After checking into a lovely hotel in the town of San Jorge we went straight to sleep to catch the ferry the next morning. We didn't get out early as we had air con and we wanted to enjoy it. We got on a rickety old ferry with the locals for the one hour journey across the lake. The lake was massive it seemed like the ocean only it was really brown murky water, probably from pollution which is a shame!
The ometepe island that we were headed to looked amazing as it is made up of two huge volcano's in the middle of the lake. You could hike the volcano, but it would take 10 hours and it was BOILING. It was out of the question for both of us.
When we arrived on the island we headed to a place Dan had emailed that was run by hippies. We had an average burrito and then rented a scooter to explore the island. The island only really has one paved road and it didn't even go around the whole island. It didn't take long to make it all the way to the end and we would stop at different points to take pictures of the volcanoes or of the beach. There were signs all along the road showing the evacuation route if one of the volcanoes became active, the island as also so small that we had to drive across the airport runway! I burnt my leg on the exhaust and it hurt so much! We stopped off at a bar at the end of the road to have a coca cola (I think we've become addicted) and there were chickens living in the bar!
The island was absolutely beautiful, with these lovely blue birds hopping in the trees. We wished we could've stayed longer but as we weren't going to hike in this heat there wasn't really too much for us to do!
The next day we headed back across the lake, it was Good Friday and the ferries were on Sunday times so we had to wait around for about an hour for the ferry.
When we got to San Jorge we jumped in a taxi to get to the bus station, the taxi driver kept telling us there were no buses today and he would drive us to Granada. We ignored him thinking it was a con, until we got to the bus station and there were no buses! It was Good Friday after all, we looked at a 'hotel' opposite the station but it was absolutely disgusting and Dan refused to stay there. So we headed back to the beach. There was a festival on the beach and it was full of people enjoying the holiday. This meant that the place we stayed previously was full. There were only two other hotels and we were worried they would be all full and we would be stuck. One only had a family room left so cost $42. One was posh and cost $40, it even had a pool so we stayed there for the day.
We headed to the beach where people were playing funfair games and music was blaring, but it was boiling and crowded and we had air con so we stayed by the pool instead, where they had giant rabbits hopping around! At night we went back to try to find some food, we asked how much a chicken and rice place cost, but they cannot talk properly here so we weren't sure, turned out she charged us $10 for our chicken and rice plates. It should've cost $4! Dan was angry especially when it didn't taste good at all.
The next morning we headed back to the bus station and there were buses everywhere! We managed to get a bus to Granada but there were no seats so I had to sit on the floor for part of the journey. It didn't take long but it was crowded and there were holes in the floor!
Finally in Granada we went around hotels asking prices and one of the first places we looked at charged only $12 for a private room so it was perfect!
We checked in and asked the lady at the desk if there would be buses running tomorrow (easter Sunday) she said no and we decided that we would have to miss out Leon because we wouldn't be able to get there in time. Stupid easter!
We wandered round town and went down again to look at Nicaragua lake. We also tried a Nica libre (Nicaraguan rum and coke) which was way too strong! We had to add our own Coke to dilute it a bit! Granada is a nice little colonial town that I'm sure we would appreciate more if we hadn't been to 3000 previously!
The next day we had a lie in and then got up to hunt down a kinder egg for Easter. Outside was packed! It was like it wasn't Easter anymore! There were tons of buses! Which was so annoying but we'd already paid for the night so we decided to still stay put. We found a place that had two kinder eggs but they were both girl ones so Dan got an m&m egg. We were both really happy we managed to find eggs at Easter. We didn't do too much today apart from eat and walk around some more. We found a great Mexican restaurant that we ended up going to twice in one day! We also saw a religious procession at night going down the street which had loads of cute kids dressed as angels and even a waterfall!
The next day we took a shuttle to the capital Managua to book a bus to el Salvador for the next day. When we got to the bus terminal they were full which was a pain. Across the road was a different bus company advertising going to el Salvador so we booked onto that one. They had two buses going at 3am and 4am, we chose the 4am like it would make any difference and managed to get a hotel right opposite for $12! It even had an ensuite well sort of; it had a toilet and a shower but no sink which was odd. It also didn't have a door to the ensuite just a curtain so that was also odd!
We hunted down a chicken place to eat and it was horrible again! We then went to a supermarket to spend the last of our currency before we left in the morning. It was hard! The supermarket was small and had hardly anything we bought quite a few bags of chocolate milk!
That night we tried to get to sleep early but we were so anxious at missing the bus we only managed to get about 2 hours sleep before our alarm went off!