Granada

a bit of Granada

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Honduras seemed okay and we´re sure some of it´s lovely. The countryside we drove through was absolutely beautiful, lush green hills, lots of trees, horses and not much else. But after Tela we couldn't´t wait to get to Nicaragua.

We hopped onto a tica bus from San Pedro Sula and arrived in Managua with two guys Orlando (kiwi) and Rich (brit), who were headed for the same hostel in Granada, it´s really handy sharing cabs because you have to pay the tourist price anyway so it´s nice to split it.

At the Bearded Monkey was an excellent place to hole up for a week after pegging it half way across Central America. It had a lovely courtyard with hammocks, two fat cats, a free pool table, great food and a bar where we learnt how to drink Flor de Caña, the local world class rum. They also ran a tab. Ours came in at over 5000 cordobas.

a bit more

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The Bearded Monkey has got a great mix of people from all over the world, and we introduced shit head to a fair number of them. Orlando and Rich played an interesting kiwi variation of it, Charlie had a problem with one of the rules, but maybe that was due to the rum.

Chesta also had an altercation with a very rude Texan in a dance hall - which was very exciting (although nurse Charlie doesn´t totally agree) and this resulted in another scar for his collection. The fight was broken up by our neutral Swiss friend Marcel.

Whilst in Granada we visited the Monkey Hut at Laguna de Apoyo, which is a lovely house right on the edge of a collapsed crater lake. The lake is a nature reserve and claims to have the cleanest water in Nica. It also still has some volcanic activity and was the epicenter of an earthquake that killed 6 and left 4000 homeless in 2000. We went kayaking on the lake which was lovely and tranquil for Charlie and an adrenaline rush for Chesta (it´s 250 meters deep and I still can´t swim). The Hut also supplies rubber rings to float around in and hammocks, Charlie and Chesta were happy in each of these respectively all day.

with the beard

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The Hostel and the Hut are both owned by a very lucky English Gooner - except against Barcelona, good game though.

We also had a trip up Volcano Mombacho with Marcel and Katya, the lovely swiss peace keepers who were becoming distressing good at shithead. It was our first volcano and we were fairly impressed until Marcel and Kat (who had seen a few) told us it was rubbish. It had been really nice to meet up with these two - they have a similar sense of humour and they were really interesting. Marcel has an excellent grasp of the English language which kept us entertained: Hold the horse, fack dat sheet, going to the lawndary. Kat was just so lovely especially when Charlie needed a chat whilst Chesta was having a lie in. Can´t wait to meet up with them in the future.

Finally we can´t leave Granada without mentioning the Magician - damn he was good. Fillipe was a bloody nice French Canadian who stunned and amazed us with his brilliant card tricks and mentalism. Smashing. We could feel the magic.