Taxi from our hostel to the bus station, which at various points had 3 other passengers and various bags of shopping in. Minibus (which at various points had enough people to more than fill a regular sized bus) to Granada. Looked at some rather skanky rooms before settling on a slightly nicer but probably still very much in the skanky bracket room. Nice garden and hammocks though. Wandered around the central plaza and found a nice garden cafe for lunch - when the...

Escorted in to an easyjet orange half tank, half truck, which drove us to the Cerro Negro volcano, the youngest volcano in central America, and one which has erupted every few years for the past 200 years or so. Question over what was more scary - the fact that it was overdue an eruption combined with the dodgy measuring equipment, or the fact we were about to throw ourselves down the side of the volcano on what seemed to be an extremely skinny garden shed door. ...

Wandered around the streets of Leon, trying to work out why it was so dead. Eventually we were told it was independence day, which we assume explains the annoying flares being let off, and the incredibly loud 'air raid siren' that blew our eardrums when in the main plaza. After a late lunch, made use of the pool and deckchairs, before exchanging these for rocking chairs and hammocks, where we attempted to plan the next part of our trip with the help of a Nicaragu...

1 hour late, our bus set off from San Salvador. 10 hours later we arrived in a hostel in Leon, Nicaragua, having successfully negotiated 2 borders but without a dime to our name. Border crossings never seem to be quite as cheap as the guidebook suggests - in this case I imagine the bus company was filling their pockets. However we made it to the random petrol station where we were thrown off the bus (just us 2, in the dark, and not exactly what we had in mind whe...

Boogie boarding in the waves before a lovely breakfast (including tea!). After lounging about looking at the mountains of el impossible national park from our balcony, kayaked down the estuary to where it met the sea, passing many fisherman and lots of weird and wonderful birds. Lazed around the pool before a typical el salvadorian lunch. Having decided we no longer wanted to risk being one of the 26 people murdered every day in El Salvador and hence planned our ...