After a month of relaxation in Guatemala it was time to move across the rest of the Central America. We spent just a couple of days in El Salvador, then hurried even faster through Honduras. First longer stop we decided to make in Nicaragua.
A bit tired of hitchhiking, we chose next cheapest transport. Those are so called chicken busses.
The word goes about colourful former school busses from USA and Canada. They lack of comfort, but bring excellent experience of traveling with local people. This can mean we have to stand whole ride. There's just not enough seats for everyone. On the other hand some locals can make ride more interesting by bringing portable radio on board and putting the volume to maximum.
Managua - the capital, didn't hold us for long. Already the first day we found out there should be an active volcano not far from the city. We didn't waiste time. Soon we're on the way towards Masaya Volcano.
The view in the crater is terrifying. It's not unusual, the Spanish conquerors named it "Hell's mouth." The top is wrapped in smoke, it smells like sulphur, on the bottom you can spot bubbling lava!
Then we continued our way to Granada. This is a colonial town on the coast of giant lake Nicaragua. Definitely it carries it's own charm.
Here we discovered new (read old) ways of transport. And accommodation :)
In the middle of the lake there is probably the greatest attraction here around - island of Ometepe. It was formed by two volcanoes: Concepción and Maderas. They create it's unique shape.
Most of the tourists rather rent motorbikes, but we chose bicycles for exploration of the island. Bicycles are not the least sophisticated transport. A lot of traffic is still performed by four legged power.
Ometepe is interesting by itself, but the real mystics of the place is reavealed by the colours of the sunset.
When we got a taste what wonders Nicaragua hides, we wanted to see them all. That way we encountered one more adventure on the chicken bus. It was a tire explosion during ride. The explosion was so lound that first thing that came to my mind was a gunshot. Well, a quick examination showed real cause of the noise. But our driver thought it's not a big deal and we can continue. It took more than ten minutes of driving with 15 kmph before he realised we have to change the wheel.
At the end we stopped in the town of San Juan del Sur on the Pacific coast. It's worth of visiting although we found out Ometepe spoiled us too much.
And before saying goodbye, of course we had to leave our print :)
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