El Convento Leon

This morning John went up a mountian. Specifically, it was a volcano, located not too far outside of Leon. The hike up was pretty, and had some nice views of the other volcanos in the area and the surrounding countryside. And don´t worry, Mom -- this one wasn´t an active volcano. It was, essentially, just a large mountian of volcanic ash. If you´ve ever been hiking on volcanic ash, you may have noticed that it´s slippery. It ...

... us very ratty with people like taxi drivers!

Julian and Lyndsey were at Lazybones to meet us and we had some coffee and told them about what had happened in detail. Lazybones was the right place for us to lick our wounds, its a really quiet hostel, with a lovely swimming pool and a very laid back manner. We stayed there for five nights and it was great, free pool, internet and nice cable tv... all the things that we needed to help our recovery along.

Leon, Nicaragua mardow

... square to see if we could get to the top overlooking the square. It turned out to be an abanded building with FLSN (the rebel turning political party) posters everywhere. We're not sure what the building was for but the view from the top was amazing. Just as we got up there the festivities started! What a perfect spot! The fireworks started going, the bells of the churches were ringing (by an actual bell ringer), and the sirens were going off. it was ...

Las Peñitas is a nice little fishing village (quaint, if you will) about an hour on the bus from Léon. It was all nice and relaxed, but we came for the surf and the surf wasn't firing, unfortunately - lots of closeouts breaking right onto the beach and strong currents too - a lot of hard work for little reward, far from ideal really. We had a lovely dinner, an early night, a short morning surf and hopped on the bus outta there to continue our search for crankin' waves.

... it emptied into the ocean throughout the day. By the evening one can walk where the water used to be. So you can be sort of like Jesus for a few seconds. Maybe he used the same method and people saw him from very far away. Very cleaver.
I would also like to note that I have changed my opinion on plantains. I don´t know what kind of reject plantains they have been sending to the states but the ones here are amazing. Complete with flijoles ...

... The main thing to do in Leon for fun was to volcano board, but ill be going sandboarding in Peru so decide to ditch Leon and head off to Granada that afternoon.
I boot back to the hostel, say an awkward goodbye to the girls and get a taxi to the chicken bus. Pretty bad way to end things with the two girls, especially as we were planning to meet up again in San Juan del Sur in a few days time, but sh*t happens I guess.
I get on the chicken bus and manage to smash my head open on the ...

... tour of the history and the revolution in Leon, a central location during the Sandinista takeover and anti-Somocismo. Wasn´t great, but saw some stuff I wouldn´t have otherwise seen. Quickly ran through the Ruben Dario museum too (to quickly). Dario is the national poet and famed throughout Latin America. Seriously, the guy´s everywhere here, on monuments, memorialized through parks and all sort of stuff. Ohhh, and I took in a small museum run by ex-Sandinista guerrillas, which was ...

So far now happened a lot things I can`t tell at once... very bad things and more nice things... I left Granada with a pretty good leg and til now I haven`t had any problems. I decided to got to Leon, but when I was driving trough the noise, the dirt and the poverty made me thinking of a hiding place like Camping Mathilda and for that reason I took the next bus to the beach, to Poneloya or Las Peñitas. "Take the bus" here means, that I spent a whole ...

... check my email and play with the hotel dog, a
little Dachshund named "Rosie". I have a Dachshund named "Vegas" so I
have a real soft spot for these dogs.
I then decide to go out and
have a surf....epic conditions! I surf for 3 hours and catch some great
waves! I really love this place. Nothing better than saying f**k off to
the 9-5 stress and live life the way it was supposed to be lived ...

Leon was nice, really hot, but nice. We even got to do a day trip to the beach. We would've stayed longer than a few days, but we really wanted to get down to Granada, which has been compared to Antigua, Guatemala. We are there now and its a great city with some of the best choices for meals that we've seen in a while. Sorry so short, but we ran into our friends, Paul and Ann from Australia that we met in Lanquin, Guatemala and its happy hour. Cheers, Eric.