My first 5 days in nicaraqua

in #travel7 years ago (edited)

After a flight from about 11 hours with KLM I had to wait for 5 hours at Panama city. Panama city looks a lot like New York with skyscrapers, I did not know that at all! While waiting I had some time to book a Hostel in Managua, Niceragua. It was about 2 hours flight after that to my final destination. Managua is on the contrary of Panama city pretty poor imo. The houses look like slumber, this was someting I did not know either. I was the only person staying in the Hostel.. So I had a dorm room all for myself. Look at the great swimming pool they have!!

I really wanted to be in nature so I asked in the Hostel where I could go best. They recommended Ometepe Island so that's where I went with a public bus. The bus ride was an interesting experience Lol. It was like a yellow school bus, about 40 years old. People hopped on and of, not only to travel, but also to sell things to passengers. Sometimes the bus stopped to pick something up, like plants and baskets with food. Half way there the whole bus was packed insanely. A guy was screaming through the bus and no-one seemed to even hear it. Apparently there were things in the roof also, and the same screaming guy sometimes climbed on top of the bus via the backdoor while the bus was soaring on bumpy roads. They also had a 90's tv screen in front of the bus that played insanely load 80's music.
After 90 minutes of being cramped up I arrived at the bus station I needed to be on. After that I had to take a taxi for which I payed far to much money to a harbour.
The ferry platform actually looked pretty neat so I didn't expect the boat I had to took. Imagine the state the bus must have been an then imagine that for a ferry and you'll get the picture. It literrealy leaned over the the right for about 20 degrees and Water was coming in due to that. I felt even less safe then on the bus.
After about 2 hours I finally I arrived at the volcanic island Ometepe. I rented a scooter for the next 3 days and started exploring the island. Visited 2 hostels that were completely unoccupied and then I found 1 that looked fantastic and there were actually other backpackers. The Hostel was uphill and the view from the Hostel was absolutely astonishing!!
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I gazed upon the view open mouthed for about an hour and made friends with 2 girls from London. I was pretty tired from traveling for 2 days straight, so I slept like a baby early. The next day I went to a lagune with the 2 girls and did an hour hike where we found monkey packs. We heard so many animal noises I have no I idea what they all were.

After that we bought some large beers (apparently are large beers 1 litres here omg) and drank them at the beach. At the beach we saw pelicans, eagles and huge butterflies.

During the day we heared from other backpackers that we should go to a pizza party at night so we did that with 6 others from the Hostel. We had to walk a long rail through complete darkness uphill and what we found there was amazing. Fire jugglers, loads and loads of travellers dancing with locals and... pizza's!!! We danced, partied, and ate pizzas :p.

The next day I got befriended with a Dutch girl and we went on a looooong, bumpy and way too dangerous road (if you can even call it a road) to the other side of a volcano. Here there was an entrance to a hike to a waterfall. Guess who were there 2: the london girls, together with another UK guy. In advance the locals said it should take about half an hour hiking, but those were all lies. It actually took 2 hours of steep, rocky and slippery heavy sweating to get up there. Luckily we got a tropical rainshower on the way that cooled us off. But in the end the waterfall was really rewarding !!

On the way down a tarantula showed up on the way!! Going back on the scooter took full focus again so after that we just hung around at the Hostel. ![]

Today I am hoping I can catch a small plane to the southwest side of Niceragua. TTYL!

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I loved the parts of Nicaragua I visited, people are so humble and kind :) Never made it to the Island but I spent a few days in Rivas.