As most of the tourist spots we wanted to visit in Leon were closed for the Easter celebrations we decided to have a few days break from the city and head to the town of Esteli for a river/ canyoning trip! A few hours from the city but another chaotic trip on the chicken buses! The chicken buses are still the standard yellow (or other random colour) buses that were once the old school busses in the USA and now the main form of transport in Central America for th...

The next stop in our trip through Nicaragua was the city of Leon. A city very smiler to Granada in size and style. We had a few bits planned, climbing to the top of the cathedral, visiting the revolutionary museum (as Leon was one of the main cities that led the revolution against the government) and an art gallery but it wasn't to be! As it was Easter week a lot of the city was closed down for the festivities! So we spent a few days pottering around town see...

Moving further north we headed to the city of Granada. One of the most important historical cities of Nicaragua along with Leon, our next destination. Apparently Granada and Leon went through years of infighting to gain dominance in the area as both were towns of wealthy businesses in pre/ post colonial times. The city is relatively small so just a few days to chill out was planned. The city centre was quite colonial with the usual features on the buildings and ...

Central America is littered with many volcanoes, some active and some dormant for thousands of years. The next stop would be the island of Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua, it looked to be an interesting place. The lake is one of the biggest in Central America (8264km2) and although not as big as Lake Titicaca we visited in South America it was pretty impressive and was more like a sea than a lake! The islands were formed thousands of years ago when two volcanoes emer...

An interesting border crossing started our trip into Nicaragua! Starting with a few busses from La Fortuna in Costa Rica, when we arrived at the border it was chaos! Locals everywhere shouting things in Spanish and trying to get everyone's business as soon as they left the bus! Then after a very confusing border crossing was finally achieved, we were met with loads of armed security guards, police and army! We opted for local 'chicken busses' to get us to San J...