second! 

It was definitely an adventure, which I hope I can have more of in the future.

xoxo

HP