19th September 2009 - 20th September 2009

Our earliest start yet greeted us when we had to wake at 2am from our overnight in San Salvador to catch the coach to Leon in Nicaragua. We'd arrived the previous day from El Tunco and were dropped in the middle of the dodgy city centre where we had to walk through a big market where there was a guy lying on the ground who we're not sure was dead or alive. True to form we paid the extra $14USD (making it $44USD each) for an 'executive' TICA coach, checked into our hostel at the terminal and headed straight to the cinema once again. A different one this time though. We had a walk around the shops and saw 'State of Play' starring Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck. It was such a great movie we were pleased to score a hat trick with all the movies we'd seen lately.

After getting on the bus we both struggled to sleep and spent the 9 hour trip tossing and turning in our fairly uncomfortable seats and freezing air con. Still not sure what the extra cost for the executive bus got us. We arrived in Leon around lunch time and were both extremely frustrated walking around the town trying to find the hostel we wanted to stay at. We must have walked in the wrong direction about 8 times. The 2am start probably had something to do with it and fortunately for us when we found our hostel it had a pool so we were able to cool off.

We took a walk around the town that afternoon and weren't too inspired by it so caught a bus out of there the next day. We did however run into a couple, Carlo and Toni, riding their BMW motorbike down from New York City to Chile. They were really nice and interesting people and we made arrangements to meet up with them at our next stop - Granada.