Hotel Kekoldi de Granada

Friday 11th September 2009

We met Matt and Omri for breakfast and Howard our guide turned up too to take us safely to the petrol station, he even arranged a taxi for us - what a guy! After a healthy and nutritious (sure) breakfast we headed to the local bus station where we took a bus to Granada. The outdoor station was crazy. We weren´t even out of the cab and there were touts shouting and banging on the window, all trying to get our business. We ...

... vreemd weer....maar ook weer erg leuk! We zullen langzaam maar zeker weer terug moeten naar basic leven.
Ook zijn we weer aan het lezen gegaan op internet en de trotter over Island Ometepe en de Corn Islands. De maanden september en oktober schijnen de beste maanden te zijn om te duiken op de small Corn Islands omdat het huricane seizoen dan nog niet begonnen is...zou mooi zijn! Eerst zullen we per bus, een uur of ...

... Toros filtered through to us, and on hearing that there was no way we could leave without at least seeing what was going on, though right from the get-go we were strangely keen to take part in the madness too!

Sunday afternoon, therefore, found us milling about with the slowly swelling crowd under the horrible heat of the tropical sun. If any event of this nature was to take place in Ireland (or anywhere else in the 'Western' world, fot that matter), the street ...

... Also it had a beautiful view.

I managed to cat nap between 9am and 12pm, when we reached the border. There was a VERY long line of people in the "Leave Costa Rica" line. So we got out and stood under the scorching sun. Luckily, like 10 minutes later, a TransNica worker said he would collect our passports and papers and turn them all in to the office, which meant we could wait on the bus with the A/C. People ran back onto the bus ...

... countries is famous for its coffee production. The problem is that most of the good stuff gets exported and it can be tough to find a decent cup of coffee, believe it or not the majority of places serve instant coffee. Another local product that Nicaragua is famous for is its Rum, Flor De Caña. This however is definitely kept close to heart and can be bought very cheaply within the borders of the country. Apparently it is pretty ...

... a little old lady who pointed out her "chaise longue". Yes I found the only sunbed in Nicaragua. And it´s really necessary as there is a strong off shore breeze that whips the sand around. I´d mentioned to someone in San Juan that fortunes could be made renting sunbeds!! So I had my own restaurant on my own beach with just a couple of net fishermen, a man digging up shellfish with a machete, the ...

... Guadalupe you can walk down Calle Calzada to the malecon (lakeshore). Just off Granada in the Lago Nicaragua you can spot Las Isletas ...

... the roar of howler monkeys delights me and despite the sleepless night, I awoke with a smile hearing them. One of the services offered at the hotel is massage by Julio. Seemed like a good thing to take advantage of on this little R&R trip... I had seen several advertisements in Granada for "blind massage". Seeing Hands is a non-profit Nicaraguan group that helps sight impaired Nicaraguans learn massage therapy as a means to ...

... my bus in traffic was the bus going to granada how simple eh? Managua passing through views. I´m actually really surprised at how developed managua actually is its got a bunch of huge modern shoping centers lots of big adds and banners and tall buildings all the things you expect from a big city on the up and up. So managua has been one of the nicer big cities i´ve passed through the most ghetto being ...