8/1/10 - day 30.

got up about 9am. me and the aussie lads decided to go to masaya which is a little town about a half hour away. got the bus there and went to the market, which we got breakfast at in the form of various pastries we picked up while walking around it. was really nice. what wasnt so nice was the sight of piles upon piles of raw meat just sat out in the sun, gathering flies.

there was a fort nearby by as well in a place called coyotepe which we got a taxi to. they used to use it to torture people and it had a small network of dungeons under it which, as me and stu found out rather scarily, were occupied by some bats! it was quite high up and looked out over the lake and volcano.

from there we went to a village called catarina. its a village dedicated to making stuff basically. handycrafts, pottery, baskets, rocking chairs - which are incredibly popular in nicaragua, every house has got like 6 of them. people just sit outside there houses rocking in them day in, day out. there´s also a lookout there over lake apoyo, which is so good they charge you a buck to get to it.

after having a look around, we walked back to the main road to catch a bus back to granada. i went online for a while, then went out to get food where i randomly bumped into the 3 i´d left ometepe with. i grabbed a pupusa with them and then headed back to the hostel where the lads and i had a few beers. Toña by the way is very much the beer of choice in nicaragua.

we went a place just across the street for dinner where they had 2 options - roast beef or roast chicken. no need for menus at this joint! was actually really nice, probably because they just specailise in 2 things and thats it. back to the hostel afterwards where it was mojito night, so we sat up sinking mojitos til about 1am.