Granada -Nicaragua-

We left Perquin at 6.30am, spent 12 hours on a variety of chicken buses and crossed two borders before arriving at Nicaraguas captial- Managua. We ended up staying in a really nice, spacious hostel, although there were alot of holes in the walls. We went across the road and i tried Iguana soup for dinner, it was actually really yummy!

Next day we got up early and got on a shuttle bus to Granada. After dumping our stuff in a hostel we wandered through the city and found the biggest market ever- it stretched on for miles! We wandered around and picked out vegtables, rice, frijoles and spice to cook dinner with- we were pretty proud of our efforts.

That evening we met a really lovely guy called Alan who said he'd show us around the city and take us on a boat trip around the islands -it's the biggest lake in the whole of Central America- The next morning we met Alan, bought pasteries for breakfast and ate them in his hostel with free coffee. Two swiss people joined our trip- Alan took us to the indian park where they used to have markets every sunday, now it's abandoned and over grown though. He took us through the high class area, the middle class area and the poor area, which is the 'hood' he grew up in. We went into the old fortress used to protect the city from pirates, it was turned into a prison and torture chamber during the civil war in order to capture those involved with the revolution. Up the tower was the most amazing view of the whole city. Then we went into the most amazing grave yard i've ever seen. They weren't so much graves as houses for the dead- one was even made from marble and an exact replica of Granadas newest church, although instead of angles on the roof were skulls as the woman was said to have done a deal with the devil. Granada and Leon both wanted to be the capital city so Leon hired a man to burn Granada city to the ground. The first time he burnt it, he left a plaque saying 'here was Granada' and the second time he burnt it, he left a coffin, implying that Granada was dead, but the city rebuilt and is alive as ever.

After our morning walk, we all jumped in a boat a went around the lake. We stopped at monkey island where a monkey jumped on to our boat, walked up an down the middle and snatched a bannana off the swiss girl, then it grabbed Katie's hand before walking off again- very cool!

We stopped at a second island and spent 4 hours swimming in the lake, sunbathing and getting lunch. It was paradise, so beautiful and really chilled.

When we got back to the main land Alan showed us a good hairdresser so Leggra could get her hair done- it cost the equivalent of 1pound 20 and looks really good. Then we walked back to Alan's hostel where him and the swiss girl cooked us dinner with the remaining beans and some more bits we'd bought from the market- delicious!