Leon, great experience with added adrenaline kick

<![CDATA[ALUSOARE - Nicaragua]]>Thu, 17 Oct 2024 15:47:34 +0200Weebly<![CDATA[Experiencing Leon, Nicaragua]]>Wed, 25 May 2016 13:06:42 GMThttps://www.alusoare.com/nicaragua/experiencing-leon

Accomodation

We stayed at Paz de Luna B&B and Cafe. The place it nice, offers a decent breakfast and the rooms are comfortable and clean. The only downside (maybe for some people) would be the shared bathroom with the room next door.

Eat

We ate at PorkysHouse and enjoyed a lot the food. It was quite funny as a friend who visited Nicaragua early 2015 went at the same restaurant and also loved it (but I had no idea).

Do and Vist

Volcano Boarding

One of the most popular activities in Leon is Volcano Boarding. This is done on Cerro Negro which is the youngest volcano in Central America. The volcano is still active, if you look closely at the sand at the top you can actually sea heat coming out.

We booked the tour at the hotel as we arrived late, you can find cheaper options if you book in time. The up side is that in this case all the money are going to help kids with no possibilities.

Price: 30$ per person.
Two tours a day

First tour is as of 8:00 AM and
second one 2:00 PM.

I strongly recommend the morning one as with the heat would make quite a challenge to hike up.

A van picks you up in the morning and drives you to the bottom of the volcano.

Then you need to hike 728m up. This takes approx 45 minutes. It can get extreme windy which is adding up to the difficulty of the hike. Keep the board horizontally it will help with the wind. Make sure you have water with you. The views at the top are quite spectacular

Ok, now we are at the top and dressed with the overalls get ready .....it's coming. You have different speeds you can catch depending on how you hold your legs. No worries your guide will explain everything. Are you ready? Look what is waiting for you :)

At the end you will be full of small stones and dust, thus a bath is absolutely needed. You can clean yourself a bit at the entry point.

I support and recommend this activity as it is a lot of fun. Put yourself in the middle or fast position to enjoy better and if you have enough energy just climb back up again for a second try.

Visit a museum

Do you speak Spanish? if so and are just a tiny bit interested in the history of Nicaragua then you should definitely visit Museo de la Revolucion. (If you only speak English, give it a try there are some veterans that do speak English). The Museum tries to give an idea about what happened and what meant the Revolution for the local people. The guides are former fighters during the revolution thus you can feel the emotion with which they tell you the story. Don't expect much, but it is worth going in.

The Entrance fee is 2$
Opening hours: 8:30AM - 5:30 PM
And the view from the roof at sunset is very nice.

Cathedral of Leon

Go around the city

Iglesia-El-Calvario

IGLESIA LA RECOLECCION

just a street at sunset

Part of the big mural showing the revolution in Leon, Nicaragua.

if you like surfing..

catch a bus that brings you to the beach (Playa las Penitas). The bus station is at the other end of the city; Mercadito de Sutiava. Ask in the bus when to go down. it takes aprox 1h.

You can rent a board from Pelikan Bar. The guy there can also give you some tips. After an exhausting time in the water, you can get some fresh fish cooked for you on the beach. Once done they will bring it to you at Pelikan.

Party

Leon is a good party place, so if you spend the night go to one of the several party places in the center. the Latino rhythm and Flor de Cana will definitely convince you to join the dancing floor.

Buy souvenirs

you have loads of souvenirs to pick from most (if not all) are hand made and a very cheap.

Leon is an interesting place to visit and I would not miss it if in Nicaragua.

You can read more on how to get to Leon HERE.

#ILoveToTravel

]]><![CDATA[Granada to Leon]]>Wed, 18 May 2016 07:42:51 GMThttps://www.alusoare.com/nicaragua/granada-to-leonGranada - Managua (UCA)

Buses leave from Calle Vega, Granada. We did not even reach the street and a mini bus was passing by the main square yelling UCA, UCA :) so we stopped them and jumped in the bus.

As far as we've been told there are buses leaving constantly between 6 AM and 6 PM so whenever you are ready visiting the city head towards the bus stop and take the first one. I read somewhere online that it is best to avoid the chicken buses as they take longer.

The price is about 1$ and the time 1-1.5h depending on how many times they stop.

Managua (UCA) to Leon

Once you are off the bus, check out signs for buses leaving to Leon. It is quite well marked, if not just ask everyone will know. There are buses leaving once they are full so just put yourself in the queue and wait (I guess not more than 10 minutes). The trip to Leon costs approx 2$ and the trip takes about 1.5h.

Once we arrived in the bus station in Leon, which looks like the middle of the road :) we booked a bicycle taxi to go to our hotel, Paz de luna totally recommended. The only downside is that the bathrooms are shared with the room next door a bit weird organized but I guess it depends also on the neighbors that you have.

#ILoveToTravel

]]><![CDATA[Granada]]>Thu, 12 May 2016 06:57:46 GMThttps://www.alusoare.com/nicaragua/granadaComing from Ometepe we took a taxi in the port of San Jorge, Rivas to Granada for 10$ per person. Price was negotiated from 20$ per person if I am not mistaken.
There is a bus to Granada from Rivas but the time from San Jorge to Rivas and then the bus trip was not worth in our case. I guess the bus should be very cheap not sure. For the schedules you can check this website.

In certain days of the week you can take a boat directly from Ometepe to Granada. You can get the info on the official website; just scroll down.

In Granada we stayed at Hotel Casa Antigua. The place is nice and clean, the walls are very thin though and you can hear anything through them.

Trips in Granada

In the first day after lunch we visited the Cathedral and wanted to book the tour of the Mayasa Volcano. This turned out to be quite difficult.

The tours need to be booked the day before or the latest same day early AM, as there are limited amount of people that can enter. As we did not have the time the next day to do it we insisted to get at least the view over the volcano if the caves were not possible to visit anymore. Luckily in the end we found a guide that pulled some strings and we managed to get in the National Park. We paid 50$ for 3 people. the normal price with the caves is 35$ per person. This included the ride with the taxi to Masaya and back and the entrance fee.

We were super lucky again and we actually also managed to see the lava in the volcano. The pictures are not very good, but you will get the point. It is impressive and totally worth it.

The next day we went in the morning to visit the Granada Islets. It's a relaxing trip nothing that amazing but if you have the time it's a nice tour. They take you from Granada to the Lake and from there there is a tour with the boat. You will pass by an island that has 4 monkeys. They belonged before to some local people that left Nicaragua and they left 2 monkeys on the island, in the meantime they are 4 now. The tour is of 3h and we paid 40$ for 3 person including some "cocktails" prepared with Flor de Cana and 1h spent on one of the islands that has a restaurant and a swimming pool. Bring swimming suit along.

Back from the tour we went a bit around the colorful Granada which we enjoyed a lot.

EAT

We had absolutely great food in Granada.
As we read on the internet, Nicaragua is renowned besides the excellent Ron also for amazing beef meat. So we decided to try it out for dinner. Based on Trip Adviser recommendations we went for El Zaguán. Pricey but extremely good. It's needless to say that it was the best beef I ever had (did not visit yet Argentina, Uruguay or Brazil).

As for lunch we went for The Garden Café the place is very nice, in the back you have a small garden where you can eat, inside there is a handmade mainly souvenir shop and the food was excellent.

After lunch, we took our backpacks from the hotel and off to Leon.
We loved the city, very good food, nice people and extreme colorful. Don't miss it if you are in Nicaragua (might get too touristy soon)

#ILoveToTravel

]]><![CDATA[Ometepe]]>Wed, 04 May 2016 07:28:51 GMThttps://www.alusoare.com/nicaragua/ometepe

Once the bus drops you off in Rivas (if you are coming from Monteverde check my post HERE) you need to go to the port of San Jorge from where you would take the boat to the island, Moyogalpa port. By the way, Ometepe is an island formed by 2 volcano.

At the 'bus station' there will be taxi drivers or taxi bicycles waiting for you. As we were 3 and rushing to catch the boat we decided to go by taxi we paid 2$ per person.
You can find the schedule for the boats HERE and in the picture below the info I found in the Port of Moyogalpa with prices included.

The prices depending on the boat size & speed will vary. We paid on the way to Ometepe 45 Nicaraguan Cordoba (approx. 1.6 $) and 50 (approx 1.8$) on the way back (this was "Che" boat)

Once in the port most probably it will be best to walk to your hotel/hostel as it should be close by or get one of the old US school buses. We stayed at Casa Moreno . Was ok, nothing special neither good nor bad.

We stayed only that afternoon as next day we were going to Granada. We thought of hiking Conception Volcano, but we read that it takes 9h so we decided to skip it as it in the end.

We rented a scooter and took a ride around the island. I don't remember how much we paid for the scooter maybe 15$ for half day, anyway we negotiated a lot. You can get a couple of very nice views of the volcano

Itineray

Our first stop was Ojo de Agua which is "a natural spring pool filled with crystal clear water from an underground river that comes from volcano Maderas." (Source). The place is nice especially if not crowded. The entrance is 3$ per person. The swim can be very relaxing. the pool has a Tarzan Jump (quite fun) and a slackline over the water (this is impossible to cross :) )

From here we went to Playa de Santo Domingo, which is a gorgeous place, the only downside are the millions of mosquitoes close to the sunset hour.

Before returning to the village we wanted to stop and see the sunset from Punta Jesus Maria which I guess is the best place of capturing a panoramic view of the 2 Volcano and a 3rd one Mombacho which is on mainland. For me this will be a very special place as at the time I was here it was 12 AM in RO and consequently my birthday :)

Eat

We went back to the hostel and got ready for dinner. As there are not too many restaurants it was easy to choose a place. We decided for Buon appetito pizza and grill. The food was good so if you like meat pass by.

As it was my birthday we wanted to celebrate so we went to the only bar we found called Bar del Timbo al Tambo. I don't have pictures but you can find some on Trip Adviser . The experience is amazing and very very local. We had a Nica Libre (which is 1 shot of Flor de Cana Ron and 2 shots of Coca Cola with some lime; basically an adapted Cuba Libre). They have a Jukebox that has a TV connected to it and you can watch the video-clips of the songs. Definitely interesting!

If you stay for breakfast try The Cornerhouse. â€‹We chose something healthy for a change from all the sandwiches we had.

From there back to Mainland. Next Stop Granada.

#ILoveToTravel

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