Day 12 - meant moving on and leaving Ometepe and of course that meant getting back on the ferry for a 2 hour trip to the main land.

I went straight up to the middle section and sat outside to take in the fresh air, after the night before it was very much required. Mel however stayed downstairs. For those who don't know Mel she gets travel sickness easily if she reads or does anything with her head down however for some reason she thought it would be ok to show Gerome her pictures on her camera. Turns out that was a bad idea she began getting really hot then the sweats started so she went outside and the blurred vision and hearing loss began, so she lay on her back with legs up to see if that would help but really she just needed to get off the boat. Meanwhile I had no idea this was all happening so I wasn't able to help her. I only found out once we had docked and the boys told me she was outside not well. We got her bags and went to her and provided her with shade water and some sugar. Maybe too much rum the night before didn't help ... Oh and an 8 hour volcano walk with not enough water...

Anyway we had to move to get to the next bus which was an interesting experience. It was our first and hopefully last local chicken bus ride. Chicken buses are basically the local form of transport and is just an old American yellow school bus if you can picture that. They jam everyone in like sardines in a can - we were very much in each other's personal space!! At the start pretty much all of us were standing and surrounded by locals so we really had to watch our bags. It was also very hot so it was a big sweat box!! After a bit and a few stops the bus started to clear and we were able to sit and relax a bit.

Funny thing was that it wasn't till after that John from our group who was up the back of the bus with his partner Danika noticed that the guy who collected the fares then handed it all over to a young gentleman up the back and this guy seemed very suss and was looking around all over the place. It's unfortunately what happens over here - gangs threaten business owners and bus owners / drivers, and if they don't pay or hand it over they are dead the next day or at least someone in there family is. It's a message to all others who don't do as they are told so best thing is to just hand it over.

Thankfully I didn't see this at the time otherwise I would have been very nervous. However in saying that we all know not to wear anything that would attract them and if you do get approached just give them whatever you have and then it's fine. It's very uncommon that it happens to tourist as tourist don't matter to them - it's more about the bigger picture for them and Fernado said - touch wood, he has never had a problem whilst doing this tour.

Moving on from that, we arrived in Granada and our hotel was really nice and bonus was it had a pool.

Granada was a really cute town and I think all of us really liked it. Great buildings and most were saying it was much like Spain. We got in late in the arvo so first stop was ATM's and the supermarket.

Went out to dinner that night and had some drinks and enjoyed where we were!