As we waited under the shelter of a public bus stop in central Honduras at 5:50am for our first of many buses to Leon in Nicaragua, we knew a long travel day was ahead of us. Every long term backpacker through Central America hates travel days, especially long ones. Our travel buddies completed the same journey we were about to face in a short 14 hours just the day before, we certainly were wishing we were in their shoes having gone through the motions already.
Our first bus arrived nearly half an hour late. Great start. “Dos boletos a Tegucigalpa por favour” we ask the driver. We then proceeded to find the most comfortable seat at the back of the bus rightly knowing that personal comfort is a luxury when backpacking through Central America.
Fast forwarding through our sob story, a complete review of our modes of transport for the day were the following:
- Public bus from D&D Brewery to Tegucigalpa in Honduras
- Taxi from one bus station to another in Tegucigalpa
- Public bus from Tegucigalpa to Choluteca
- Shuttle from Choluteca to the Nicaraguan border (Guasaule crossing)
- Bicycle taxi from one border post to the other
- Public bus from Guasaule to Leon, Nicaragua
- Bicycle taxi in Leon to our hostel
And that took us 12 hours to complete, arriving at our hostel between 6 and 7pm that night.
But amidst the motions of a long travel day, we quickly noticed after crossing the border how much cheaper Nicaragua actually was…and Honduras was cheap! A 2 hour bus journey cost us about A$5 or 100 cordobas (C$) in the local currency.
With the pain of a long travel day now behind us for a while, we woke up enthusiastic to explore our first town of Nicaragua, the historical town of Leon. This colonial town has a lot of history, easily identifiable by a range of beautiful old buildings and churches around the town centre. Our first lunch out cost us about A$4 each…if memory serves me correct, I am pretty sure there was a high five between us around this point. Simple things like good cheap food are like finding the holy grail for a backpacker. As are hot showers and comfortable beds.
With beaming smiles across our faces and a skip in our step, we were ready to explore everything this town had to offer…that is until midday struck and we became paralysed by the profuse heat. With no escape other than air con (which we certainly did not have), we spent the rest of our first afternoon trying to find a cool spot in our hostel.
A few days of heat we can lay low and mostly take in our stride but for the 5 days we were there the heat was relentless, like clockwork with midday translating to finding somewhere to retreat from the afternoon heat. This unfortunately skewed our view of this town with us mostly remembering this feature alone. Our recommendation for others wishing to visit the colourful town of Leon is to avoid the heat by choosing either a cooler period to travel, to check out the town and surrounding areas during the morning and to choose a hostel/hotel with a pool so you can escape the heat.
It was a no brainer for us to then move to the beach for our next stop, the beaches of Las Penitas and the Poneloya area. These two volcanic black sand beaches are 30mins away from Leon on the Pacific coast and very easy to get to by public bus, even for a day trip from Leon.
We stayed at the Oasis and Barca de Oro Hostels during our week stay on the north Pacific coast for $US22-24 per night. Unfortunately the only thing we did here was two days of surfing as we were both bed ridden for the rest of the time with a horrible stomach flu. What a great start to Nicaragua we thought…that is until we travelled by plane to the Corn Islands over the other side of the country!
Finally, paradise found…and it couldn’t have come at a better time for us! Our full writeup of the Corn Islands is in an earlier published article here but the short version is that it was the highlight of our travels throughout Nicaragua, probably even Central America entirely. So do yourself a favour and go visit this amazing place.
Now fully recovered after a week lost in paradise, we flew back to Managua on the mainland and explored the capital city for a few days. We were told by everyone to skip Managua, that there was nothing to see there but decided against these recommendations. Certainly not comparable to the Corn Islands, we felt that the capital city still had a little to offer. We visited 6000 year old footprints of Huella de Acahualinca and the Malecon area (the main waterfront of downtown Managua) and enjoyed our time visiting both these tourist attractions.
Next stop, Granada. A very beautiful and picturesque colonial town with significant importance during historical times with its strategic positioning and direct access by boat to the Caribbean sea. The streets reminded us of many places in Europe and was a nice change at the time. We even explored some 365 small islands with a day trip in Lake Nicaragua which were all very beautiful. The highlight in Granada for us was without a doubt the day trip to Lago de Apoyo, a pristine and clear water crater lake less than an hour out of Granada. You can spend the day swimming and relaxing here for US$11 with an organised tour, just ask around any of the popular hostels.
With our allowable time in Nicaragua quickly dwindling (C-4 Visa only allows up to 90 days for visitors across Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, we had less than 2 weeks at this point), we then quickly moved from Granada to Ometepe, the largest island of Lake Nicaragua and home to two large volcanoes. We thoroughly enjoyed our 3 days spent here, based at the north western town of Moyogalpa. Hiring a dirt bike to access the rest of the island was a very convenient and cost effective idea at US$15 per day, allowing us to see most of the island within the day. We were lucky enough to visit the pristine waters of Oyo de Agua, the 40m high waterfall of San Ramon and the many beaches this island had to offer. We definitely recommend this place as part of any Nicaraguan itinerary.
Our final stop in Nicaragua was the infamous surf town of San Juan del Sur (SJDS) and its surrounding beaches. We spent 4 days here and were blessed with gorgeous weather the entire time, including spectacular sunsets each night. Unlike the northern part of the Pacific coast, SJDS in the south was significantly cooler allowing us to explore as we please the entire day. We surfed a few days at the private beach of Hermosa – for the fans of the TV show “Survivor” out there, this was where Season 22 was filmed back in 2010. Another highlight was a night tour watching turtles lay their eggs and then retreat back into the ocean at Playa Flor. The rest of our time was spent enjoying the beautiful town of SJDS itself. Again, SJDS is yet another place we definitely recommend for any Nicaraguan itinerary.
Although our early experiences of Nicaragua were not our finest, this amazing country has so much to offer and will only continue to to do so as the country develops. We strongly recommend those seeking good value for money to consider the sweet spots of Nicaragua as a part of their itinerary, certainly before major development sets in.
Thank you Nicaragua for having us!
Aaron & Jo xx
Operation Whiskey 