Last days of our travels...and then León!

Granada and Masaya
We spent couple of days in Granada and Lili really kicked our lazy beach bums: we walked all around the city, visited the churches and the fortress, had pancakes and café con leche for breakfast at the Garden Café (every day), quesillo on the church steps at dusk, roamed the mercado for the real Nica eccentricities, went to a musuem (!), ate fried guapote fish from the Lago de Nicaragua, and did a girls day shopping for artesanías in Masaya. And of course hung out in the hammocks at our nice hostel...

Church in Granada.

 At the Oasis Hostel.

 In Masaya at the Mercado Nuevo.

Quesiiillo.....

Playa Popoyo
Yes, it was time again to soak up some sun and and catch some waves! The chicken bus trip to Popoyo was a minor desaster- what took us 10 hours should have taken about 4...well, that's Nicaragua. But after an ice cold Tona and a swim in the ocean everything was forgotten. Philipp surfed the beachbreak a lot and we went on beachwalks, read books and played Ligretto :). On the last day we took a boat trip to a reefbreak with some American surferdudes- and were reminded that boat trips are well worth the effort! Nice head high slow rolling waves and so much fun! On the way back to the hostel everybody was in the best of moods and ready to eat some fresh fish and drink rum, but then the back window of the car broke...shattered into a million pieces. Philipp was the unfortunate one, who had slammed the door. Arrgh. Not so nice and quite expensive ending to an awesome day of surfing...

 In Rivas waiting for the bus.

 On the boat trip.

The self-sufficient surferette...

León - The Last Stop!
Another horrific bus trip...this time just hot and sticky and smelly and pushy and crowded! Saw Managua only from the taxi window and then hopped on the bus to León. Wow. León is a different life...we really like the vibes of this city, very "buena onda" as they would say here. León is a university town and one can really tell. We will be spending the rest of our trip here- 4 weeks for Philipp and 8 weeks for Karo- and will be working at the Hospital Escuela Oscar Danilo Rosales Arguello, the teaching hospital for the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Nicaragua.
Our first week we spent exploring the city, finding the best comedors and the best coffee places :). Lili and Karo also took two little trips to La Paz Centro, just like any little ol' town in Nica, and Estelí, a city in the Northern Highlands. It took some time and effort to find a room for rent in León- and we looked at the worst s***holes- but we did find a place with a room that actually has windows, a real matress, a decent toilet and wireless internet. Yes, one has to admit that a certain comfort level is just fine :). Lili is living with a cute little old lady a bit outside of town. And Jakob has arrived from Göttingen and has moved into our place. So now we are four!...and it is time to wake up our brains from their deep sleep and start getting serious!

 León.

Street food at the fritanga.

Hospital Escuela Oscar Danilo Rosales Arguello.

Until soon,
Philipp and Karoline

Apropos, we both enjoyed this mural...

July

Dominical and Puerto Jiménez
After San Juan del Sur we were craving some brainfood...surf and  Spanish school  sounded good to us, so we took the chicken bus back to Costa Rica to Dominical- a small hippie town with lots of gringos. But we had some good times with the  language school kids and a nice little room with a hammock outside :). The weather was horrible- so rainy that the river overflowed and the ocean turned muddy. No surf. Highlight of the week: Liligret´s arrival! She is Karo´s roommate from Goettingen and will spend the upcoming two months with us in Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
From there we went to Puerto Jiménez on the Peninsula de Osa. Lots of rain, but our two day trips to Cabo Matapalo on the jammed colectivo were well worth the effort: big waves and beautiful beaches in midst of the jungle near the Parque Corcovado...Truely, un sueño for surfers.

Boca de Sábalos
A pit stop in San Jose and two days of traveling, when 2 long bus trips and two ferries on the Lago de Nicaragua and Río San Juan took us to the lonesome town of Boca de Sábalos. We would never have stumbled across this place on our own had it not been for our friend Silja, who works here on a cocoa bean cooperative. Just some impressions: waking up to the next door neighbors boom blasting reggaeton, fried chicken at the muelle, evangelicals singing their hearts out karaoke style (the whole village is blessed with those fine tunes and lyrics almost all day long...), watching for the giant Sábalo fish in the Río San Juan, learning how cocoa beans are processed...and making chocolate from scratch!, long hike through the deep muck with "gummistiefel"- a true neccessity here, a giant river shrimp dinner, and hearing all about Silja´s time here and her successes and struggles with the campesinos and life out in the campo. A Nicaragua experience out of the ordinary- but very ordinary- for sure!

The appropriate attire.

After a long walk in the campo...Tona.

The cocoa bean tour...

Making chocolate.

Isla de Ometepe and Granada
The four of us traveled by ferry (12 hours from San Carlos) to the Isla de Ometepe, basically two connected volcanoes in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua, where we spent 3 days at a Finca Verde. Vegetarian food, kids learning English from volunteers, laid back time in the hammocks reading, then jumping in the lake for a swim, bike rides and a long hike to the Ojo de Agua and a beautiful waterfall! And some impressions on politics in Nicaragua during gallo pinto lunch with the the occasional grunt of a pig and the boak of a chicken...

And now we are back in Granada!

Until soon,
Philipp and Karoline