Have you missed any of the best of travel series? Check out Peru and Mexico City. After our spring trip to Mexico City we were typing in airport codes to see who had affordable fares for our annual Thanksgiving trip and Nicaragua of all places came up. Neither of us had ever been nor do we know anyone else who has travelled there. We took a chance and booked it!
I am so glad we booked our trip to Nicaragua, it was beautiful, remote and not full of tourists. We were able to get a 9 day trip and really see a lot of the country. The main airport is in the capital city of Managua, which is on the western part of the country. From the airport we immediately headed for an hour car ride to Grenada.
Granada sits on Lake Nicaragua and is full of colonial charm. We spent a few days here just walking around the town, enjoying the various restaurants and pubs, and even took a boat tour to the Monkey Island to actually play with and feed the monkeys. Continuing our tradition of finding a true Thanksgiving dinner we were able to find a hotel owned by Americans who were in the Peace Corp, the dinner was free and the food was amazing. Real turkey, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes. I love the tradition of having Thanksgiving in another country with locals and expats.
From Granada we headed out to check out the volcanoes, and there are A LOT of active volcanoes in Nicaragua. You can hike the surrounding area and see the floral and fauna museum dedicated to all of the unique species that live in and around the area. The two distinct memories of the volcanoes is the incredibly strong wind and sulfur smell. The closer you got to the largest of the volcanoes the windier and stronger smell it became.
No trip to Central America is complete without a little beach time, San Juan del Sur was next on the list. It is a big surfing community with lots of beach side restaurants and a charming old town.
After a few days of R&R on the beach we were ready to immerse ourselves in some culture. We headed up to Leon and attempted to find a place to stay. The driver was nice enough to drive us to about 5 hotels before we had luck finding a room. We toured the college city and enjoyed looking at all the colonial architecture.
After our whirlwind tour of the country we were ready to head back to Managua, we checked into a Hilton and just relaxed! We walked around the city, had some dinners with a few American baseball players who were playing baseball in some of the winter leagues and even went and saw Super Bad in Spanish with subtitles.
Favorite Part: Feeding the Monkeys!
Not So Favorite Part: The power outages that occurred multiple times a day
{ 2 comments }
I’ve been a frequent Latin American traveller over many years, but never to Nicaragua and, oddly, I too have been thinking of going there this winter. You’ve heard of the Consumer Price Index (CPI); I have developed a Personal Price Index in my travels. Computing it almost always tells me pretty accurately what it will cost to visit a country, and it only has three components. Maybe you can help me out. Component 1) How much does a bottle of beer cost in a local bar? 2) How much is a night in the kind of hotel frequented by commercial travellers, i.e., travelling salespeople and the like, and 3) How much is lunch in a neighborhood restaurant, i.e., not McDonald’s or anything really slick? If you know what these things cost down there, please drop me a line.
Thanks.
I’ve been a frequent Latin American traveller over many years, but never to Nicaragua and, oddly, I too have been thinking of going there this winter. You’ve heard of the Consumer Price Index (CPI); I have developed a Personal Price Index in my travels. Computing it almost always tells me pretty accurately what it will cost to visit a country, and it only has three components. Maybe you can help me out. Component 1) How much does a bottle of beer cost in a local bar? 2) How much is a night in the kind of hotel frequented by commercial travellers, i.e., travelling salespeople and the like, and 3) How much is lunch in a neighborhood restaurant, i.e., not McDonald’s or anything really slick? If you know what these things cost down there, please drop me a line.
Thanks.
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