We woke up in León, Nicaragua still a little weary from our previous days travel but excited to start exploring another country. León is one of Nicaragua'a three major cities along with Granada and the capital Managua. Managua was chosen as capital due to the fierce rivalry between the other two cities which involved many years of conflict. We wanted to take it fairly easy so we made a plan of a few things we wanted to see. We chose the Rubén Darío museum, Fundación Ortiz and the cathedral. We first headed to the Rubén Darío museum which was interesting but not half as interesting as it would have been had we known Spanish. Rubén Darío was a 19th century poet and is a national hero in Nicaragua due to his commitment to 19th century modernisation. Revered throughout the country he was born and grew up in León and the house he grew up in is now the museum. After a short while in the Rubén Darío museum we headed off to the Fundación Ortiz which is regarded as Nicaragua's best art museum. It housed a mix of European masters (some Picasso) and then a mix of Latin American art. We spent much more time here viewing the paintings, sculptures and ceramics on display. After the two museums we wanted to head to the Cathedral (the largest in Central America)but unfortunately it was shut. We took the opportunity to wander around the outside but unfortunately it only gave the impression of faded glory. It would be nice to see some money spent on the Cathedral and León in general. As a city its buildings reflect its turbulent past with some building still littered with bullet holes of the most recent fighting. Niacargua has had a turbulent past and has had to endure conflict after conflict as it strove for total independence. The latest fighting saw battles against the US backed Contras during the Ronald Reagan administration.

After our day seeing some of the sights we decided to head back to our hostel and play a few cards before dinner. The card games we had been playing previously had started to become less enjoyable so we learnt a new game which Sue enjoyed a lot but me less so as she won each hand convincingly over and over again. After cards it was time for dinner and we had come in to luck as the Big Foot hostel hosts a pizza night on Sunday nights. You get a pizza and a beer/mojito for about $6US. The popularity of the night meant we had to wait about 1 ½ hours for our food but when it did arrive it was great. They were extremely generous with the chilli peppers, thank goodness for the beer included in the price. Over dinner we decided that we wanted to move on to Granada the next day to compare the two great rivals.

Thankfully the journey to Granada was rather smoother than the previous trip. We had to catch two buses; one from León to Managua and the next straight through to Granada. The total travelling time is only around 3 hours. In Granada we stayed in a lovely little guest house that was only a couple of minutes was from the Parque Central. Our immediate impression of Granada was how beautiful the architecture was. Unlike León a lot money had been spent on restoring the Colonial architecture of the city's most significant buildings. Dominating one side of the Parque Central was the Cathedral which was in my opinion the most beautiful building I had seen so far on my travels. Inside again was rather impressive as it reflected both the colonial style of the building along with some more traditional catholic touches. Just off the Parque Central is a walk way which is very reminiscent of some European cities (Las Ramblas in Barcelona particularly). We follow the walk the whole way down until we made it to Lake Nicaragua, the eight largest in the world. Over the two nights we had in Granada we spent our days just wandering around looking at the buildings and enjoying the hustle and bustle of the Parque Central. We have decided we have spent enough time in cities for the time being so we are going to be heading to Isla de Ometepe to enjoy some beach time. I'll update you on that soon.

John