Twelve Nights in Nicaragua

Nicaragua was my final Central American country to visit, and it honestly felt pretty anticlimactic (though it yielded some wonderful photo opportunities). Having visited five Central American countries in just the last four months I suppose I’d developed a fatigue, brought on by all the repetitive sights and activities. This said, if I had to describe this trip in one word it would be unstable.

My trip began at the airport in the capital city of Managua. There I descended an escalator to a long but narrow room with a few hundred arrivals all confusedly trying to assemble in the customs line. It would be over two hours before any of us had our passports stamped, and people lost their s***. (It was said that the computer systems were crashing, but I had a hunch that it’s always like this). At one point I heard some commotion from behind and I turned to see the escalator suddenly going double speed – someone may have fallen and bags may have toppled … but I couldn’t tell amongst the crowd.

Once out of the airport I caught a bus to the city center. On the bus I attempted to take the only open seat and was aggressively hissed at by a bunch of local women. I couldn’t understand their Spanish – why was this seat reserved? There was no sign, and even the elderly refused to sit there. So in my confusion and embarrassment I continued standing alongside other passengers, with my large backpack weighing me down. Then, after some time I realized the bus wasn’t going where I was told it would. A local boy told me where to get off to catch a different bus, at which point I crossed the road and nearly got run over by an oncoming truck – the blaring sound of its horn came within mere feet of me. With my life flashing before my eyes I pushed onwards and eventually made my way to the city center, where I caught a second and longer bus to my first stop – the colonial city of Granda.

As you read on you’ll see that this trip had frequent chaotic moments, I too was quite distracted and often found it difficult to be in the moment. All of my trips this winter had been squeezed between freelance work back in the states, and so work was typically on my mind. It didn’t help that much of what I saw in Nicaragua felt like less impressive repeats of things I had seen elsewhere in the region. Take Granada, for instance. It’s full of colonial-era architecture with a stunning central cathedral all set against Lake Nicaragua. It’s charming, and there’s plenty of nearby volcano tours to occupy a few days’ time – however it’s no Antigua. One full day to wander and photograph the streets was all I needed.

From Granada I traveled to Isla Ometepe, which was the singular highlight of my trip and one of the coolest places I had been in Central America. I remember as a kid looking at maps and pointing my finger over the massive Lake Nicaragua – it looks like a giant hole in a block of cheese (if that makes sense?) In its center is the figure eight shaped island of Ometepe. This island is deceptively large, with each side occupied by a volcano – the larger being Concepción, and the smaller being Maderas. Motorcycles are the primary source of transport here, in tandem with a limited bus network. As someone who refuses to rent motorcycles while traveling (for personal safety concerns) I almost decided to skip Ometepe, but I’m so glad I didn’t – the place felt like a whole other country.

Getting to Ometepe wasn’t the smoothest experience. From Granada I took a bus to the city of Rivas. Here travelers typically take a short taxi ride to the port town of San Jorge. Backpackers often split a taxi to reduce the cost, however I was traveling alone. My mistake began when I was invited into a taxi, the driver said he’d go around the block to try and find others to split with me. When inevitably there was no-one else to be found he insisted on taking me alone – which would’ve cost me 800 cordobas (or $21). I am a stubborn person – and rarely care to spend more than my daily travel budget allows – so I asked to get out so I could simply walk the 40 minutes to the port. My driver scoffed at this idea, and then refused to open the trunk unless I paid him 100 cordobas for “wasting his time and gas”. This was wild, but seeing as I was in a foreign place and alone with a stranger I decided to pay the ransom and get the hell out of there. (I later read that other travelers have had similarly bad experiences with the taxi drivers in Rivas).

In San Jorge I boarded an hour long ferry to Ometepe’s largest port town of Moyogalpa (mind you, the cost of this was a mere $1.50). The sight of the towering Concepción volcano from on the open air deck was thrilling, it took my mind off that annoying taxi fiasco. In Moyogalpa I found my way to a hostel just a short walk out of the center. Sitting three stories tall amongst jungle and farmland it featured a rooftop pool and bar overlooking Concepción on one side, and the wide open lake view on the other. This hostel served as my base for three nights, and was an ideal spot to take in the scenery without having to go too far.

For my first full day on the island I did the exact opposite of relax — I rented a bicycle and succeeded in riding around one half of the island, a trip that took me six hours. Beyond all the activity in Moyogalpa the rest of the island is fairly tame, with a number of small villages. I took in volcano views while navigating the roads, which oscillated between paved and unpaved. Of the things I saw that day I was quite struck by the airstrip that cuts straight through the main road. It’s the only such “pedestrian” airstrip I’ve seen, and the volcano view was a nice touch. It was also nice that the airport guard on site allowed me to stand by and photograph the airstrip.

The next day I took time to rest. I hadn’t spent a whole day on a bicycle in quite a while, and my thighs were amply sore and sunburnt. That evening I biked to the nearby Punta Jesús Maria beach, famous for its extended and narrow sand bar. I got there early enough to take photos without the crowds, however just after getting “the shot” my tripod blew over in the wind, briefly exposing my camera lens to water. Luckily I was able to dry the lens the next day and the camera was just fine. It was a close call, but as an artist I couldn’t have imagined continuing on this trip without my camera.

After a couple of days I moved to the quiet village of Mérida on the opposite side of Ometepe. My hostel there was directly along the water, off the main road and down a bumpy, rocky path. Part of the enjoyment of being out here was the sheer remoteness of it all. Mérida was wonderfully off the beaten path, even for Ometepe – the roads here were mostly empty and there was little in the form of restaurants or stores. For the first half of my trip I had the majority of my meals at small and inexpensive “Comedor” restaurants, which are often in or just outside someone’s home. Gallo Pinto, a somewhat overarching term used to describe a plate of chicken/rice/beans + possible plantains, was typically the only thing on offer. I eventually grew extremely tired of it.

Some of my favorite moments on this trip were the sunsets at Playa Mangos beach, located just a short bicycle ride north of Mérida. The beaches on Ometepe are nothing to write home about, but Playa Mango combines a fantastic side by side view of the sunset and the Concepción volcano, and has a bar & restaurant on site. The beach also features a large wooden sun deck, which was more comfortable than the sand (just watch out, you might literally get hit by a falling mango from the tree overhead!) The beach was relatively crowded for Ometepe standards, but in a way it added to the atmosphere – everyone here had come to enjoy the best sunset spot on one of the most peculiar islands in the world.

I had come into this trip without the intention of taking any tours, and wasn’t sure if I wanted to hike a single volcano (the ones in Guatemala were just that good). However on my last day in Ometepe I agreed to join four other backpackers for a guided hike up the Concepción volcano (when in Rome, I guess). Departing from our hostel early in the morning I got on the back of a motorcycle with an Australian guy. What we didn’t realize was his bike was only designed for a single person – within seconds he lost control, and we both toppled over onto the rocky dirt path. By some miracle both of us came out without any considerable injuries, aside from a few scrapes and such. It was just the type of unfortunate incident I was growing accustomed to on this trip.

A German guy who was joining us offered to take me on the back of his motorbike instead. This worked out much better, but I was still a bit frazzled as we made our way to the other side of Ometepe to commence our hike. In the past days we had been blessed with many perfectly clear views of Concepción, but on this day a cloud hovered around the upper 1/3 of the volcano. Concepción is known to be a very difficult hike given its sheer vertical nature, in addition to exposure to the sun – but personally I didn’t find it to be terrible. Ample wind kept the trail cool, and the clouds above provided cover from the sun. A clear view from the summit would’ve been great, but I was just happy to have done the hike.

(Later that evening I managed to lock myself INSIDE the bathroom in my hostel dorm, which, mind you was somewhat offsite from the rest of the hostel and there was no-one else in my dorm. Thank God I had my phone, and that the hostel had a WhatsApp number listed online and they came to my rescue – otherwise I might’ve been waiting in that bathroom until the next morning!)

Having been freed from my bathroom prison, I was able to move on in my itinerary with a 10-12 hour trip from Mérida to the colonial-era city of León in the north. In a nutshell, this required a one-hour bus from Mérida to the ferry port on Ometepe, a 1-hour ferry to San Jorge, the *walk* (instead of a taxi) to the city of Rivas, a two hour bus to the capital of Managua, a walk (or taxi) to another bus station, and a final two hour bus to León. Generally in Nicaragua one could get between major cities within a couple hours tops, but I realized this was an exceptionally long travel day and could’ve been done differently. Sometimes it’s humbling to be reminded that I’m not a perfect trip planner, even on my 44th country!

Much like Granada, I gave myself one full day in León to explore. A backpacker friend of mine had previously shared that she liked León better than Granada, and I came to feel the same. León is a student city, and has a relatively youthful vibe to it. Here also sits the largest cathedral in all of Central America – the Cathedral of the Assumption. It towers over the city with its bright white facade. I was also very impressed with the churches spread elsewhere in the city – one of them made for a nice place to escape the heat for a reading break.

As an artist I found the city art museum to have a truly superb collection of work representing Central American artists plus a plethora of fine European and American work. The museum is housed in a large colonial era home, it was one of the more unique gallery settings I’ve experienced! In one room I was surprised to find turtles basking on the rims of a coy pond – could you imagine a turtle slowly making its way through an art gallery, dripping water in its path?

With just one stop left on my Nicaragua itinerary I took a 30 minute bus west to the beach town of Las Peñitas. I hadn’t been to an oceanfront beach in Central America since I visited Costa Rica in 2019, and it felt like a nice way to close out my adventures in this region of the world. Many of the beach towns in Nicaragua are popular with surfers, it would’ve been a great and cheap opportunity to take a lesson – but I was content swimming amongst the surfers and enjoying the fine waves (chances are I would’ve knocked myself out with the surfboard anyway).

Of course this last stop wasn’t complete without at least one unexpected occurrence. On my first afternoon while tanning on the beach a child of about 7 or 8 years old came up to me and began hurling sand all over my face and body. Never in my travels had someone, let alone a child, been so unexpectedly aggressive for no apparent reason. The sand was so sticky that I had to swim to get it all off, and I was pretty taken aback. Sure, this was not the worst that could’ve happened here … but certainly it was another weird moment to conclude an equally weird trip.