Nicaragua

Bear with us on this one...it is a very long post of our entire 3 weeks in Nicaragua.

After farewelling Cam's parents we headed straight back in to Nicaragua and relaxed on the beach of San Juan del Sur before heading back to Isla Ometepe to meet up with our awesome friends Nick and Steve. We hadn't seen Nick for 5 years (we met him in Canada way back in 2008, and it was our first time meeting Steve) and had some serious catching up to do over many beers! With a slight hangover Cam and I embarked on a hike to the summit of Volcan Concepcion, the second highest, but most difficult volcano in Nicaragua. The trek was difficult, slippery and covered in loose volcanic rock but was well worth the 7.5 hours of beautiful scenery, panoramic views and monkeys!

San Juan del Sur beach.

Sunset at San Juan del Sur.

The diesel-spitting boat to Ometepe.

Viewpoint @ 1000m.

Nearing the top.

Made it!!

Celebrating with our guide.

The view of the volcano when we arrived back at our hostel.

Volcan Concepcion at sunset.

Next up we moved on to Granada where we stumbled upon the start of a week-long festival of bulls and horses. We participated in Granada's version of 'running of the bulls' which started out as an extremely exciting and adrenalin pumping event. However, as the bulls were about to be released we found ourselves surrounded by the area's best pick-pockets and a bunch of people who were wanting to sacrifice us when the bulls were released rather than being on the front-line themselves. We were amazed by how quickly the day turned sour. The bulls were released and were 'supposed' to run down the street that we were at the top of, so away from us, however, the first 2 bulls to be released ran straight towards us and within seconds we were running madly to safety. We headed home only to 'bump' in to more bulls that were being rounded up brutally and tormented to become more aggressive, to the centre of the city. Our feelings changed dramatically and we were disgusted by the days events. While we are glad we experienced this festival, we will not be doing anything like it again.

Our first day in Granada.

Enjoying a family dinner of street food with some new friends from the UK and Florida.

Our next stop was Leon with Nick, Steve, Becks and Katie and we went Volcano Boarding with a group of 40 people on the most active volcano in Nicaragua, Cerro Negro. We hiked to the top and then put on our very attractive orange jumpsuits and goggles ready for the toboggan down the side. We were speed tested as we went down and the top speed of the day was 63 km/h (not one of us, but Nick topped our group with 59 km/h), the best ever speed is 93 km/h. Check out the video at: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10201303058690140

We farewelled the group and stayed on for one more night which happened to be a festival celebrating Saint Mary. This festival was kicked off with the ringing of church bells and cannons being shot in to the air for 10 minutes. Then a man put a wooden structure shaped like a bull over his head and lit the fireworks that were attached to it and ran through the crowd as the fireworks shot off on to the ground under people's feet. We dodged 2 different kinds of bulls this week and had had enough!

Cerro Negro, our volcano boarding surface.

Before we took the plunge.

At the bottom! Check out the wearing on the acrylic...it's replaced every day!

Enjoying mojitos looking like coal miners.

View of Parque Central, Leon.

Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of Leon.

Church of La Recoleccion.

The cannons being fired next to Parque Central.

The fireworks bull.

Sunset.

We went to a little fishing town called Jiquilillo to relax on the beach for a couple of days to unwind after 3 weeks of partying, drinking and bulls. Unfortunately, no picks of here but it was a beautiful stop to chill out and take in some sunshine. From here we took a bus to stay in Matagalpa and hike to the Cerro del Torro (Hill of the Bull) and take in the fresh, cooler mountain air. Next up we headed back to Esteli to explore the nearby Cascada de Estanzuela (waterfall) and Miraflor National Park. We took a horseback tour through Miraflor which Cameron was not overly impressed with at the start of the day. As time went on and his horse enjoyed racing mine and didn't just slowly walk he took one for the team and had fun. We enjoyed breakfast and lunch with local families, saw the beautiful views of the park, ventured through coffee plantations and viewed a treehouse which is being built to be rented out to tourists- very cool. The town of Somoto is where we headed next and organised a tour to see the Somoto Canyon. Here we floated down the River Coco and jumped of rocks at various heights, with Cam jumping 18 metres from the Canyon wall in to the pools below and our guide jumping from over 2o metres.