As we didn't want to go back to, we paid. We got a receipt for the Nicaragua tourist fee we paid. An immigration fee came on top of that...
At the other side of this boarder area stood a chicken bus to the destination we desired. When we told the driver where we wanted to go next, he nodded and mumbled something. 20min into the ride he stopped and called a couple of times a name... I thought I heard it before. I also had the feeling that he tried to communicate with us. He was just about to give up, when I decided to stand up and go to him. He explained me that there was another bus arriving at this stop going directly to our final destination: Managua.
We packed our staff together and left the bus. 3min later another bus came. All the people at the bus stop were pointing out that it was our bus... When we boarded the bus they smiled and wished us a safe travel... How sweet!
Behind my seat I heard the noise of some excited chicken in a box. That's probably why you call it the "chicken busses". On our way more and more people joined the bus and through the backdoor huge bags of fruits and vegetables were loaded. In some towns people came in and tried to sell their merchandise. Most had fruits, nuts or home baked items, others sold superglue or markers... Very interesting. And after a while, some mor some less successfully, they would leave the bus again!?!
In town was a big fair close to the water. All different kind of amusement rides where build up and the queues were incredible long. On our way there all the roads where blocked by the police. A long convoy offset driving bikes, police cars and limousines makes us believe that it probably was the president. All for us... That wouldn't have been necessary! Seriously...
The city wasn't especially cultural mind blowing. And when we wanted to climb the stairs of an military memorial, a guard from a watch tower told us not to do so... I don't know why, but as he had a gun I better did what he said. We walked a little bit around and sorted out how to get to Granada the following day. Ev and Ingo where to join us on our way.
Granada is the Cash Cow of Nicaragua. Everybody heard about it and most tourist visit it on their travels. To be honest, I also liked the colonial style, the charm and the possibilities within the city. On the first evening we walked around and climbed on the bell tower of one of the churches.
Our stroll through the streets gave us a good idea about the town and reviled some interesting places. So we watched some people weaving hammocks.
Or just the beauty of modified vehicles...
For the next day we wanted to do an island tour on the lake. The weather was good and Leo was a fantastic local guy who had his own tour company. If you ever go to Granada, go and stop by his office. You will see why you want to do business with him. We went on a three hour tour with the very knowledgeable guide. To get to the boat we had to take a bicycle. I took an old style Bonanza bike... Ask my big brother about how stylish they are!
The lake is a huge and the only lake in which you can find Sharks. They are called Bullsharks. There is a small passage through a river to the sea where they once a year go to get their doses of saltwater. There have been thousands, but there has been a big market with the Japanese, which caught them, cut the fins off and dumped them back into the lake. The big dictator Samosa had once a cage in the lake where he had some sharks in there. He wouldn't feed them for an extended period of time and when he had somebody who didn't follow his word, he would let them throw them into the cage and watch the sharks eat the person.
There are many little islands on the lake. Many of them have luxurious holiday homes on it. Some care taker would live on it to keep an eye on it. The story goes that if you come with some food and drinks, or money, you could stay at some of them...
There are some I would say... Why not?!?
Then there are others where local people still live in their old traditional way. No electricity, a couple of animals, living of the fruit and the fish. They take a boat and row to town to sell or trade their fish for products they need. We went to one island where a big family lived and shared an hour with them.
One of the boys climbed on a palm tree to get us some coconuts. The water was very refreshing and the flesh very delicious.
The tour led us to a small island. The owner had 3 monkeys living on the island. One of the monkeys learned quickly, that tourist would do almost anything to get to see a monkey from very close. As nothing is free in this world, the monkey would get something in return. Of course, it's a girl who figured this out. So coconuts are very nice treat. But sodas, chocolate or beer are even better.
Chrisy was so kind to give another donation. The monkey smelled another treat and took the liberty to go through Chrisy's backpack and after opening all zippers she found some chocolate cookies in one of the pockets. She didn't take long to open the wrapper and start enjoying the sweets. Girls and chocolate. You can't stop them! After Lola (that is her name) finished her visit, she climbed back on one of the trees of the island. I guess she is still on a chocolate rush.... : I like the cookie....
We all enjoyed the tour very much, including Lola.
In the evening we visited a cigar factory where we got led through the different steps of the production of tabacco and how to roll a cigar. We celebrated the learned with a mojito and a cigar, what else?
Granada also hosts a chocolate museum where you can follow the steps from the cacao fruit to a praline. As you can imagine, it is impossible to hold to girls far away from such a location. Especially when there are free samples. Ok, I admit, I had some chocolate as well!
Next we wanted to visit Ometepe... (eine Insel mit zwei Bergen...) to get there we took a ferry. Nobody had to feed the fishes, which was unfortunate as I didn't see any Bullsharks due to this. I couldn't find any volunteers to jump bleeding into the water either. I couldn't finish creating an evil plan to make somebody volunteer and my hopes that huge waves would sweep somebody overboard didn't come true either. Perhaps on the way back?!?
As it was late and our transport vehicle (a truck) got pulled over by the police, we walked in the dark to the hostel for the night. As there was a power outage, we were happy to find a street side restaurant which had a charcoal grill build out of barrel where we could eat some delicious food in candle light and drink beer out of liter bottles. We only did this to safe our nature from unnecessary many small bottles.
We spontaneously found a guide who was willing to take us up to the vulcano Conception. Our guide walked through half of town to different stores so we were able to buy some items for breakfast and lunch. Our journey commenced at 4am and we were prepared that this 10 hour hike to the summit of the 1610m high vulcano might not bring us a view, as it is known that often clouds are covering the top. Especially now in the rainy season. So it didn't take long that it started raining and after only 1 1/2 hrs there was a strong smell of sulfite in the air. We at least managed to get out of the jungle area and come to an area with overgrown vulcanic rocks.
To be continued... (completed)
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