Since Costa Rica was pretty expensive for us, we decided to move to Nicaragua for 2 weeks. Nicaragua is about be twice as cheap, so that was good for our budget. We were also excited at the idea of having Adrien finally joining us for Nicaragua and ready for awesome adventures! We took together a bus from San Jose to the border (most unorganized land border we’ve been through) and headed to our first beach town, San Juan Del Sur.
San Juan Del Sur
San Juan Del Sur is located 1h north of the border, and well known for its great waves and the “pool crawl” party organized every Sunday (Sunday Funday). Unfortunately we arrived too late on Sunday for the pool crawl, but we had a great time surfing nevertheless!
San Juan Del Sur Beach
Breakfast. Is that tequila or honey?
Card games after a day surfing 😉
We rented a surfboard for two (since we weren’t sure wether or not there would be waves) and headed to Madera Beach for the day. We surfed from mid-day to the sunset and Adrien managed to not get too sunburned for his first day!
Ometepe
Ometepe island was our second stop on our Nicaraguan trip: formed by two impressive but inactive volcanoes in the middle of Cocibolca Lake (the largest lake in Central America), the island is perfect for hiking!
Ometepe Island and its two volcanoes
The first day, we rented a couple of kayaks and explored the coast: after crossing Monkey Islands (filled up with monkeys, obviously), we stopped at a creek and took a trail through the jungle to the San Ramon waterfall!
Selfie at the Waterfall
The second day, Arthur and Adrien went on a 8-hours hike to the top of the volcano: they had to climb more than walking, and fought the cold rain at the top. They actually beat the record, doing it in less than 6:40 hours! Crazy dudes…
Some petroglyphs along the trail
Break time!
Awesome view of the other volcano half-way through the hike
Adrien was a bit tired but still killing it
Spotting monkey at the end of the hike. “La comida?” we asked our guide.
We had a great time in Ometepe: chilling on the pier, exploring the nature and meeting other adventurers around a beer at night!
