Maybe the travellers are getting a spoilt with all the beauty that we see (and also a bit tired after 2 months on the road), as the last couple of days in lovely Granada we have struggled to motivate ourselves for much sightseeing! We have down a fair amount of meandering and a lot of eating, but mainly recharging batteries and making some plans to make sure we get through Costa Rica and into Panama in time to catch our flight to S America! Granada is a very wel...

One of the reasons we were keen to head to this part of the Pacific Ocean (apart from the sea and beach of course) was that this time of year the giant Pacific Turtles come up to lay their eggs. So a guide was arranged with us and a bunch of American friends at our hostal and off we went at 10pm to see if the turtle would come out to meet us. This involved a long walk down a very dark beach, with the tide coming in, constantly making us run away to keep dry. Th...

Hello Pacific Ocean, we almost saw you a month ago in Guatemala on the 2250m high Indian Nose but you hid behind the clouds. However now we have travelled from Leon to Las Peñitas, a very beautiful but surprisingly deserted beach town with long sandy beaches, some cool chilled out hostels, surfer dudes aplenty and amazing sunsets. We arranged to stay in the hostal run by our Volcano surfing guides, with a taxi and beer also thrown in for the deal. So in Leon we...

This is Cerro Negro, a volcano that appeared suddenly in 1850 as a result of the Cocos tectonic plate subducting under the Caribbean tectonic plate at a rate of 9 cm every year and as such is one of the most active volcanos in Nicargua. It has errupts on average every 8 years, and hasnt kicked off for 13 years, so its overdue and experts are expecting a large erruption very soon. So whats the best thing to do at a place like this? How about climb up it and then...

Arriving in Leon in what can only be descibed as a tropical storm, a few inches of rain below our feet and drivng terrencial rain pounding us. We ran for cover in our new hostal called Lazybones. A nice relaxing place with lots of hammocks around a courtyard, swimming pool and a pool table. Only downside is the owner is a miserable bloke who is not willing to talk to his guests! So Leon, A city of around 200,000 people and a sister city of Oxford! Its a very ol...