Nicaragua - Leon and San Juan Del Sur

Two quick updates

One - the camera. After a few weeks without it, and no sign of life despite taking it apart with a screw driver, i made the decision to buy a new one. We landed in Managua and detoured to a shoping mall where i purchased a very similar camera, which was not cheap. We get to the hotel and i throw the old broken camera on the bed in slight rage, at which point it decided to work again! So now i have two cameras, which i really don´t need as i am already carrying round a small horse.

Two - update from the Corn Islands. The day that Jo and i left there was a murder. A local baseball player was shot 7 times. He had taken 32kg of cocaine that did not belong to him and was unwilling to give it back or give the procedes made from any sale. So they drove up in a boat and shot him. Soooooo glad not to have been there! Paradise.........

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, and to my Mum who I share the day with.

We arrived in Leon, a beautiful colonial city, with some really amazing buildings and a Cinema. We went to see the new Batman movie, which was really good, complete with popcorn and chocolate. It really was a very happy day!

We stayed in Via Via, a really nice hostle with great food and a pub quizz, which we were nowhere near winning. The accomodation was great and we had our own little rocking chairs to relax in.
Pretty gardens and very very quiet, perfect.

the Cathederal in the main square. On Satruday nights families meet here and party.



The buldings are a little crumbley but is lots of colour and the style is very different. It is more developed here. You can see into people houses, they are very basic but homely with lots of rocking chairs and a TV. Families sit around together rocking a passing the day away.

This was one of the things we had come to do, not cultural at all but really good fun! Boarding down a volcano.

The slope on the left side is the one we were going down.
Kitted up and ready to go ,with our orange jump suits and boards, we climbed for an hour to the crater of the volcano, which is till active.

Lara Croft eat your heart out. Jo armed and ready to go.

The sulphure smoking crater of Cerra Negro. It really did smell but it was an amazing view from the top.

Cerro Negro is one of the most recent basaltic cinder cones to form within the western hemisphere. The last eruption of Cerro Negro was in November of 1995. At this time, the cinder cone was 750 ft. tall. A large percentage of eruptions at Cerro Negro emit pyroclastic material and lava flows. The Cerro Negro volcano spread a large area of farming land with ash. Ash was thrown 1,300 ft. above the crater. This forced the evacuation of 1,400 people from the area. A cloud rose a few miles above the crater. This has brought about ash and rain on towns closeby. This forced more people to be evacuated from the area.

At the top we were greeted by thousands of black and yellow bugs.

It was a little bit freaky. They were flying into mouths, up noses and getting stuck in my hair.

Here we go, Jo and Sara side by side ready to go! The breif was, keep your mouth shut, don´t put your hands down and don´t brake to hard, ok lets go....

Fearless and picking up speed but at his point Jo is ahead.

I have just wiped out but jump back on and am prepared not to brake again. Jo has a massive wipe out and looses her goggles. I don´t know how she manages it but she got down without them, small bit of debris flying into her face.

We want another go........ It really was brilliant fun, had there been a ski lift back up we all would have had another go. Maybe there is a business plan here..........

It took many mojitos and a lots of soap to get this muck off. It got everywhere but two dirty, happy, smiling faces.

So on to San Juan Del Sur. Again, the Lonely planet has very different ideas about clear white sand, but i shall be taking this up with them separately. It was a nice quite beach town with a very colonial feel. This is a place for the surfers and clean beaches to relax on. We bumped into Simon and Cam again, which was a nice start to the day. We are now seven and we all head off to the beach for surfing lessons, except for Cam because he slipped on a bread fruit on Little Corn Island and has really hurt his knee, someone was going to do it!

Simon, Sara, Jo and Cam taking it easy on the beach.

Lights, camera, action - ready to hit the waves. I managed to get the biggest board as i was assured that this would increase my chances of standing up.

Bo, Jo, Sara, Simon, Blair and Ariana ready to go.

I did actually manage to stand up for about 8 seconds, which is a very long time, and enough time for me to understand why people get addicted.

sadly i won´t be getting addicted today as my knees are bruised, i can´t see anymore, my sinuses are completely flushed out and i am tired.

Barely able to carry the board but having a great time.

And so all good things must come to an end. The final meal with Bo, Cam, Simon, Jo, me, Blair and Ariana behind the camera. My travels with Jo have some to an end and in the morning we will go our separate ways.

Jo is heading back to Honduras to do her Dive Master training and hopefully work. I am heading South, Costa Rica, Panama, Cartagena, Equador and then south from there. I can´t tell you how sad i feel but i have a great new friend who i have shared many adventures with, i will miss her very much.

Sara at the border crossing to Costa Rica. Feeling a little bit scared but looking forward to some new adventures.

x

Sara