15/08/2022 From Granada to León
Together with the German guy Olli we shared a shuttle to our next destination: León.
What to expect
León
León is a bit bigger than Granada and the houses are not as colourful. But it does have the biggest cathedral in Central America: the Kathedrale León, also known as “Real e Insigne Basílica de la Asunción de la Bienaventurada Virgen María” – easy…
Hostal Casa Abierta
Our accommodation has a nice pool, where I did my morning swim (okay, only once). The room is much more spacious than the one at Selina Hostel in Granada and we have our own bathroom (we had a shared one at Selina). This one, however, still costs less money (15€ per person per night here vs. 17€ per person per night at Selina).
Try the street food
So far, I’d say León has had the best street food we’ve had on this trip. At night all the little food stalls and food wagons come out and we don’t even know where we should start eating. By “we” I only mean myself, unfortunately, since Blake is still not feeling well. Then street food is probably not the best idea.
We especially loved that one street food cart in front of the Mercado Central, where I usually ordered patatas (hash brown/ potatoes), a grilled zucchini, a fried banana and a rolled pancake with cream cheese. It all comes with gallo pinto (rice and beans) and some salad. They serve it in a banana leaf to-go (otherwise on a plastic plate) and it all costs around 2€ for the whole plate – gosh, I love street food!
Eat at Coco Calala (if you like vegan food)
Street food at night combined with a smoothie bowl in the morning from Coco Calala was the perfect mixture of (healthy and unhealthy) food to give us enough energy for the day.
We loved this place as it also had a pool you can use and was hidden in between palm trees and banana leaves.
But before this is becoming too much of a food blog, let’s get back to León.
16/08/2022 León
Do a free walking tour
In the next morning, after spending a nice evening with a Dutch couple, we had met at the Sunday Funday in San Juan del Sur, we went on the free walking tour to get to know the city a bit further.
Go to the Mercado Central
After a short introduction about Nicaragua’s history, this three-hour-tour went inside the Mercado Central. Here we tried lots of different fruits I had never heard of before. Furthermore, we tried something similar to cheesecake, a milky-chocolate drink and different (natural) sweets. We loved it!
Huge poverty in Nicaragua
Overall, the tour was so informative! At the end the tour guide sat with us in a little park away from anyone to overhear us and told us more about the government and the suppressed people. Lots of the Nicaraguans make minimum wage (200€ a month), which is way too little to feed a whole family. He also said that the families are rather surviving than actually living. Since the protests in 2018 and covid in 2020, tourism is still down, which is – besides agriculture – one of the major economic income factors for the people here.
We’ve heard about the bad situation from other locals before, such as from Jonathan, our guide at the volcano hike on Ometepe. It is just a very helpless feeling. On the one hand, it makes me so sad to hear those stories. On the other hand, it goes to show again how privileged we are in Western countries!
17/08/2022 León
In the next morning we went to Colo Calala for our morning smoothie bowl again. Unfortunately, at this point Blake was feeling very sick and stayed in bed for the rest of the day. Besides looking after him (as well as I could), I relaxed at our pool and swam, read and journaled.
18/08/2022 León
Luckily, Blake was already feeling a bit better today. This meant that we could do the activity today which we had originally planned for yesterday: volcano boarding!
Go volcano boarding on Volcano Cerro Negro
Volcano Cerro Negro is the only volcano in Central America where you can go volcano boarding. We booked it through the hostel bigfoot. Besides the social factor of being surrounded by other backpackers, one other aspect convinced us to go with them: free dinner. We were all in ;-).
The 45-minute-ride to get to the volcano was already quite adventurous: our massive spray-painted school bus was pacing through the narrow roads, overtaking little horse carriers and scooters.
When we arrived at the bottom of the volcano, we received our equipment: an orange suit, goggles and our board. Let the adventure begin!
We hiked up the volcano with our gear for about an hour with stunning views all around us.
On top of the volcano we had a look into the big dry crater before getting ready to sled down on the other side. As always before bigger activities, I was quite nervous. But it was so much fun!! When we got down – completely covered in ash – we watched the sun go down behind the volcano and had a bonfire with marshmallows and drinks.
The bus ride back turned into quite the party bus tour with disco lights and loud music and people drinking and dancing in the bus.
I’m super impressed how Blake managed to hike up the volcano in the intense heat, while still feeling sick.
What a fun last day in León! And now it’s time to go back to Granada for our last big event in Nicaragua…
That was an amazing string of events you two did. Amazing pictures and a great dialogue makes us feel like we are walking in your shadows. Keep sending these wonderful blogs. Diane and I look forward to reading all about your adventures. Be safe and eat healthy. ❤️❤️