Well its been a while since my last post, so this one I'm going to roll three places into one, all in Nicaragua.

The plan was to leave Tamagringo early because we had spoken to a Canadian who had done the crossing and said it was best, otherwise you get stuck in crowds and it takes a while.As result we slept in and got the 4th bus, at 9.00am, the first being at 5:00am.The Canadian caught the bus and was no doubt across the border by now.So we said our second goodbyes as most were up before us and we hit the road.By the time we got to the boarder, it was 1:00pm, 7 hours after it opened.Needless to say that lunchtime in Nicaragua means that everyone goes for lunch except the unlucky sod who drew the short straw of having the tedious job of stamping everyone's passports.

Getting stamped out of Costa Rica was fairly painless, I think mainly because we cunningly skipped a 200m long queue (obviously by mistake) and walked along the km track to the Nicaraguan station.This time we weren't so lucky with the queues.The idea of queues really only seems to appeal to the British and a few other westerners.As a result, the queues were long as well as wide and the end was a huge funnel into two booths.So we got in the nearest queue and waited the best part of two hours.The annoying thing was that there are some buses that you pay a fair bit of money for but they garentee a quick border crossing.Well the reason for this is that everyone stays on the bus while one guys cuts straight into the front with 50 or so passports and gets them all stamped.We started to get annoyed with these pisstakers so we three brits, when got close to the booth,formed a barrier, to no avail, they just went round the other way.Finally we got the very unfriendly/unhappy man behind the glass.He then told us we were in the wrong queue, and we should be in the other, he mumbled so it was hard to make it out, but I think he said it was for truckers and Nicaraguans.Indeed we were the only foreigners in this queue.So we waited another hour in the other queue, this time full of tourists with surfboards and finally made it into Nicaragua, $10 the poorer.

It was now past five and the last ferry left for Isla Ometepe at six, so if we caught the chicken buses, we wouldn't make it.So we caught a taxi for the 45 minute journey to the ferry at San Jorge, for $3 each!It was slower however as the taxi driver was so friendly that he kept on stopping for us to take a' snap snap'.We caught the ferry and sat on the roof for the impressive sun set then sat in the ice box of a lounge and waited.Isla Ometepe is a island in the middle of Lago Nicaragua, the largest salt water lake in Nicarauga, it said in the guide book that it not uncommon to find sharks.There are two volcanoes, one active and one dormant.They are joined by a small causeway in the middle wide enough for a road and a row of houses on either side.We got off in Myogalpa and moved in to the hostel.$3 a night for a room, the cheapest yet, things were looking up.Another bonus was that beers were 15 cordobas or 40pence!!!

The next day my cough had got worse and everytime I breathed it felt and sounded like a manic hamster with a wish to have a heart attack in his wheel was training.As there was no doctor on the island, I went to the pharmacy and asked the women if she had anything for my cough.She called up a doctor in Rivas,a large town on the mainland.I explained the symptoms, mainly just by breathing and she proscribed some tablets and some little bottle of vitamins.The tablets were your standard white box with a band of colour and a bit of unintelligible medical speak, the cover looked like the cover to an 80's 'adult' movie, and a bad one at that, (I'm not speaking from experience, just my imagination!!)

Anyway, I spent the rest of the day in bed, destroying my lungs from coughing.The next day, Richard and Dean, organized a guy to take us on a tour of the island for $60, 20 each.He clearly wasn't a taxi driver, he just slapped a board on the back of his open back pickup truckand always had to park on a slope, otherwise the banger wouldn't start, and didn't say another word for the trip, but he was nice enough.Just as we got in, the heavens opened, so out came my stunning ineffective poncho and we got soaked!Dean umbrella broke in the wind!The first stop was the San Ramon Waterfall, I was reluctant to hike there, but it said a 3km round trip so I did it, 1 and half hours, pints of sweat and increasing frustration, we reached the waterfall, took some photos, coughed and went back.After that 3hr detour, clearly more than 3kms, we got back into the banger for a rolling start and then basicallydrove round the island stopping at a few key sights with some good views of the volcano.

When we got back it was dark, we were wet and I was cold, probably not the best combination for someone with a chest infection.It was made up for though by a dancing dog we met that night.The antibiotics seemed to be working, that night I was, (and I quote a doctor from Liverpool we met later on on its his travels) hacking up some nasty s***! It was indeed nasty, chewy, green and not very tasty.

The next day, we caught the ferry back to San Jorge.Our next target was Granada, a town on the shores of Lago Nicaragua.It was used by some famous sailors and pirates, whose names at the time meant nothing to me, and therefore have forgotten them, but they did some fairly outrageous buccaneering s***, (it just reminds me of the doctor).We caught he bus to Managua from Rivas, the Capital of Nicargua.People, along with the guide book had told us that it was dangerous and to take extreme caution when in the capital.We only stayed in the bus station, but it seemed fairly dodgy, so we took the first bus that came to Granada.We got there, walked to the recommended hostel and dumped our stuff and had lunch.There wasn't much to do in Granada except, go to the Isla, from which we had just come, have a wander around the colonial city and go out in the evening.So we had a wander around the city and came back to the hostel where the food was good, the beer was cheap but the rum was sooo cheap and they showed movies.

That night we met the doctor from Liverpool, but he kept on pointing out that he was from Everton, something the American Barmaid couldn't understand.I showed him the drugs, but he laughed hard when I showed him the vitamins.He said it was a capsule that you put a needle in take the vitamins, intravenously, I had however, not having an intravenous drip, was cracking them open and sucking the liquid out.The rum was called Flor de Caña, or cane flower, and it was good.And cheap.And had a high alcohol content, stronger than beer.So when the bar closed, no one 'wanted' to go out, so they all went to bed, myself included and didn't wake up till late morning.The next day, my cough had given me a bad headache so we decided to see the new Indiana Jones film.Which was bad.As we were getting up earlythe next morning, it seemed a good idea to take full advantage of the Rum Happy Hour.Rum and coke, easy on the coke, was 40pence, cant go wrong, and the nachos were equally good.

We did leave the next morning, but luckily Leon wasn't far, the next place we were going.Leon is another Colonial town near the Hondurusian(???)border and near a large range of active volcanoes.The main reason for going to Leon, was to 'Volcano Board' and we didn't plan on spending too much time here, as there wasn't much to do.We however arrived on the Saturday, the trip that day had left at 9 and the trips don't run on Sunday.So we had to wait until Monday.We walked around the city, but there really wasn't much to do so we came back, played pool, watched the Euro games and drank mojitos, not bad I suppose.

When Monday came we were pumped!We paid the money for the trip and all piled into the 4x4s.Then we drove to the Volcano called Cerro Negro.When we saw the face of the volcano, we all thought that that cant be the bit we slide down, its far to steep, but no one asked for fear of looking like a pansie!We were given out boards and our kit bags and started walking.The path was fairly well trodden the walk wasn't too hard.We got to the top and we shown the crater which was billowing out sulfurous smoke.We were then given our safety talk and told to put on the safety gear.The talk was fairly self explanatory.Sit on the board, go down the volcano, try not to fall off!She said that you could use your legs to steer and to maintain your balance.We put on our suits and we looked like a bunch of escaped convicts from Guantanamo bay.Well the girls went first, and the first girl started to go down but was too scared to use her legs to slow herself down, as a result, she caught some serious speed before falling off.When she fell, she fell hard!All we could see was an orange object with flailing limbs speeding down without her board.The instructor was convinced she was fine, although she was alone in her judgment and convince the next two to go.Having seen a few nasty fall I felt it wise to give it a miss.Sitting on what is fundamentally a piece of plywood speeding down a steep volcano with only your legs to offer any form of resistance seemed like a very flawed plan.Especially as your leg could get caught and pushed under the board and twisted, the worst thing for my knee.This volcano was steep though, as you stood at the top, you couldn't see the second half of the slope, just the bottom.She also told us that the land speed record for a bike had been broken on this slope in 2001, he also broke several bones in his body when he reach the flat section and fell off.Admittedly, on a bike is slightly more hardcore and faster, but you get the general idea from this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swq9hBdvkKU

The next day, Dean and Rich had to leave to Honduras to go to the bay islands.I decided I wouldn't have enough time to go there and it was expensive as central America goes so we parted ways after a very enjoyable 2 weeks and I left for San Juan del Sur for a bit of surfing.

That all folks…