Nicaragua (Part 2), El Salvador and Honduras!

So, our joint trip ended with Shano and Kel and Ren and I were left to fend for ourselves again!

From Granada we headed off to the more bustling colonial era town of Leon. Similar to Granada (read last blog to see what that was like), but with a bit more action, we spent a couple of days browsing the city and nearest Pacific coast beaches. However, the most exciting part of Leon was our overnight hike to camp on top of El Hoyo, and active volcanoe!

Leon town

We had a great group on the trek, a mix of Aussies, brits, swiss, german and an El Salvadoran thrown in for good measure. It was organised through the non for profit organisation Quetzeltrekkers, who supports local school kids.

Sandboarding

Fluoro - BOOM

The crater of Cerro Negro

Ready to rock!

The first part of the hike was to the top of Cerro Negro, an dormant volcanoe which we then sand boarded down to the bottom - 30 minutes up; 20 seconds down! Then we headed up El Hoyo enduring a stepp, sandy accent and blazing sun (Kellie, you would have LOVED it). At the top we were rewarded with spectacular views of the 'chain' of volcanoes that run through Nicaragua, a giant sink hole and 200km/ hour winds. As we didn't include tents in our 20+ kilo packs (where the hell were the mules?), we slept under the endless stars, but not without chowing down on the WORST pasta dish known to man - Burnt macaroni (Sorry, Alex - You are a hiker, not cook!). Honestly, if you know me and Ren, we will eat anything. But a starved, wild dog wouldn't muster up hunger for this repellent dish!

After a supprisingly good nights sleep, we awoke to what could only be described as one of the best sunrisea one could witness - The sun rising over lake Managua, with the chain of volcanoes sillouhetted across the counntry all the way to the pacific ocean - WOWZER.

We then hiked down, back into the heat of the bush to a crater lake named Appoyo. There we enjoed a lunch staple of refried beans, tortillas and salsa and a refreshing swim in the lake. Hike Complete!

To celebrate the hike we went out with the crew in Leon for too many flor de cana's and shared tales of travel, work and male on male abduction (Thanks, Matt. I will never forget your pain).

Sunrise over Lake Managua

The hills are alive!

Nicaragua's volcanoe chain

Giant Sinkhole

After a greak two weeks in Nicaragua, headed left Leon on a 12 hour luxury Tica bus to our next destination - El Salvador. As if a 12 hour bus ride isn't annoying enough, we met (by his force) another Aussie traveller who wouldn't stop complaining about how expensive everything was. After a while we cottoned on that he was a junkie, running back and forth to the toilet to jack up on Cocaine, It was obvious he was a bit stressed that we were crossing two borders to get to El Salvador.

Within 20 minutes we knew his family was italian, his mum owned a ranch in QLD, but her preffered Sydney where he normally bummed on his sisters lounge and when he did finally get his own place, he proudly addmitted to 'Ringin Vinnies for some furniture and shit, cus itz all free, anyways'. SCUM BAG.

After this interesting bus trip we got off in Sam Miguel and headed to the mountain village of Perquin. Perquin was the centre of the El Salvador resistence movement during the civil war of the 80's and 90's. There we visited the war memorial and museam and went through one of the guerilla camps - It was a very interesting place and truly different to your normal travel experiences.

El Cuco - El Salvador

El Cuco

ah... Perquin?

Ren the guerilla!

Combat John


Perquin - Guerilla camp

Next we headed back to the pacific coast, to the idyllic beach of El Cuco. This stretch of beach was the cleanest we had seen so far, with gold sand (not black!) and palm trees lining the shore! Here Ren and I spent 3 days learning to surf again with some, albiet difficult, success! Cowabunga dude!

Next we headed to the capital San Salvador and spent a day re-westernising our selves watching a movie and visiting a mall for some well deserved ice cream! From San we headed to another pacific coast spot, El Tunco, however this wasn't our scene compared to El Cuco. Realising how little time we had left in Central America, we decided to high tail it the next day to the El Salvador/Honduran border which began a busy three day bus, walk and ferry trip to reach the diving island of Roatan.

The birds of copan

Crossing into Honduras at 6:00pm at night was cool, watching the sun set over the western mountain ranges. Crashing in the closet town, we headed out at 5:00am the next day to the Mayan ruins of Copan.

Copan was the first set of Mayan ruins we have seen on this trip and was a pleasant reminder of this amazing civilisation. Pyramid style buildings, fortress, local quarters were all on display in this excellent site. Ren and I spent a couple of hours wondering around imagining what life must have been like there 800 years ago. No iPhones, no computers, no blogs... no ice cream! Damn.

Copan

Copan

Copan


Copan - weird


Fly bat, fly!

El Tunco

El Tunco lizards

After a short break from the travel, we continued on the next day to the grotty town of La Ceiba to catch our ferry to Roatan - Bus crashes, bridge demolitions and the the grand daddy of humidity, were all there to slow us down, but we made it and our arrival to Roatan was like that into heaven! White sandy beachs, crystal clear water and de-famishing 500gm steaks - This was just what the Dr ordered. A holiday within a... holiday!

Roatan offered some of the finest and cheapest diving we have done. We saw turtles, angel fish, and lion fish which were introduced to the reef from Asia - It must have been a loooooong swim.

After a relaxing few days in Roatan and realising I (not Ren) messed up the dates, we had to one again high tail it to the town of Puerto Cortes to hop on the next weekly boat for Belize.

Join us on the next adventure soon.
Thanks for reading!