Hot! Hot! Hot!

Nicaragua was great! We stayed on the island of Ometepe which was made up of two volcanoes. We ended up renting scooters and driving around the island which was a lot of fun! One day we went to a huge natural spring pool for the morning which had a rope swing across the water. I had lots of fun swinging from it into the pool. There was also a nature sanctuary on the island where we went for a walk and saw Howler Monkeys feeding. Ian the owner of our hotel had supper with us one night and told us lots of stories about when he was a young Sandinista fighter. The next day his friend Nery was kind enough to give us a ride all the way to Granada. We were very well taken care of by the workers at Hotel Nicaraus and really enjoyed our time living under Volcan Concepcion in Ometepe.

Granada was Gregg! We got to stay at an AirBnB that was just outside of Granada with a wonderful host Gregg and his family. I made friends with two of his three daughters Emma and Mae who had a zoo in their compound of turkeys, ducks, chickens, dogs, a guinea pig, and a rabbit that they couldn't catch. I also got to know Dylan and Pepe who were traveling with their parents to Argentina the slow way (a whole year)! We had lots of fun swimming together in their pool. We went on a boat ride through a whole bunch of islands where we saw lots of mansions and even two monkey islands. One had spider monkeys and one had gibbons. I got to feed one of the monkeys a banana. The city of Granada was very colourful and fun to walk around in (even though it was soooo hot). Dad and I went to the top of Volcan Mombacho and could see for miles to Granada and even Volcan Masaya which is active. Ours was not. We went ziplining down the volcano and I even got to go upside down. Next day we went to a town near Masaya to look at amazing pottery. The town overlooked Lagoon de Apoyo which is a lake inside a volcano crater. We had fun swimming in the 'volcano pool'. Marlo was our driver for the day and took good care of us. We always felt safe traveling with him. Staying with Gregg was never boring!

Our last stop on our Nicaragua trip was Gran Pacifica. It was on the coast and we walked up and down it every day looking for seashells. We stayed for a week and every day we would go down the beach to the Mind The Gap hostel. Donald Green from Australia taught me how to surf. It was exhilarating and I have never drunk so much saltwater in my life! I got to meet some really nice guys from all over the world who were staying in the hostel and just relaxing. It was a very very laid back hostel. (It could be the heat!) We also swam every day in the hotel pool and one day I even found a hermit crab in it! Every day we watched the sun set over the ocean until finally it was time to go home. Kelly Mcinturff helped us get around Gran Pacifica and even took us to the airport. We said goodbye to his son Stellar and our hot adventure was over. I'll miss Nicaragua because I actually enjoyed the heat. Hopefully one day I can come back to Central America and visit all the beaches again. I'm not done surfing yet!