nicaragua on a dime

If you ever find yourself really wanting to get away and strapped for cash, Nicaragua is the place for you. It’s a beautiful country with endless outdoor fruit stands, picture frame beaches and waves, unwritten paths and an endless supply of gallo pinto. All of its main attractions are reachable by a chicken bus, short taxi ride, ferry, or the combination of all three. Here is a look at the Sandy Wanderer’s footsteps through an unparalleled country of jungle covered volcanoes, tranquillo lakes, and wonderful people.

We quickly learned the important words: Toña and Chele. Toña is the national beer and Chele is what the locals call blondes like us. We know that mainly our family reads this but, we really wished it was easier to find info on cheap travel so hopefully we save someone some hours of researching buses!

Laguna de Apoyo

Accommodation: Laguna Beach Club – What a great place to start our trip! The beautiful layout of the hostel followed the tier system of rice farms in Vietnam; dormitory up top, bar & restaurant with a talking parrot in the middle, and lake front property with all of the lounge chairs and lake sporting equipment needed.

Highlight: Can’t beat the relaxation that
comes with Laguna de Apoyo. It’s just you, the lake and a bunch of positive vibes. One of the highlights for us had to be taking a one-person kayak out and trying to take our first selfie for our new Instagram account @sandywanderers. We were in the water for nearly 2 hours flipping over trying to get that picture!

Transportation: We lucked out. From the Managua airport we got picked up by Jessly, Kevin’s awesome girlfriend, and she drove us to the lake. That said, you can take a bus or taxi to the Managua bus terminal (watch your stuff here) and then from there hop on a bus toward Granada but tell the driver to let you off at Laguna de Apoyo. From here there are a few buses that run everyday down to the hostels for 13 cordobas but there are also taxis waiting there to take people down. buen viaje!

 

Granada

Accommodation: Hostal Libertad – not the greatest or cleanest hostel we’ve stayed at… BUT we did meet some of our favorite travelers here so still only good memories (we’re blocking out the shower situation and Rapunzel’s long lock of hair in the pool).

Highlight: A tour of the isletas (volcanic islands) complete with monkeys, mojitos, and Mr. Toña’s vacation home. Additional highlight was the big night out at the treehouse bar with our compañeros, the rum pirates, from the hostel. Losing a shoe from the night out never felt so right.

Transportation: Laguna de Apoyo to Granada: Hop on the chicken bus from whatever hostel you’re staying at on the lake and take that to the main highway (la carretera). From there, flag down the bus heading from Granada coming from Managua. Take the bus all the way to the station in Granada and it’s a taxi or 15 min walk to the central park.

Ometepe

Accommodation: Zapilote – A permaculture farm built on the side of the Maderas volcano full of all things hippy from yoga to macramé to fire dancing. We definitely recommend spending some time in these jungle rooms with the smell of fresh homemade bread and afternoon Japanese showers.

Highlight: Seeing Meg’s face when climbing to the summit of the Maderas volcano was priceless. A face of such agony and defeat but we kept pushing each other and brought up the rear to the summit. Slow and steady. Seeing Luke’s face of sheer terror in my rear-view mirror when I revved the scooter anything over 25 mph (I think I went as fast as a could just to see that face over and over again, but we don’t need to tell him that). In retrospect we wish we did the San Roman waterfall – check it out!

Transportation: From Granada to Ometepe: Take the chicken bus to Rivas. In Rivas, don’t take the first taxi offered to you – walk away from the bus station a bit. We paid 60 cordobas to get to the port at San Jeorge. Ferry from San Jeorge to Mayogalpa (have your camera out – cool views!). From there you can take a bus to Zapilote and the hostels near there. You can also take the Ferry to San José, the other port on the island, just know there is no town there at all, only taxis waiting to take you somewhere. *note: buses basically do not run on Sundays here so we paid 100 cords each to get from Mayogalpa to Zapilote. 

Popoyo

Accommodation: Bar Jiquiliste – So we weren’t really in Popoyo proper, rather a smaller beach south of there, but there were many days we had the beach to ourselves! Bar Jiquiliste was a bar owned by a family who seemed to drink through the bar themselves, with a couple rooms in back. We spent a lot of time out and about and really just needed a place to crash and this was it. We had a tiny almost windowless room with a queen-size bed, AC, free water, and a tin roof over our heads. It was all we needed. One thing we would recommend is knowing where you are staying before getting here. It’s not really one of those places you meander and find a hostel.

Highlight: Popoyo had too many highlights for us to count, but we were #blessed with an awesome tour guide/surf instructor/chef/local amigo. We kept busy with surfing, cooking, sunset watching, Spanish learning, and rum drinking, but Popoyo was really our place to chill. We allowed ourselves to have entire days to just to lay at the beach, play in the water, search for shells, and doze off before 8:30pm.

Transportation: Ometepe à Popoyo Take the reverse trip to Rivas: Mayogalpa to San Jeorge, taxi to Rivas bus station. From there you want to catch a bus to Las Salinas and let the bus guys know where you want to get off.

 

San Juan del Sur

Accommodation: The Surfing Donkey – Traditional hostel that was a 5-minute walk from the center of town. Clean sheets, nice staff, great community in the kitchen and great bar would get this place an 8 out of 10 rating.

Highlight: The view from the top of the Christo de la Misericordia. Taking in the sights from the top of the Jesus statue you can see the town of San Juan del Sur, the rolling hills behind it, and the deserted beaches north of it. We saw the city in hangover from Sunday Funday and it seems like one hell of a fiesta.
Transportation: Popoyo à San Juan del Sur Bus from Popoyo to Rivas (if you havne’t noticed, all roads lead to Rivas). From Rivas you can hop right on a bus that will take you straight to SJDS. Super easy!

 

Getting from Nicaragua to Costa Rica: (From SJDS) Grab the bus to Rivas in San Juan near the center market. Do not go all the way to Rivas – get off in La Virgen and catch the bus to Peñas Blancas. You walk across the border and will pay some exit fees of a total of $3 (bring small bills). From there you’ll walk 100 yards or so and think you’re done with the whole thing but you have to go through customs into Costa Rica. Here you will have to show proof of exit, basically show that you plan on leaving Costa Rica. This is tough for backpackers like us with no flight home and no real plan. You can buy a $25 bus ticket back to Managua or a $42 bus ticket to Panama City. Unfortunately, unless you have photoshop skills and the gall to try to fib to border patrol, there’s no way around this. Overall though, it’s a pretty easy border process. Bienvenidos a Costa Rica!

If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s to not be afraid to ask questions. Nicaragua is full of wonderfully kind, helpful people, locals and travelers alike. We weren’t sure if leaving Nicaragua was the smartest decision; we questioned why anyone would leave family, surf, fruit trucks, cheap beer, and fantastic people …but alas the wandering calls.

Lessons Learned (so far!):

Nicaragua, the first country of our Sandy Wanderer Adventure has taught us many lessons that we will use continuously throughout these next ten months. Here are a few of them that we thought we would share:

• Riding a motorcycle is like riding a bicycle …a bicycle with way more bells, whistles, gears, and clutches.
• Embrace Enrique Iglesias. His new single is everywhere and on constant repeat.
• Learning Spanish doesn’t come to you over night.   It takes practice and courageous acts of putting yourself out there with locals. Big point is if you don’t start speaking to the locals in Spanish, they’ll just start talking to you in English because they too are trying to practice a foreign language.
• Stick to your surfing level and don’t try to be a hero and surf with your girlfriend’s brother (who has been surfing for his entire life!)
• Don’t forget your feet when putting on bugspray (Also don’t spray 95% deet into your eyes. It hurts, a lot. Take our word.)

  

  Luke’s feelings on chele prices.

  Luke’s feelings on chele prices.

• When riding a chicken bus, stick to the front or the back of the bus. It’s tough to walk through a packed bus with your backpack from the middle, especially if you’re riding around the time school gets out.
• There are Nicaraguan prices and then there are Chele prices.
• Shuttles are overrated (and overpriced), take the bus.
• At hostels introduce yourself to everyone you run into – those places are full of wonderful people.
• Learn how to play Solitaire – travel has down time.
• Learn from the other chefs in the kitchen, many travelers have mastered cooking on a frugal budget.
• Check to make sure that you are not leaving anything behind at the hostel… We already lost a year supply of AA batteries!
• Learn to like rum when traveling in Central America.
• When traveling with a partner it is equally if not more important to keep them happy as it is too yourself. Crack a joke or two.
• Salchichas in Nicaragua come with a wrapper on them. Remove before consuming.
• Try all of the different kinds of fruit, even the berries that are given to you to feed the monkeys!
• Watch sunsets – travel is about the beach walks, the view around the bend, not just the adrenaline-filled days spent flying through a forest on a zipline. Drink in the small stuff. Don’t wait, for anything – you’ll miss the traveling train.

traveler’s right of passage

I knew it was coming when I woke up at 3:30 AM in our beachside 8 by 6ft den of a room in search of my teva’s. Hustling to the outdoor baños in a scene from the Perfect Storm, lightening guided the way to my new safe haven for what would seem like the next 24 hours. My immune system had finally hit a temporary flat line that all travelers experience at the beginning of their travels. The bug that I caught could go down as a cruel and unusual punishment. It’s a sickness that empties the tank, runs you a fever, makes you hate eating and takes you back to the days of when you couldn’t lift a two pound dumbbell because you are so weak. Luckily in my case I had a Ms. Doubtfire.   Meg was the Saint Theresa of Playa Jiquilite that day. She nurtured me back to health; feeding me chicken noodle soup, Gatorade, endless amounts of water, and powdered pedialite. Shout out to Kevin Barry as well for the epic DVD set with Al Pachino greats including Carlito’s Way and The Devil’s Advocate. If it weren’t for the Barry family, this day could have ended with me taking a potentially heat exhausting walk to the market a mile away and trying to speak broken bed-rest Spanish to an undeserving Nicaraguan. Although this experience left me down 5 much-needed pounds, I had a great host in Kevin, girlfriend in Meg, and hopefully a stronger stomach when the next virus hits this chele traveler.

hanging loose in popoyo

After lugging our backpacks into dirty hostels, up to jungle huts, across lakes and down dusty roads, we were very much looking forward to relaxing in Popoyo. It proved to be just what we needed. We set up camp in a tiny room in the back of a restaurant next to Kevin’s house (and cranked the free AC). This 6ft by 8ft room seemed like a palace. Our palace was decorated with foot and handprints as far up as the walls go (how, just how?) to cover up the mustard yellow paint. BUT there’s something special about being able to put on your bathing suit freely and not having to walk into a communal peeing place to change your clothes and just hope nothing falls into the toilet. We are loving the hostel life but a queen bed and AC has never been so luxurious. Even if it was next to someone named Antonio who never seemed to answer the morning wake up call because he busy regretting the last nights failed escapades.

Kevin was an awesome host complete with surfboards, beans, and, hammocks waiting for us. We spent our days attempting to surf (or some days just to make it out past the break), soaking up the sun, reading books, literally “taking long walks on the beach,” and absorbing some family time.

Kevin lives just south of Popoyo on a quiet beach called Playa Jiquiliste. We spent a lot of time learning much needed lessons: how to curse in Spanish, how to make awesome black beans that you never get sick of, surfing do’s and don’ts, and even motorcycle driving lessons (which turns out to be very challenging if you’ve only driven automatic cars your whole life). On days where Kevin was working, we’d head over to his restaurant to grab some of his wings (watch out Sherwoods), or head over for pizza and dancing on Saturday nights. We spent two particularly great Saturdays with rum & coke sunsets and some unforgettable fellow traveling friends. One of the Saturday’s we hitched-hiked home in the back of a pickup and demanded Jiquiliste to be renowned the new capital of Nicaragua. The next Saturday we graciously got a ride home from our surfboard endowing, toña slinging, friend Jared. We also woke up various mornings to either  a party that never stopped or we intruded on some very early morning rum shots. Either way, these nicaraguans know how to have a good time.

After almost two weeks at Playa Jiquiliste, we are fully aware of why Kevin has made himself a home here. He’s doing ‘expat’ right.  It would have been very easy fall into a routine of surfing and shell searching (say “shell searching” six times fast) only to wake up months later and realize you’ve never left. Basically, Popoyo is a wonderful place to be but Kevin is an even better host to be with. We can’t thank you enough, kev – you know we’ll see you soon.

we got ometeped

Ometepe is an island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua home to a duet of volcanoes, Maderas (1300M) and Concepcion (1600M). To get to Ometepe is not an easy task. From Granada we took a chicken bus ride to Rivas, taxied from Rivas to San Jorge, ferried from San Jorge to Ometepe and then split a cab with team Germany to our hostel, Zapilote. Zapilote is a self-sustaining hippy farm that is situated on the Maderas volcano right smack in the middle of the jungle. Zapilote was a spitting image of Shakedown Street after a Grateful Dead Concert. An old yellow school bus that had been transformed into a library, free yoga classes, farm to table organic eats and a flame throwing juggler during pizza night were all great things about this place. Another fun fact about Ometepe is that there are still evacuation route signs up just in case one of the volcanoes decides to act a fool again and start spitting out some lava.

The two full days that we were in Ometepe we Carpe Diem’ed the hell out of the dias. The first day we decided to rent a scooter and boogie all over the island. After a two-minute lesson on the workings of the scooter, we were off. Since the lesson was done in Spanish, of which I got 25% of, I let Meg give it a go at first. Meg driving a scooter was similar to Jeff Gordon’s final lap at the Indy 500, no fear. Holding on and feeling helpless, I served as the backseat reminder that we needed to slow down when we were approaching speed bumps and wild pigs hanging out in the middle of the street. On the scooter we stopped at an Ojo de agua (fresh water spring) and did the tarzan rope swing into the deep end (5 feet of water which really was not safe at all). Then it was my turn to drive. I lasted about 5 minutes. Went up a hill at 20 mph and came down the other side at 10. Maybe it was the cobblestone streets or the precious cargo behind me, but I couldn’t get comfortable on the bike. Just wasn’t my thing and I had to turn it back to the pro.

On day 2 we went on an 8 hour hike up the Maderas Volcano. The Maderas summit was guarded by a fortress of rain clouds, steep jagged rock, muddied waters and humidity that would even give New York City a run for its money on a 95 degree day. The muddied water cannot be overlooked. Imagine a chocolate milk made with Hershey syrup…

[Meg’s corner here – So they tell us, it’s an 8 hour hike. I figure I hiked Mt. Whitney when I was twelve, ran a couple miles once or twice on the Chicago boardwalk last year, I got this. Wrong, so wrong. It was like being on an 8-hour stairmaster. Now this was no regular stairmaster – this one was full of unsteady rocks, the slickest mud you’ve felt, and mud puddles of undisclosed depths. All the while it’s absolutely POURING. All that said, it was pretty spectacular to be up in the rainforest with monkeys, birds, and an eerie layer of clouds. Would I do it again? No. Am I so happy we did it? Absolutely.]

When we did reach the summit there was a visibility of about 5 feet. Our guide was there to greet us with a high five and then we moved down to the crater of the volcano to eat lunch. Our mud-filled shorts may never truly come clean but I’m sure there’s some couples bonding lesson to be learned here.

the essence of the right sack

Carrying your life around in a 75 liter backpack for 10 months is a colossal feat and one that I was ill prepared for. Having packed for every situation possible, after the first couple of days down here I realized that I would be in the same shirt for 4 days at a time. AND NO ONE CARES. Our first travel experience in the chicken bus was from Laguna de Apoyo to Granada. And I let my sack hold me down, literally. Packed in like sardines, I was worrying about my backpack instead of having fun with all of the Nicaraguan School kids on their way home. Your backpack can make or break your travels. It was breaking mine and I was only on day two of the 10 month trip. So I decided to ditch a non-inspiring RCVA shirt, a long sleeve that was worn by Mel Gibson in Braveheart, one of the THREE bug sprays we had decided were absolutely necessary, body wash (that’s what shampoo is for) and a Spanish one textbook that I had only reached up to the –AR verbs in. We came to a decision point in Granada that the experiences we were going to encounter don’t come from the backpack at all; they come from the people you meet and the decisions you encounter. So what’s inside just needs to make you a happy camper at the end of the day. I’m sure this won’t be the last time we say f-you to things we thought to be essential but for now, we’re one step closer to not taking up four seats on the chicken bus.

volcanos, craters, and monkeys, oh my!

We’ve officially hit the road – first stop: Laguna de Apoyo, a crater lake right next to the Masaya volcano where the water is clear and crisp and water sports and nature walks comprise your days. Kevin’s girlfriend Jessly was our transportation angel, whisking us out of the city of Managua and into the heaven that is Laguna de Apoyo. We arrived at nightfall and the moon hung so low, its light bouncing off the lake, looking like an illustration in a children’s book. …and then we said Goodnight Moon. We spent the next two days, paddling in the lake, playing bocce, flipping over one-person kayaks in search of the epic first instagram selfie, and getting a taste of what our next ten months would be like. It was the perfect place to relax after our hectic airplane experience and chill place to start our travels.

Then it was off to Granada, a historic town with vibrant colors situated right on Lake Nicaragua. We lucked out and arrived on the day of what we understood to just be a celebration of Granada put on by the church. Two bands played opposite each other, one a country act complete with cowboy hats and bikini-clad girls, and the other the N’Sync of Granada, sporting black pants and yellow leather shirts. We dubbed them the “Curious George’s”. The locals seemed to know exactly who they were singing along to every word. We attempted to dance on the side of the stage welcoming the laughs and hollers of the old women watching/making fun of us.

The following day we hopped on a ponga and went around the isletas that formed from a volcano eruption (we don’t actually know how many years ago). Apparently many families live on the isletas for generations and generations but there seemed to be quite a few expats buying islands and building mansions on them as well. An island full of monkeys was a highlight of the boat ride. The guide passed out little fruits which Luke immediately popped one in his mouth and then later hoped weren’t poisonous to humans. Lucy and her daughter swung from the trees and into our boat where we held hands and bonded over sour berries.

Our hostel in Granada was highly questionable, but full of great people. We wound up spending the night in a treehouse bar with four new, very cool, traveling friends. Luke practiced his Spanish playing cierto or falso with new glittered pals. Our hike down from the treehouse after the evening was far from graceful but the bumps, bruises, and dirty clothes were very worth the new friends and memories.

Off to Ometepe!